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Health in the age of disinformation: Protecting truth,
As falsehoods about vaccines and public health rapidly spread, the erosion of trust is a direct threat to both democracy and health systems. The Council of Europe is working to reinforce legal safeguards and restore public confidence, to defend both public health and the truth itself
protecting democracy
Alain Berset, secretary general, Council of Europe
A doctor in Austria takes his fight to the European Court of Human Rights, the legal arm of the Council of Europe. He claims his country violated his freedom of expression by disciplining him for statements on his medical practice website – a place patients turn to with trust – that vaccines never protect against disease and no illness has ever been eradicated by them. The Court disagrees, ruling that even in public health debates, freedom of expression has limits when lives are at risk – and that the sanction was necessary in a democratic society. HEALTH PROTECTION, TRUST AND THE FABRIC OF DEMOCRACY In a democracy, trust is not a luxury – it is the fabric that holds society together. And when it comes to health, it can mean the difference between lives saved and lives lost. Democracy, human rights and the rule of law guide the work of the Council of Europe. These values form the foundation of health protection as a human right, enshrined in our European Social Charter and reinforced through our court’s case law. They also underpin our proposed New Democratic Pact for Europe – a call to make democracy tangible in people’s daily lives by restoring trust, countering disinformation and ensuring equal access to rights, including the right to health. But disinformation erodes this foundation. We saw it during Covid-19: fear, isolation and online echo chambers helped falsehoods about the virus and its prevention spread faster than facts –
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Health: A Political Choice – The Future of Health in a Fractured World
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