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The Current Transcript for September 7, 2018

Host: Piya Chattopadhyay

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Cheering]

VOICE 1: Thank you Supreme Court.

VOICE 2: Thank you so much.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: There was jubilant reaction in India yesterday after a colonial era law banning gay sex was struck down by that country's top court. While further gay rights including gay marriage may still be a long way away, the Supreme Court ruling is still a big step for India -- and one that is being watched closely by those in other countries and jurisdictions where restrictive laws against gay people remain on the books. We'll head to New Delhi in half an hour. Then, to Europe where outbreaks of measles are spreading, and with them, misinformation and debate about vaccines are spreading too. A new study pins some of the blame for recent outbreaks on fake and otherwise polarizing online posts -- courtesy of Russian bots and trolls.

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VOICE: One of them is something along the lines of, only the elites get clean vaccines -- and what do us normal people get? So that's an example of an anti-vaccine tweet.

PC: But we begin by talking about the last rebel held territory in all of Syria where the people of Idlib are girding themselves for an all-out government assault.

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VOICE: Those who fled to Idlib were escaping the threat of death. Now they are facing death once again. They have no plan B.

PC: Hello I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

Syria's Idlib province on edge despite leaders pushing toward resolution

Guests: Arwa Damon, Bessma Momani

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I just tell you that they will hopefully be very very judicious and careful because the world is watching -- that cannot be a slaughter. If it's a slaughter, the world is going to get very very angry. And the United States is going to get very angry too.

VOICE: So you are not going to allow it to happen?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'm watching that very closely.

PC: Some warnings for Syria and Russia from U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this week about the possibility of a full scale military attack on the Syrian province of Idlib. It is the last bastion of rebel held territory in that country, and it's where more than a million displaced Syrians have ended up after fleeing from their homes because of the civil war. Yesterday the Syrian Prime Minister vowed that, 'Idlib will soon be restored to the nation -- and that Syria would win any coming war.' The leaders of Russia, Turkey, and Iran met in Tehran today to try to find a diplomatic solution. In a joint statement they agreed that safe conditions must be created in Syria for the displaced to return. But humanitarian organizations are warning that the alternative is a bloodbath -- a catastrophe the likes of which Syrians have not seen. There are now three million people overall in Idlib, many of them are fearing the worst and wondering where on earth they will go if they're forced to flee again. And many have already gone through so much.

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VOICE: This was Nayef. He was three. This is part of my heart. This is Ghouta. Ghouta is gone.

PC: Ibrahim Naif is rummaging through the rubble that used to be his home. He pulls out clothes that belonged to his children who died in airstrikes. Only one of his five children survived. Ibrahim is just one of the people Arwa Damon met during her most recent reporting trip to the area. She's a senior international correspondent with CNN and she has been covering the Syrian war since the beginning. We have reached her today in Istanbul, Turkey. Hello.

ARWA DAMON: Hi.

PC: Hearing just a bit of Ibrahim Naif, the father, is heartbreaking. You have been to Idlib many times, but tell us some of the stories you heard from people on your latest trip there.

ARWA DAMON: Watching him and knowing what he has been through and everything that he had lost -- I mean to lose four out of five of your children, it's soul crushing. And the thing is, we've seen this before over and over and over again. And these families who we met in Urem Kubra they were almost resigned to the fact that they were probably going to die, and there was nothing that they could do to protect themselves or protect their children. That same street used to have an ice cream shop on it. And so some of the kids we were talking to outside, of course that had been reduced to rubble, one of them was saying, you know I miss my friends because three of them were killed in the strike and my favorite flavor of ice cream was the fruity ones. And you just realize like these are supposed to be children who can go out and eat ice cream and play in the street without having to worry about an airstrike coming in on them. And I wish that it was an isolated incident but it's not. This happens all the time over and over and over again. We can't plead ignorance.

PC: You have been to Idlib several times this year and over the past number of years. There are many internally displaced people who now call that quote unquote, home, as well as people who originally had lived in Idlib. Give me a sense of what daily life is like for people in Idlib this week -- in September of 2018.

ARWA DAMON: You know it's really at this point defined by fear to a certain degree. And as I was saying -- resignation and this sort of bitter knowledge that no matter what happens, no matter what lines are crossed, no one is going to come save them and that their lives are essentially worthless. It really depends on where you are in Idlib and some of the villages and Idlib city itself, there is this sort of plodding along as people do go through their days and it's almost as if they're trying their best to ignore the fear that constantly lingers in the back of their minds. And then when you go to the areas where the camps are, you have to remember that you know seven years ago we were there when these now massive sprawling camps were just a few tents, now it has become this massive slum that extends over rolling hills that used to have olive groves in them. And they're not really even tents anymore. There's now a concrete floor. Cement walls. It's becoming fortified. It's getting a growing perhaps ominous aura of permanence to it. And what's happening right now with the violence is that it's really crushing more and more people into a smaller space. And this time really, they have nowhere to actually go. If the violence comes specifically to their areas, there's nowhere left to run. You know Turkey closed its border years ago and up until this point when the Syrian regime with its Russian and Iranian backers were going in to retake areas such as Al Houta, Darayya, and Daraa -- they would negotiate cease fire agreements and safe passage for rebel fighters and residents who wanted to get out. And they would take them, bus them to Idlib -- well there is no next Idlib for Idlib. That's the problem. And you have this population, whether it's in the camps or outside, that is getting crushed and there's no actual alternative to it. When we were there we were asking people -- you know your homes right now where you fled from when you originally came, they are under regime control. There's no fighting. You could go back. Why don't you go back? And they said unanimously, that they're too afraid. They're too afraid of the regime there. They're too afraid of repercussions. They're too afraid of being branded a terrorist or an opposition member and being detained when they go back into regime areas just because they lived in opposition controlled areas.

PC: The Kremlin calls Idlib, a nest of terrorism. It is an accusation that is echoed and said by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. What do you think of that description?

ARWA DAMON: It's very simplistic. You know the largest sort of umbrella group in Idlib that's know by its acronym HTS, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, you know they have an element within them that used to be affiliated with al-Qaeda -- its leaders still might be affiliated with al-Qaeda, but to take the word terrorist and apply it to every single human being -- all three point five million of them, is just almost ludicrous. And even if the largest rebel group in there, even if they were all somehow affiliated with al-Qaeda -- but you also have to remember that since the beginning of the Syrian uprising the Syrian government has consistently said they've been fighting terrorists, but even if there were severe terrorist elements within Idlib province that is not justification to bomb them to smithereens. And it wasn't a justification for what the U.S. led coalition did in Mosul or in Iraq. Violence breeds more violence. We need to start looking at alternatives to that.

PC: The Syrian government says -- I mean I'm paraphrasing, but if we go and bomb Idlib, we may open a humanitarian corridor within the country. In other words that people would have a way out like they have in essence in the past -- if they did do that, would people use them, especially saying there's nowhere to go except for back into Assad territory?

ARWA DAMON: And that's a problem that these humanitarian corridors are going to be back into Assad territory. Look there's a reason why families from Aleppo who fled five years ago, four years ago, are still living in tents along the Turkish border instead of going back to their city. Either they're going to die from the bombs, if this does happen, or they're going to die if they do take a humanitarian corridor back into government held territory -- that's their belief. It's death or deaths. And maybe they'll feel that they can chance the bombs falling on them more than they want to take a chance on trusting a government that they feel has betrayed them, targeted them, and massacred them.

PC: What do you imagine this looks like? What would be the scale of the humanitarian crisis if this full scale attack that is being threatened by Assad actually happens?

ARWA DAMON: I mean look we've all seen the images of what a bomb does to a building -- you know imagine what a bomb does to a refugee camp. You have a much densely packed. You have a very densely packed province in Idlib. And as I was saying you know imagine it just getting squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed into a much smaller space. People use words like the humanitarian crisis it is going to be astronomical -- what does that really mean? What does that actually look like? I think that's what people are unable to imagine when we talk about the scale of humanitarian disaster.

PC: You've been there, so tell us what that looks like to your mind -- eyes at least?

ARWA DAMON: It looks like more fathers, like Ibrahim, digging through rubble pulling out their kids shirts that they're not going to ever wash because it's going to be the last thing that remotely smells like their child except right now it actually smells a lot more like dust, dirt, and burnt metal. The heartbreak of losing your child, of losing your dignity, that is going to get repeated on a scale that arguably we might not have seen before, given that Idlib is now home to about 3 million people. And if you don't go in and deal with this right now, if you don't give people options to either escape or lift themselves out of their current lives, what chance do they have and what chance does the region have to a certain degree? We're talking about access to medical facilities -- hospitals right now are too afraid to publicly say, 'we're open' 'we're functioning' because that invites a bomb. So hospitals right now, these underground clinics, once they've been bombed once never announce if and when they do reopen because that invites just another bomb.

PC: Arwa Damon thank you very much. Please do take care in your travels in the region especially if you head back to Syria. Thank you.

ARWA DAMON: Thank you.

PC: Arwa Damon is a senior international correspondent with CNN. Today, she is in Istanbul, Turkey. Well despite today's talks going on in Tehran, earlier this week Syrian and Russian officials were sounding less than diplomatic about the prospect of an attack in Idlib. As I mentioned the Russians described Idlib as a nest of terrorists. Syria's prime minister vowed to quote restore Syria soon. Well for her thoughts on how this may all play out in the coming days I'm joined by Bessma Momani. She is a professor of political science at the University of Waterloo & the Balsillie School of International Affairs. And we have reached her in Waterloo, Ontario. Bessma Momani. Hello.

BESSMA MOMANI: Hi.

PC: First of all help us understand, for the Syrian government, what is the strategic significance of Idlib?

BESSMA MOMANI: Well it's just total victory. It's able to tell, not just its own citizen which is very important, but the world that it has won and it is on a winning streak. It has been taking over territory slowly but surely. And this is the last major province, with the exception of a few pockets here and there, to take back. And so it really is a symbolic win for it. It's not strategic. There's nothing about Idlib that it wants to hold per se but it's really about telling its citizens and the world that the war is effectively over and move on and reaccept Assad.

PC: And if that should happen, if it does take Idlib, is that a fair thing to say, we've won -- the civil war is over. I mean is this the end of the long running civil war should they attack Idlib and win?

BESSMA MOMANI: No because he has no legitimacy. The majority of his people despise him. The majority of his people feel and know that there is a tortuous past as part of this war. It is only the beginning of another set of challenges for Syria writ large not just the regime. It has won territory but it hasn't won its people. And you know I think that's something that we are quick to want to see the end of this and I understand that. But you know we are in another period of insurgency -- we're going to be think in another period of enormous turmoil for Syria moving on, trying to get that semblance of legitimacy and order that the government just has lost out of its brutality.

PC: So here we are today, there are talks going on in Tehran they're being billed as sort of you know trying to find a diplomatic way out of this instead of an assault. Iran, Turkey, and Russia -- all their leaders are there. And in the talks you know Iran's president is saying America's presence in Syria needs to end -- that there shouldn't be civilian casualties. But Iran is saying that the battle with militants will continue until all militants are uprooted in Syria particularly in Idlib. Turkey is saying you know the refugee crisis is their interest in this but that they want a presence in the region. Russia wants to keep its influence in the region. So given all that, how likely do you think an attack is versus diplomacy winning the day today?

BESSMA MOMANI: Look I think an attack is happening already. It is already started. It's been ongoing. Will it get to the point that it is a complete pummeling of Idlib? Yes, because that's what the regime understands --that's what the Russians want to do in the end. And I think you know the reality is they don't have the troops to go street by street to root out, what are insurgents, there will be insurgents there. There is, as Arwa pointed out, there is perhaps I would point out there's probably about 20,000 HTS fighters -- these are al-Qaeda affiliated. But in that mix are two and a half million civilians and that's the crux of the problem. But the regime does not understand the idea of either negotiating with these or frankly finding a way out of it. It wants to pummel it into submission. And I think you know for all of us who are watching this happening there's no easy answer on how to root out 20,000 combatants -- yes with very very scattered pasts themselves terrorists, but there are two point five million civilians in that mix and that population has doubled throughout the civil war. So indeed much of the people there that are there right now are actually fleeing other areas. And they fled those other areas because of the pummeling and fear of being associated with the regime. So it's a tragic situation. But I would also point out the world is jaded and fatigued from Syria. And so yes we are on this show talking about Syria, the reality is the world is not -- and the world is going to look away, I'm afraid to say, and I think we are going to have to be prepared for this enormous humanitarian onslaught.

PC: Okay I want to bring the Americans into our discussion because you know again at these talks at least in the early part there has been focus on America for instance the Iranian president is saying America and Israel have learned -- they will not reach their goals by arming militants in Syria. So we're hearing a lot of you know lobs being thrown against the Americans from these trilateral talks. At the same time earlier this week at least you know we heard from President Trump warning Syria and Russia. So I'm wondering how much weight does the U.S., at least by words, actually carry?

BESSMA MOMANI: Very little. The Americans have made it clear they really only care about Iranian expansion into Syria. That's their only strategic concern. Certainly we saw you know President Trump react to the one chemical attack and we've heard in this very interesting Woodward book that's coming out that there was even at one point an attempt to think about assassinating Assad himself. So certainly I think there is some action by Trump that needs to be watched. But you know I think the reality is the Americans strategically only have one interest and that's to prevent Iranian expansion. They don't care what happens to Syrian civilians. I think that's all just rhetoric. And so we've seen even from Nikki Haley at the U.N. Security Council -- noting that you know basically we do not want to see chemical weapons being used that's our red line. The infamous repeat of what we saw with Obama a few years back. But that is exactly the problem because it just tells and signals to the regime to the Assad regime and to the Russian and Iranian backers that everything but chemical weapons is acceptable. And so I think what we're going to see is indeed that onslaught -- and it tend to come from the air because they don't have the troops to go in physically on the ground and provide that street by street battle and that's where the most indiscriminate targeting happens. Those aerial strikes that are happening at the hands of both the Russians and the Syrian regime -- and cause such enormous humanitarian pain and suffering for the people.

PC: You know you said as much that you believe that these talks won't amount to much -- that the attack on Idlib will go ahead. But you also mentioned chemical weapons, and I'm curious, what happens if chemical weapons are used? If evidence emerges of the use of them, does that change things at all?

BESSMA MOMANI: I think so, yes. We've seen it in terms of Trump's reaction. But you know again, I just don't see how there's any interest for the Americans to get in the game other than for the rhetorical you know continued sort of, do not use these weapons, there's really no oomph or muscle from the Americans in this fight. And more importantly this is about a song and dance between the Turks, the Iranians, and the Russians to basically sound or look like they really have this large bargaining power amongst themselves to sort of make a decision about the end of Idlib. But make no mistake all three partners, in my humble opinion, do not see a way out other than the regime eventually taking charge and that includes Turkey which again is an opponent of the regime. But I think you know wink-wink nudge-nudge they really want to see this over and everybody who wants to see this over seems to believe that Assad is the only way out because there seems to be no alternative -- and that is just a disaster for the people on the ground. Once the regime takes over, as we saw in other areas, it means conscription for those young men and even older men increasingly, it means jailing, it means imprisonment, it means torture. And so it is not a peace at the end of this long and arduous road.

PC: Bessma Momani always good to get your analysis on this. Thank you very much.

BESSMA MOMANI: Thank you Piya.

PC: Bessma Momani is a professor of political science at the University of Waterloo & the Balsillie School of International Affairs. We reached her in Waterloo, Ontario. If you have anything to say about what you've just heard or anything else on our program you can get in touch with current of course. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Facebook.com/cbcthe current is the place to find us on that social media platform. Or you can e-mail us by going to cbc.ca/thecurrent -- once you're there, click the contact us link. All right, the CBC News is next. And then, what lifting the law against gay sex in India means for the country's gay community and for people around the world who live in countries in places where homosexual sex remains illegal. That discussion is coming up. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay. You're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. We're back in just a bit.

After India strikes down gay sex ban, advocate hopes other colonial-era laws face repeal

Guests: Keshav Suri, Jason Jones, Tea Braun

PC: Hi I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. Still to come, measles are breaking out in countries all across Europe -- thanks in large part to low rates of vaccination. And now researchers are pointing to a surprising source of misinformation about vaccines -- Russian troll bots, have been posting polarizing claims about the safety and efficacy of vaccines on social media: stoking fears, stoking debate, and ultimately contributing to the return of a dangerous disease. More on the trolls infecting the vaccine discourse. That's in half an hour. But first, to India where it's party time.

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[Cheering]

PC: I can hear some goings on behind you.

VOICE: Oh yeah. We are having a giant celebration and giant party.

PC: It's a pretty proud moment for you.

VOICE: It's a huge moment for us and this community. And I hope that we have many such moments. [Laughs]

PC: Well I reached Keshav Suri on the phone last night at a hotel in New Delhi. And yes, there was quite a party going on. More than 2000 people were there to celebrate an Indian Supreme Court decision. Yesterday the court struck down a one hundred and forty six year old British colonial era law known as Section 377. It had prohibited 'carnal intercourse against the order of nature' -- which was widely interpreted as referring to homosexual sex. Gay sex was punishable with up to ten years in prison, although few people were jailed. And the court said the law went against the rights enshrined in India's constitution. Keshav Suri is one of the petitioners who had asked for Section 377 to be repealed. He's also the executive director of Lalit Hotels. So how do you feel about the decision?

KESHAV SURI: I'm ecstatic. I'm ecstatic. I'm doing split jumps. Jump splits. If I could have kissed the Supreme Court judges when they were giving a judgement, I would have done so. I wanted to scream, yeah! Because honestly the judgement has paved the way for what's going to happen next. And it's just amazing.

PC: We'll get to what happens next. But I can sense your excitement and your glee. What does it mean for you, to you, to have this judgment come down?

KESHAV SURI: It means that I am no longer in the fringe. It means that I am no longer in the shadows. It means that I'm not locked in the basement. It means validity for my community. You know -- I mean when you hear a Supreme Court judge turn around and say that we must apologize for all the wrongs that have been done to this community for years. I mean that's just validation. I'm like -- I'm finally you know. Yeah! You know it also means a lot because I am married by the way -- and my husband is French. And in France it's legal to get married -- and it's unfair that the country that we've chosen to live in, which is India, it's not -- we're not legal. But finally today we're moving towards that.

PC: And so for those of us that don't know the context as well as you do, give us a sense of what your life was like yesterday versus what you think this ruling will change for you in terms of what your life will be like tomorrow?

KESHAV SURI: Well you know that Section 77 was used as a tool of harassment. It was giving the power to people that wanted to discriminate against the LGBTQ community to discriminate because it was basically making this entire community a fringe community -- a minuscule community. It was also giving the power to a lot of corporate and multinational companies to not really run their inclusive and diverse programs. To not align themselves with LGBTQ rights. And also to not really hire people from the transgender community because they were like, oh it's illegal or we want to be on the right side of the law. Today, you know I can proudly say I'm Indian and I can proudly say I'm gay in India -- and might have backlash because of course homophobia exists everywhere, in every country, but at least I have the law backing me up. Accepting who I am and saying that, you know what let's protect this community.

PC: And give me an example, and I'm sure you have many of them, from your own life where you have felt the discrimination you know in an official kind of way.

KESHAV SURI: Well you know I mean in the corporate sector we just put a lot of rules in place where you have to dress a certain way and then you make more money -- you have to enter a boardroom and make more money. So of course I have faced a lot discrimination. But I'd rather speak about the discrimination that a lot of my team members have faced -- I have more than 10 transgenders working for me, one of them was thrown acid upon because she is Trans. And you know I mean that's a big issue. Two of them faced honor killings -- and faced issues [inaudible]. And then there were various other petitioners that have actually gone through much worse than what I've gone through.

PC: As you said earlier, you said, this is the first step. What's next?

KESHAV SURI: This is the first step. There are many more steps. There are steps of recognizing marriage equality. There are steps of recognizing insurance, inertial, protection, you know affirmative action when it comes to this community. I mean there are many steps. I mean even the chief justice [inaudible] in fact she turned around and said that you know what, it's not about just decriminalizing -- there's a lot more that we need to do.

PC: And to that point you know there is one thing to have a law changed, repealed in this case, but change also means a societal change needs to happen -- a cultural change needs to happen. How confident are you that that can happen, will, happen in India?

KESHAV SURI: I am exceedingly confident. I mean at least this is step one. This is actually like step one [inaudible] -- at least you know not give power to people to discriminate -- have given the power to also companies to sit over there and do affirmative action. I think that you know this is a step -- at least the law is on our side. And now I think it's going to be just a societal change that is going to be a massive conversation that we're going to continue having. I think we really reach now a point where I think this community is too large in a country that is already the second largest population in the world to ignore -- and there are enough cases across the world where there have been success stories from this community. I think this is step one to a much larger societal change. Even one of the judges actually turned around and said that we now need to work with the government. We need to work with police to sensitize people on LGBTQ issues -- to sensitize people to hire from this community. Nothing gets bigger than that when the court, when the highest court in the country, says that.

PC: Keshav thank you.

KESHAV SURI: Thank you so much.

PC: That was Keshav Suri in New Delhi. Well the lawyers who argued for the repeal of India's Section 377 cited a precedent setting case from the island of Trinidad. In April of this year a judge in Trinidad ruled that anti-gay laws in that country were discriminatory and should be abolished. It was a landmark decision that has also given hope to gay rights advocates in Commonwealth countries across the Caribbean and beyond. The plaintiff in that case was Jason Jones and we have reached him today in London, England. Hello.

JASON JONES: Hi. How are you doing?

PC: I'm great. You just had a chance to hear how thrilled India's LGBT community is. So what was that moment like for you when you won, you know very similar court case in a different country back in April?

JASON JONES: Well as you can imagine in Trinidad and Tobago we had the same jubilant scenes obviously on a much smaller scale because we're a little tiny rock in the Caribbean Sea. But for the 100 or so people that were standing outside of the high court that day it was electrifying. And even now as we see this amazing thing happened in India I think everybody goes back to that shared moment of joy that one feels that you are no longer a criminal.

PC: And so when you took your country to court what exactly did your lawyers argue?

JASON JONES: Well you know the thing is every constitution is different and we had a very specific difficulty with our case. Our country inserted into our Constitution a savings clause after we became independent. And the savings clause protects all laws that predates our independence. So things like, buggery law the death penalty, etc -- they cannot be challenged in a court of law. Well very luckily my legal team found a way around that and that was our success. I really have to mention Peter Laverack who is such a brilliant barrister who came up with the concepts of how to get around the clause.

PC: You know we just heard Keshav Suri talk about what it had been like being gay in India -- he talked about some of his friends who are transgender having acid thrown in their faces, being subject to honor killings. What was life like for you growing up in Trinidad and Tobago and being gay?

JASON JONES: Trinidad is a melting pot. You know 52 percent of our population are Indo-Caribbean. Originally from India. So we have quite a rich cultural heritage and there is a sense of live and let live because there are so many different cultures and religions living in one small space. So there was a kind of vague ability for LGBT people to live on fairly glass closeted lines. You know if you were a hairdresser or fashion designer it was okay to be gay. You could not be openly gay if you were for example a doctor or a lawyer. So it has always had an underlying acceptance at a very very basic level. But of course when you start to attach political right to it, it changes the whole landscape. And the backlash that I faced was quite intense. I had over seven dozen death threats -- some of them so serious that the American and British government intervened to offer me safety. Unfortunately Trinidad has the highest number of ISIS recruits in the Western hemisphere per capita, so I had a very dangerous rough rides during the year of the challenge.

PC: At what point did you say, because as you know like it wasn't good enough, but there was this basic acceptance of being gay in Trinidad -- but at what point for you to say that's not enough like I'm taking my government to court because legal rights are as important, more important, than just this kind of tacit acceptance?

JASON JONES: Well I think the big separation is the global north and south divides. In the global north LGBT advocacy has of course gone leaps and bounds you know with marriage equality happening in the United States and then Great Britain -- and Australia recently. You know of course we don't live in a bubble. So that makes big splashy headlines in our countries, in the global south. But what it also does is it drives an even stronger wedge of homophobia in our communities. People say, oh we don't want that foreign influence happening on our shores. So you know there needs to be a greater understanding for LGBT advocacy in the global north that your wins can also you know drive our losses. So I would love to see the work happening between activists in the global north and south become much more united. And also we need to have places at the bargaining table where advocacy strategy is decided. Unfortunately advocacy is being driven mainly by white cis gender lesbians and gays -- and I'm sorry but us people of color need to get a place at the table.

PC: I'm curious you know as you said Trinidad is a small country but when the ruling in your favor happened many surrounding countries, nearby countries, looked and celebrated along with you. How since April have LGBT activists in other countries reacted after you won your court case?

JASON JONES: Well two things were at play here. Number one, I act completely independently -- I am not supported by any organizations both locally and internationally. And also I have branded my challenge very specifically as one man against this country. The reason being is when you're doing something at this level where the Constitution is being challenged what would make people understand it, is the democracy of it -- the fact that you as an individual have the same rights as everyone else. And by standing alone I think I made that very clear to people that this wasn't a case of LGBT rights, it was a case of democracy and how we engage with our freedoms and rights enshrined in our constitutions. So for a lot of advocates, it came as a bit of a shock -- I very specifically did not work with anyone because I felt that it was not useful for LGBT groups to be a part of my work at this point. And I think that the message that comes from my win, which is very separate to what happened in India, is the rights of the individual. That has to be constantly protected and constantly spoken about. And it's great that you had such a big win in India with so many claims supporting it. But in a small island like mine you know the voice of one man is really what resonates with people. And I think we need to have a lot more of that in our advocacy. The big money organizations are great, but we also have to remember the individual.

PC: Okay you did when your court case in Trinidad, but as I understand it the government there is appealing the case in the Privy Council in England. If you win that, what sort of impact will your case have on other Commonwealth countries? And if you don't win, what impact will that have do you think?

JASON JONES: Well I can pretty much tell you 99 percent that I am going to win -- for two reasons, the judgment that Justice Devindra Rampersad handed down in my case on April 12th this year, was one of the most important legal judgements in legal history for human rights of LGBT people --which is why it was cited in the Indian case. And also this Privy Council appeal it will be the first time the Privy Council has ever heard an LGBT decriminalisation case so it's historic from that point of view. So the Privy Council are going to be very very careful in how they tread with this because it does have a resonance for the other 36 Commonwealth nations that criminalise. The other important fact of my Privy Council appeal, is a win there, will feel decriminalisation for 11 countries. So unlike India, which is a republic and has its own Supreme Court, the win of the Privy Council will actually change the laws of 11 countries.

PC: Okay we'll have to leave it there but I appreciate your time. Thank you Jason.

JASON JONES: It's an absolute pleasure. And you know congratulations to all the listeners from India. What a wonderful moment for us all.

PC: Thank you. Jason Jones is a gay rights activist. He'll also be speaking at the upcoming Caribbean Equality Project LGBT symposium right here in Toronto. That's taking place on September 22nd. Right now we reached him in London, England. Well our next guest joins us to give us an international perspective on the impact of the India decision. Tea Braun is executive director of Human Dignity Trust. The trust is a UK group helping fight homophobic laws in the more than 70 jurisdictions around the world which continue to criminalize consensual sex between adults of the same sex. Tea Braun is in London. Hello.

TEA BRAUN: Hi, good morning.

PC: How important was this week's repeal of Section 377 of the criminal code in India in the broader context?

TEA BRAUN: It's incredibly significant. It's the biggest legal victory really for this issue in recent memory and will be for some time. The decision in India is already and will continue to reverberate around the world not only in terms of its symbolism but in terms of its legal weight and might in other common law jurisdictions around the world.

PC: Why would it have such heft beyond the symbolic nature of this?

TEA BRAUN: Well I think there are three things that are particularly important and significant about the India decision. Firstly its legal significance. So not only does it decriminalize same sex intimacy in India, and we have to remember that is a fifth of the world population and a fifth of the global LGBT population, so it's a huge victory in terms of the legal change in India -- also because of the reasons that the court found in favour of decriminalisation is very broad in its reasoning. It includes reasoning based on the rights to dignity, to privacy, to equality, to non-discrimination, to freedom of expression, to liberty -- it's very wide in its legal reasoning. And that legal reasoning will be looked at very closely in other jurisdictions around the world. Secondly in terms of its scale, as I mentioned this is one fifth of the criminalized, or LGBT population including a huge proportion of the criminalized population in the world, so it sort of doesn't get bigger than this. And thirdly it's symbolic significance can't be understated. India was the first country in the world to which the British colonial laws criminalizing consensual same sex intimacy were exported in 1860. So the very first spreading of those British colonial laws took hold in India in the 1860 Indian Penal Code. And from there they continued to spread around the Empire touching all corners of the world. So the dismantling of this law in India is hugely symbolic. It's where this you know colonial-legal legacy started and it is hopefully the beginning of where it will really continue to unravel globally.

PC: Of the more than 70 countries have laws that criminalize consensual sex between people of the same sex. And I believe that about half of them are in the Commonwealth, is that right?

TEA BRAUN: Yes that's right. The Commonwealth is hugely implicated in the global picture of criminalisation again largely because most of these laws do originate from British colonial legal systems unlike for instance other European colonizers the French, Spanish, and Portuguese -- by the time they were colonizing, their penal codes had already decriminalised under the Napoleonic Code. So much of the former colonies of those countries never had these sorts of criminal laws. It was really a British colonial reality -- the spreading of these laws. The other main source of criminal laws is Islamic law -- so that's a separate thing but the British connection and the Commonwealth connection is a very big part of the picture.

PC: I appreciate that British colonialism wasn't that long ago frankly in certain countries in Africa and beyond, I mean it's 2018, why don't these legislators in these countries say, you know those were the laws of another time when we were colonized -- why don't they be proactive instead of waiting for these legal decisions to push them?

TEA BRAUN: I mean that's a brilliant point and a brilliant question. Really the first line of responsibility should be the legislature. In the vast majority of these countries there are modern constitutions written constitutions as we have in Canada that contain contemporary bills of rights that have fundamental human rights provisions guaranteed for all citizens so by applying those contemporary constitutional norms -- it's quite easy to look at these laws and say that they no longer pass muster when you look at our contemporary legal system so really the legislature should just be voluntarily repealing them. And in some countries that is happening -- change is happening both through the courts and through the legislatures. So for instance in the last few years Seychelles decriminalised voluntarily by simply repealing a similar law. Other countries such as Mozambique [inaudible] updated all of their sexual offences law. So there are many other laws that originate from British colonial times that are out of date and still sort of stuck in Victorian times. So for instance in much of the Commonwealth rape in marriage is lawful it's actually in the legislation that husbands are exempted from rape laws. Ages of consent are different from males and females. And ages of marriage. Rape laws aren't gender neutral and they don't include various different forms of rape. So some countries have said, listen we need to update all of these laws and they have engaged in wholesale updating of legislative reform. And quite recently the UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced in April of this year that the UK Government would support any Commonwealth country that wants to voluntarily reform these sorts of laws and has put money behind that. And my organisation is involved in implementing that program -- so really it has to happen in both. Some countries aren't going to do this through the legislature because it's not politically expedient. This isn't a popular issue in many countries and there's strong opposition to LGBT rights, LGBT equality, and it may not be the kind of thing that gets votes so what it takes is real leadership, genuine political leadership, that says every citizen is equal and every citizen is entitled to be protected not only from discrimination but from violence which these laws enable.

PC: Tea Braun thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate it.

TEA BRAUN: My pleasure. Thank you.

PC: That was Tea Braun who is executive director of the Human Dignity Trust in London, England. All right coming up next here on The Current, the U.S. is on guard for Russian misinformation ahead of this fall's midterm elections but that's not the only place that online trolls from Russia may be muddying the waters. When we come back, how Russian trolls and bots are affecting the vaccine debate in Europe and potentially contributing to an outbreak there. My name is Piya Chattopadhyay. You're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. We're back soon.

How opposition to vaccines caused a measles outbreak in Europe

Guest: Dr. Siddhartha Datta, David Broniatowski, Heidi Larson, Dr. Emily Brunson

PC: Hi I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

The measles vaccine is safe. It's free if you live in the U.K.. There are no benefits to getting measles. It doesn't improve your immune system. And it's not more natural. So let's work together to help eradicate this virus.

PC: That is a video from Public Health England in a push to get more people immunized against the measles. Across Europe this summer public health officials have been grappling with a surge in cases of the disease. More than 41,000 people were infected in the first six months of this year. It has led to 37 deaths. And that number -- that 41,000, is almost double the total number of cases from last year. The World Health Organization says the issue is immunization. Not enough people are getting vaccinated. For the latest on the outbreaks in Europe we've reached Dr. Siddhartha Datta, The World Health Organization's team lead for vaccine preventable diseases and for the immunization unit in Europe. He joins us from Copenhagen, Denmark. Hello.

DR. SIDDHARTHA DATTA: Hi.

PC: Dr. Datta can you first explain why in 2015 there were 5,000 cases of measles in Europe -- and that has been increasing to the point where we have seen, this year so far, 41,000 confirmed cases.

DR. SIDDHARTHA DATTA: Yeah thank you so much. So after a historically low number of cases, measles cases, in 2016 we have seen a spike in the number of cases in 2017 which actually follows into 2018. The reason is the accumulation of unvaccinated cohort or as we say susceptible individuals who are either unvaccinated completely or they are under-vaccinated. And how does that result -- if you look into the vaccination coverage in the countries in the European region, the national coverage may show quite high coverage, however the subnational coverage which means more coverage in municipalities or communities, they are pretty low.

PC: And where in Europe, in particular, are we seeing these cases occurring? What countries? What regions?

DR. SIDDHARTHA DATTA: Most of them as we talk to you today are happening in Ukraine. So out of 41,000 cases which you mentioned more than 20,000 cases have been reported from Ukraine. But we also have seen cases in Italy. Cases in France. So there are several countries where we have seen the cases happening in 2018.

PC: Okay so half are in Ukraine, the rest are spread out through various countries, how is the WHO the 'World Health Organization' responding to these growing numbers in Ukraine and elsewhere here?

DR. SIDDHARTHA DATTA: Thank you. So I think what WHO is trying to do is [inaudible] engaging with these member states in trying to understand, and number one, the reasons for this low vaccine uptake. Just to let you know that the reasons of these low vaccines uptake as WHO have seen, vary. They cary from countries where they are reporting vaccines stock outs or the issues related to complacency of the population or you know having issues with misinformation and rumors related to the vaccine. So we are helping the countries to tailor their immunisation response as per their own context.

PC: You mentioned that misinformation campaigns are part of the problem here. Talk to me about that. What role do these kinds of campaigns, if we can put it that way, play in the recent surge in measles cases?

DR. SIDDHARTHA DATTA: WHO you know keeps track about all the different rumors, different misinformation, that circulates and in the media -- and we have seen some influence of it in three other countries. But I think I should put this perspective in this discussion today is that it's not only one reason which actually leads to a low vaccine uptake in a country. Like that might have other reasons I told you. So those actually all play -- it plays a much bigger role than you kno telling that only misinformation. But not denying the fact that misinformation and rumor about the vaccine have played some part in the low vaccine uptake in Europe.

PC: I just want you to set the record straight because we know very well not only with measles but with other diseases that there are vaccinations for -- that sometimes the misinformation is that they do more harm than good. Is there any evidence that vaccines actually do more harm than good?

DR. SIDDHARTHA DATTA: A very good question I should say. The fact is vaccine prevents diseases. The measles vaccine has prevented a huge number of deaths. Huge number of cases. So people become sometime complacent because they don't see the diseases and they tend to forget the gravity of what happens when the children get infected. So I think the fact is in front of us -- vaccines are safe. Vaccines prevent diseases. And the vaccines are effective.

PC: One of the challenges nowadays that we didn't have before, is of course information, disinformation, misinformation being spread on the Internet. How can the WHO, governments of various countries, properly respond to misinformation about vaccine that is being spread far and wide on the Internet -- whether it be chat groups or on social media so on and so forth?

DR. SIDDHARTHA DATTA: I think we have to all acknowledge the fact that we are living in a world of easily accessible information. Whether this is the right information or the wrong information -- that comes I think a second part it. I think the step that WHO proposes to all member states and to every physician in this world, every healthcare professionals in this world, that when a parent comes with a child to us for vaccination, these misinformation and rumors parents will read and when they come to the healthcare professionals this is the time to set things right -- and I think we all have to be a good listener to each of the parents when they come.

PC: Dr. Datta just before I let you go I want to ask you about Italy. Because Italy's senate has recently reversed a law that required certain mandatory vaccinations for children, I think there were 10 of them. What is your reaction to that reversal?

DR. SIDDHARTHA DATTA: The WHO recommends that children when they get into the school -- the member states have provision that they get checked for their immunization status. So in several countries who have implemented this school check system they have shown good results. So coming back to the point which you are telling what is our stand on it -- WHO recommends that countries need to look into their own disease epidemiological situation in a country and who are being affected, how are they getting diseases, and transmission. And they actually have to make that informed decision on what is best in their own setting.

PC: And do you think in the Italian setting that this is a good decision?

DR. SIDDHARTHA DATTA: So I think this goes back to the point that I was making that they need to look into what has happened when they actually have implemented, and why principally they did that, and whether that gave them some results, and whether the new law is proper to their context. So I think it is more of their own context that ministry needs to look into, both before and after, the implementation and thereafter now.

PC: Dr. Siddhartha Datta thank you for your time.

DR. SIDDHARTHA DATTA: Thank you so much for having me.

PC: Dr. Siddhartha Datta is the World Health Organization's team lead for vaccine preventable diseases and for the immunization unit in Europe. And he spoke with us from Copenhagen, Denmark. Well a recent global survey from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that on average Europe has the lowest rate of so-called vaccine confidence in the world. And new research suggests that Russian trolls and bots using social media may have played a role in stoking divisions and distrust toward vaccines. The researchers discovered the role of the Russian trolls when combing through social media content about vaccines in an effort to understand why people were hesitating to get immunized. That's when they realized that there seemed to be more skepticism about vaccines, online, compared to what surveys tell us about the public's views on vaccinations. Here's David Broniatowski an assistant professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at George Washington University. He's also the study's lead author.

SOUNDCLIP

DAVID BRONIATOWSKI: Most interesting findings, especially about Russian trolls, was that they were about 22 times more likely to tweet about vaccines than the average user. And so one of the things that we did was we said well alright given that we know that they're talking about vaccines are they more likely to be pro-vaccine, or anti-vaccine, or are neutral, and one of the things that we found was that they tended to be more polarized but they were polarized in a way that was split down the middle. So they were either pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine in equal amounts. We discovered a hashtag that was unique to those account which was #vaccinateus -- had some crazy I would say discord provoking or pretty provocative messages. One of them is something along the lines of only the elites get clean vaccines, and what do us normal people get? So that's an example of an anti-vaccine tweet. An example of a pro-vaccine message that maybe you know on its face may seem to support vaccination but really is designed to promote discord -- and so this is something that you know along the lines of a tweet that might say vaccines are a choice, your choice of what colour your kid's coffin is going to be.

PC: Well investigations into the Internet Research Agency which is a well-known Russian troll farm have shown that the main goal of this murky St. Petersburg company is to sow political and social division and discord across all sorts of issues. As for the impact of these tweets by Russian trolls, David Broniatowski says there's a real concern that public health could be affected.

SOUNDCLIP

DAVID BRONIATOWSKI: It's really difficult to say that if somebody change their mind it was because of this tweet. However we do know that exposure to messages about vaccines, be it pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine. if you're exposed to the debate -- this idea that there is a debate to be had, that does tend to get people to delay and to question their healthcare providers in a way that might lead them to, as I said before, to delay vaccination or perhaps not get vaccinated.

PC: Well my next guest studies how and why people are reluctant to get vaccinated and the role that rumors, social media, and misinformation play in that decision making. Heidi Larson is director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is in London, England. Hello.

HEIDI LARSON: Hi.

PC: What has your reaction been when you saw this new research about Russian trolls spreading vaccine messages?

HEIDI LARSON: Well I was particularly struck at the sophistication of dividing it across the extreme pro, and negative, and neutral frankly. But what really struck me is actually in a way they weren't even out to change people's views on vaccines. They saw that vaccine debates were, they're already highly polarized, and I saw it as an opportunity for them to undermine democracy and create more polarization through the vaccine debates. I don't think that these trolls and bots started a new trend, I think they are capitalizing on already existing and increasingly polarized movements. But it's certainly making it more polarized.

PC: You say it's not new in the broader sense but how new is this idea that political actors would raise doubts about vaccines to push a political agenda?

HEIDI LARSON: That has actually been going on for quite a long time but not necessarily online. I mean frankly one of the reasons we're stuck in polio eradication -- we've done a tremendous job in polio eradication, but there is this kind of persisting challenge around political tensions and geopolitical tensions in the northwest part of Pakistan and in Nigeria. And we had a big boycott in Nigeria in 2003-2004 where vaccines were used to kind of ferment discord. And we see that in different settings, frankly in Italy, it was again one of the politicians appealing to the constituents that he knew we're angry that there was this mandate and he appealed to them, I will take care of this -- I'm going to answer your wishes. So politically these debates are being exacerbated but they're also being exploited in some cases for political reasons.

PC: And exacerbated and exploited through social media as well?

HEIDI LARSON: Absolutely.

PC: And one of the things about social media is that you can tailor it for yourself. So there are these echo chambers -- what role do you think that social media echo chambers play in messaging about vaccination?

HEIDI LARSON: Oh I think it has been a huge contributor. I mean from what I've been reading and looking into this quite a bit over the last year, and frankly looking at other ways that algorithms are polarizing different debates in society, what is happening is it's even more than just clustering likeminded people together -- but when people have a group of others thinking the way they are, it empowers them. As an individual you might not act on your concerns or anxieties in the way when you're surrounded with others, it kind of amplifies the impact of that.

PC: Let me ask you this, and perhaps you can't draw a direct line, but has social media contributed to the current measles outbreak in Europe in your opinion?

HEIDI LARSON: I think it has contributed to it. It's an amplifier. It doesn't create the concerns but it spreads them. As you said earlier we did a global study in 2016, of 67 countries, with our vaccine confidence index, and Europe was absolutely the region that was most skeptical -- France being one of the most skeptical around safety. But Italy and Ukraine there's a pretty clear correlation between those who were the most skeptical in our confidence survey and where the measles outbreak are.

PC: And specifically I want to ask you about Facebook because as you know Facebook has been accused of contributing to misinformation -- in other arenas, in other contexts. How has Facebook contributed to misinformation about vaccines?

HEIDI LARSON: Oh I think it has contributed significantly. But these new tools: social media, Facebook, they are organizational tools, they're not just about spreading information -- they're empowering groups of people not even geographically local across different locations to organize into groups. And that kind of organizational power that these tools have given some of these anti-sentiments is I think as concerning as the negative sentiments.

PC: And do you know have these social media platforms been talked to so to speak to say, hey you've got to try and help us address public health misinformation online. And if so, what have they said?

HEIDI LARSON: You mean going to the actual companies?

PC: Yes.

HEIDI LARSON: Well I think there's more and more discussion about that. But it's challenging. I've been reading, following, the Facebook challenges this summer. And I know that they're making much more efforts to shut down hate. But what has happened is some things they've shut down are actually genuine efforts to counter that. But on their websites use some of the negative terms to -- in the attempt to counter them. So you know when you automate these systems and say okay when X number of words come up shut this one down, well you might be going for the wrong thing. So it's not so straightforward.

PC: From where you sit, what kinds of strategies do you think could work?

HEIDI LARSON: Well you have to, as I've said, put down our guns in a sense. We need to kind of cross these boundary -- this abyss is getting wider and wider and I think there needs to be some kind of radical thinking about how we can embed or at least pay attention to it. What has happened is the public health and medical community has you know often seen this as non-factual, crazy, marginal but in fact right now it has become quite mainstream. It's very clear that there are some stronger more influential voices that have -- I mean we and others do Twitter analysis and others looking at nodes of you know certain people are very much propagators and others are followers. So we need to get much more sophisticated in identifying where the most negative impacts are.

PC: Heidi Larson I appreciate you talking with me. Thank you.

HEIDI LARSON: Thanks.

PC: Heidi Larson is director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She was in our studio in London, England. Public health researchers and practitioners frequently used simulated scenarios to help them better understand how to respond to public health crises. Last year the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security put together one such simulation. It tackled a hypothetical outbreak of a hypothetical virus that was called spars and it looked at what might happen when misinformation about an outbreak begins to circulate online. Dr. Emily Brunson is a medical anthropologist at Texas State University and one of the co-authors of the spar scenario. She's in San Marcos Texas. Hello.

DR. EMILY BRUNSON: Hi Piya.

PC: Dr. Brunson can you just briefly explain what the spares scenario entails?

DR. EMILY BRUNSON: Yeah so those spares scenario is a futuristic scenario where we created a novel disease and then it goes through a storyline and for both the disease phase of the problem and then the recovery phase after the fact and where we go through and you address what happens in terms of communication moving forward. The real goal of the spares scenario is to provide readers the opportunity, whether they're reading individually or in groups, to consider the potential measures in today's environment that might help avert comparable problems or classes of problems in the future. So in order to hopefully be able to get to that preferred future in terms of medical communication.

PC: Okay so in this mock scenario how much of a role did social media play in convincing someone to get vaccinated or not to get vaccinated?

DR. EMILY BRUNSON: Well actually it plays a fairly large role. We had to decide sort of a future and what that future would be like. And going back to what Dr. Datta, and Dr. Larson, and yourself have talked about earlier, we decided on an echo chamber. So a future where sudden 2025 to 2028 -- what's going on is that you end up with a very internet savvy, very interconnected world, but at the same time, people are really only paying attention to the people and the views that they believe in.

PC: In your research generally, how likely is someone not to vaccinate their own child if parts of their social media network is skeptical of vaccines?

DR. EMILY BRUNSON: In my own research, so this is actually my specific area of research, personally I found that when people do have, and specially network members, so people that they know that they're talking to that are promoting some type of non-vaccination that could be delaying, not vaccinating at all or anything in between -- that people once they hit a 25 percent threshold with their network that they're very likely to end up choosing one of those alternate vaccination strategies. Social media I think is something that is interesting and different. When I did a direct comparison in my own work I found that the personal networks, so people that you're actually speaking to had more influence than a book that you read or a tweet that you read, but I think that that study was done several years ago so there needs to be more research looking into that.

PC: And from your scenarios in your studies is there an example of this -- a scenario where misinformation about a vaccine goes beyond the echo chamber so to speak, it spreads across the Internet. And what was the result of that?

DR. EMILY BRUNSON: So yes. In the scenario, one of the chapters was called going viral, and what ends up happening is that the drug that's being treated at the time used to treat this novel coronavirus disease outbreak -- is given to a child in a hospital setting and there's a video of what happens and the child takes the drug and then immediately begins to throw up. And so and in the scenario it goes viral and then is propagated for months after the fact by teenagers who just like the shock value of the video. And then the question is what is the appropriate response? And one of the dilemmas that we came up with is that a lot of times public health agencies, especially at a national level, tend to have a lag in terms of when their responses. So in the scenario they end up waiting a few days to respond -- and then when they do, it tends to be that factual information that correlation does not equal causation which is true but it's not an empathetic response so it doesn't effectively reach the people who are being affected. So the scenario really comes down to having the right message, the right messenger, and making sure that it's done in the right venue.

PC: You know you speak of the reach, like the ability to actually get to people, so in times of a public health crisis when people are dealing with a public health crisis and illness and people are distracted by fear and illness and all those things. I mean I don't imagine people are like hey I'm going to Facebook on these things during that time. How do you reach them?

DR. EMILY BRUNSON: Well I think that's a big challenge. And if we knew the total answer to that, we would not be having this conversation. But I think it is constantly, in terms of public health, really paying attention to what are these social medias that are available and who's using them and who is it that we need to reach. So with the students that I teach for example when I was in college Facebook was a big thing. No one uses Facebook anymore, it's all Snapchat and then a few other programs -- some of which I have never used or had not even heard of until I talked with my students. So it's really a matter of keeping track of all of those difference. All of those different ways that you can communicate through social media. And then also thinking about you know what does the message need to be and potentially what does the message need to be for different groups.

PC: You know we were talking earlier about misinformation and some of the actors involved in that -- just doing it, well not just doing it, but doing it for the purposes of discord and creating chaos. How dangerous do you think it would be if there were a concerted effort by malevolent actors to spread misinformation on social media in the time of a big public health crisis and the epidemic -- of a pandemic?

DR. EMILY BRUNSON: That I think is really scary. And looking historically at what has happened,so with the 2011 Fukushima incident, looking at the 2009 H1N1 and in the past what has happened -- there has been increasingly social media groundswells and complaints about, for example during H1N1 that some counties in New York were approaching things and giving the vaccine one way and other counties were getting it another way. And there was a lot of turmoil going on and it was spread through partially through social media. And so I think that there's a huge potential during emergencies to have this be an issue especially if people are key to it and they're concerned about what's going on -- and then to have this amplification of you know other ideas or legitimately fake news to just sort of fan the flames there is very concerning.

PC: Dr. Brunson thank you for joining us. I appreciate it.

DR. EMILY BRUNSON: Thank you.

PC: Dr. Emily Brunson is a medical anthropologist and an associate professor at Texas State which is an affiliate at the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security. We reached her in San Marcos, Texas. Quick reminder before we go that we do like hearing from you here on a program so do get in touch with us @TheCurrentCBC is our Twitter handle. Facebook.com/cbcthecurrent if you prefer to post there. Or you can email us by going to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact us link. That is The Current for this Friday. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for q. Actor William Shatner will be on that show. And just a reminder on Sunday you can catch me on my own show, Out In The Open. We have an all new season of shows. And this Sunday an hour long conversation with Senator Patrick Brazeau and what his trials and troubles tell us about the role and responsibility in public life. That's coming up on CBC Radio 1 Sundays at noon. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay. Thank you for listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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