America detected is brought to you by the Debeomont Foundation. Throughout the pandemic,

communications from our national and local leaders have often been confusing, contradictory,

and uncoordinated. The Debeomont Foundation has published a book with practical tools to

improve health communications through framing, messaging, and storytelling. The first book

on this topic in the COVID-19 era. It's called Talking Health, a new way to communicate

about public health. I'll tell you this, I spent the entire pandemic communicating about

public health. And this book, well, I really wish I had it before this podcast started.

Turn them out and get your copy at TalkingHealthbook.org.

Respiratory Sensitio Virus, otherwise known as RSV, as well as COVID infection and flu

are surging, creating what some experts fear will be a triple-demic this fall and winter.

The Biden administration announced new efforts to encourage Americans to get their COVID

boosters, and new evidence suggests that the pandemic didn't just change society, it

suggests that it changed us. This is America Dissected. I'm your host, Dr. Abdul Al-Sahed.

It should be no coincidence that the word we use for a piece of content that spreads

rapidly on the internet is viral. That virality is what every content creator aims for. But

peel that back for a minute. And you have to appreciate that before 2010 or so, virality

was definitely a bad thing. For most of human history, viruses have been uniformly bad,

even on the internet, before social media getting a virus meant malware on your computer.

And it's no wonder that while it may be the pathway to fame and fortune for a whole

generation of internet stars, the content that often goes viral is still, well, bad.

Social media has ushered in a whole new level of what our guest today calls information

disorder. Mis, dis, and malinformation that specifically, intentionally or not, turns

...