Media

On the communication of health misinformation and evidence in the community

I provided comments to Melissa Davey for an article in The Guardian on the use of ChatGPT for producing misleading vaccine and vaping information [November 2023]

I provided comments to Sarah Berry for an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on misinformation and wellness. [April 2023]

I wrote an article for Cosmos Magazine on misinformation during the pandemic and what we should do about it. [May 2021]

I was quoted in a ScienceAlert article on a recent article related to a game used to counter misinformation. [May 2021]

I was part of a panel on misinformation related to COVID-19 that was hosted by and reported on in First Draft News by Anne Kruger. [April 2021]

I was interviewed on TripleJ’s Hack Program on COVID-19 misinformation promoted by an Australian politician on Facebook. [February 2021]

I wrote an article for the Conversation on COVID-19 misinformation and the effectiveness of responding directly online. [January 2021]

Matt Woodley interviewed me for an article in newsGP on COVID-19 misinformation. [January 2021]

Cara Waters interviewed me for an article in the Sydney Morning Herald (and the Age) on COVID-19 misinformation and its importance. [December 2020]

Adriana Bellmonte borrowed some quotes from another article in Yahoo! Finance on COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy belief. [November 2020]

Eden Gillespie from SBS The Feed interviewed me for a story about conspiracy theory belief during the COVID-19 pandemic. [October 2020]

Jackson Ryan from c|net included quotations from me about the impact of misinformation during COVID-19. [October 2020]

I was interviewed by Norman Swan on ABC Radio on our recent study about bots and vaccine misinformation. [October 2020]

I was quoted in an article by Marisha Golhamer for AFP Fact Check on misinformation related to potential COVID-19 vaccines. [October 2020]

Gizmodo republished an article I wrote for The Conversation about our work on vaccine information, bots, and misinformation on Twitter. [October 2020]

Cosmos Magazine covered our paper on the potential influence of bots on vaccine information on Twitter. [October 2020]

Our research on the limited potential impact of bots in vaccination was covered by Melissa Davey in the Guardian. Also covered by MSN. [October 2020]

I was interviewed by Natasha Mitchell for Science Friction on ABC Radio about COVID-19 misinformation and its impact on research. [July 2020]

I was interviewed by Alex Sutcliffe via email for an episode of The Junkee Takeaway on conspiracy theories related to COVID-19, especially about Bill Gates. [May 2020]

Darren Mara wrote for SBS about conspiracies and fake news related to COVID-19 and interviewed me for the piece. [May 2020]

Tegan Jones interviewed me by email for a story on Gizmodo discussing the emergence of conspiracy theories related to 5G and COVID-19. [March 2020]

Joe Brookes interviewed me for a story on Which-50.com discussing the spread of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. [March 2020]

Andrew Taylor quoted me in the Sydney Morning Herald discussing the spread of misinformation in relation to treating or preventing COVID-19. [March 2020]

Gavin Butler from Vice covered our work on what makes people who engage with the r/conspiracy forum different from other people. [November 2019]

Colin Klein was interviewed by CityNews about our work on conspiracy-related online forums and who participates in them. [November 2019]

Writing with Colin Klein and Peter Clutton in The Conversation on the social and linguistic characteristics of people who post in the r/conspiracy forum on Reddit. [November 2019]

The people at NiemanLab covered our work on what makes people posting in r/conspiracy different from other Reddit users in the months before they first engage with the subreddit. [November 2019]

In the Sunday Telegraph, Jane Hansen wrote about my work developing data-driven tools to empower people with the tools to help them avoid passing on or amplifying vaccine misinformation (in relation to being nominated as a finalist for the Research Australia Award for Data Innovation). On page 25 and online. [September 2019]

In Nature, Mark Zastrow interviewed me to about a study that used a randomised controlled trial to examine the effect of new Wikipedia articles on the language used in chemistry articles. [September 2017]

Early-career research advice

A video of me on a panel with Noby and Kelly giving advice on using social media as an early-career researcher [October 2017]

For the Guardian’s Higher Education Network on “the power of no” [April 2013]

On the use of AI in clinical trials and their synthesis

Neil Versel from Technology Networks described and included a link to a talk I gave for the NEJM Group on using AI to make trials more efficient in 2023 [January 2024]

On public health informatics and digital public health

I provided comments to Amber Schultz for an article in Crikey on some obvious flaws with the COVIDSafe App. [July 2020]

I was interviewed by Ariel Bogle for an article in ABC Science on the COVIDSafe app used in Australia to support contact tracing. [June 2020]

I was interviewed by Conor Burke on a podcast for Nursing Review on the use and effectiveness of COVIDSafe app being used in Australia to support contact tracing. [May 2020]

I was interviewed by Nicole Mackee for MJA Insight regarding the use of online symptom checkers to reduce unnecessary emergency department and clinic visits in Australia. [May 2020]

Olivia Willis and Ariel Bogle from ABC interviewed me for a story about the COVIDSafe app being used in Australia to support contact tracing. [May 2020]

Tom McIlroy from the Financial Review included some version of quotations I had written for a story on the safety and utility of the COVID-19 contact network app deployed in Australia. [May 2020]

PHNews.org.au covered the Sydney COVID-19 dashboard and included quotations from me.[April 2020]

Charis Chang from news.com.au covered the Sydney COVID-19 dashboard and included quotations from me about its use to improve transparency and reduce anxiety in the community. It was also covered here, here, here, here, and here. [April 2020]

The Daily Mail UK in Australia and others also covered the Sydney COVID-19 dashboard and took quotations from me sourced from other places. [April 2020]

Olivana Smith Lathouris from 9news interviewed me and others about the Sydney COVID-19 dashboard for examining temporal patterns and data transparency. [April 2020]

Kate Aubusson from the Sydney Morning Herald did an exclusive interview with me and others about the release of the Sydney COVID-19 dashboard for examining temporal patterns and socioeconomic disadvantage relative to cases. It was also included here, here, and re-imagined here [April 2020]

Fergus Hunter, Eryk Bagshaw and Rob Harris in the Sydney Morning Herald discussing the recommendations from a team of 22 academics across the Go8 universities. [March 2020]

Caitlin Fitzsimmons from the Sydney Morning Herald covered our systematic review of social factors influencing the use of e-cigarettes. [December 2019]

For Maya Kroth writing in Elemental, I provided comments on new research about crowdsourcing of STD diagnoses on Reddit. [November 2019]

In STAT, Helen Branswell included my comments when writing about a study in the American Journal of Public Health that looked at how bots and trolls contributed to and may have influenced online discussions about vaccination. [August 2018]

In the Sydney Morning Herald (and other affiliated outlets), Kate Aubusson interviewed Julie Leask and I about our research article on links between HPV vaccine coverage in the United States and exposure to certain topics on Twitter. [May 2017]

In Croakey, Julie Leask and I wrote about our study on the association between the exposure to misinformation and the echo chambers of vaccine misinformation on Twitter. [June 2015]

On open access and open data

Melissa Davey from The Guardian, with contributions from many others, on the future of academic publishing. [August 2015]

Melissa Davey from The Guardian, with contributions from Chris Del Mar, Martin Tatersall, and me, on open access, Elsevier and integrity in editorial processes in relation to the Medical Journal of Australia. [May 2015]

With Upulie Divisekera, an article about current issues in open access, written for Crikey. [February 2013]

The Sydney Morning Herald printed a summary of our research on open source clinical trial data on page 15 on the Thursday edition of the paper. [May 2012]

On why clinical research should be freely exchanged in the Sydney Morning Herald’s National Times, with Enrico Coiera. [May 2012]

In the Higher Education section of The Australian, journalists described the research on open source clinical trial data. [May 2012]

On conflicts of interest or industry bias in biomedical research

Julie Hare from the Australian Financial Review wrote about our study on policy to manage the impact of industry influence on medical schools [June 2023]

I provided comments for an article in SBS News by Madaleine Wedesweiler on the media release of an in vitro study about garlic and COVID-19 before it was published. [June 2023]

In Nature, Clare Watson interviewed me about a new paper on conflicts of interest in Australia. [March 2022]

In Nature, Tom Chivers interviewed me for an investigation into the lack of disclosure of speaking fees among prominent psychology researchers. [July 2019]

In the BMJ, a piece by Susan Mayor mentioned our research in JAMA describing the prevalence of conflicts of interest disclosures and the attention it gets. [January 2018]

In The Pharmaceutical Journal, a piece by Kirsty Oswald, which includes my thoughts on an article in the BMJ that separated the effects of funding from authors’ financial conflicts of interests. [January 2017]

On Radio National’s Health Report with Joel Werner, talking about a proposal for a registry covering the competing interests of all researchers. [June 2016]

In the Higher Education section of The Australian, John Ross covers my proposal for a global registry for competing interests in research. [May 2016]

I wrote more about the proposal for a global registry for This Week at Macquarie University. [May 2016]

As a guest columnist in the WA Medical Forum (page 31), discussing the potential problems associated with complementary medicine companies funding open-ended research in universities. [July 2015]

On Mark Colvin’s ABC radio program (PM), interviewed by Bill Birtles on the effects of industry funding on the potential to introduce detrimental biases into research. [May 2015]

In MedScape, on the results of the new Roche funded review of Tamiflu, published after we identified an association between conclusions and conflicts of interest in systematic reviews. [February 2015]

Newsweek included information about our research in the cover story on pharmaceutical companies hiding data about the drugs they market. [November 2014]

Michael McCarthy from the BMJ covered our research on financial conflicts of interest in systematic reviews of neuraminidase inhibitors, including asking extra questions. [October 2014]

Melissa Davey from the Guardian covered our research on financial conflicts of interest in systematic reviews of neuraminidase inhibitors, interviewing Florence Bourgeois, Ray Moynihan, and me. [October 2014]

Nicole Ostrow from Bloomberg covered our research on financial conflicts of interest in systematic reviews of neuraminidase inhibitors as well as the implications, interviewing Florence Bourgeois, Christine Laine, Austine Graff, and me. [October 2014]

Kimberly Leonard from US News covered our story about financial conflicts of interest in neuraminidase inhibitors and other recent news, interviewing Florence Bourgeois and me, as well as including a statement from Genentech. [October 2014]

The Australian Doctor magazine also covered our research on financial conflicts of interest in systematic reviews of neuraminidase inhibitors. [October 2014]

Our research on neuraminidase inhibitors and financial conflicts of interest was covered in Wall Street Journal Pharmalot. [October 2014]

Fierce Pharma covered our research on the influence of financial conflicts of interest on the conclusions of systematic reviews about neuraminidase inhibitors. [October 2014]

In The Conversation, I wrote an article with Florence Bourgeois on the effects of financial conflicts of interest on systematic reviews, with specific examples from our research on neuraminidase inhibitors. [October 2014]

In The Conversation, as an expert in an article about the Swisse research collaboration with La Trobe University and the Complementary Medicine Evidence Centre. [February 2014]

On industry bias in evidence synthesis for The Conversation, with Ian Kerridge and Wendy Lipworth. [December 2012]

For The Conversation about the influence of big pharmaceutical companies on publications about the drugs they produce. [April 2012]