Many COVID experts in Japan harassed after speaking to media, survey shows

Many COVID experts in Japan harassed after speaking to media, survey shows

Many Japanese COVID-19 researchers who spoke to the media during the pandemic were harassed or threatened by the public, a new study has shown.

The research, led by Waseda University professor Mikihito Tanaka and published in the May edition of the academic journal Jinko Chino (Artificial Intelligence), is Japan’s first comprehensive survey on threats targeting COVID-19 experts.

The team sent a questionnaire to 121 experts who gave interviews on the pandemic to the Asahi Shimbun and the Yomiuri Shimbun, as well as five TV broadcasters, between February 2020 and March 2021. Of the 42 who responded, two were women. Thirty-four of the respondents worked at universities, six at research institutions and four belonged to government advisory committees, according to the paper. Half of the 42 experts who gave interviews to the media during the pandemic experienced harassment from the public.

Of the respondents, 14% replied that they were harassed after commenting to the media “most of the time,” while another 36% said they were harassed “sometimes.”

Alarmingly, three people said they received death threats, and two reported threats of physical or sexual attacks.

In addition, 29 people reported negative experiences such as slander and defamation after speaking about COVID-19 to the news media or on social media, with 23 saying they suffered emotional and psychological distress and seven replying that their credibility as experts was attacked.

The findings are in line with abuse experienced by COVID-19 experts worldwide. In August 2022, a 56-year-old man was sentenced to over three years in jail for sending a series of threatening emails to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert at the time. Shigeru Omi, Japan’s equivalent who long headed the nation’s COVID-19 response, has likewise recalled receiving death threats and a letter containing a knife, according to an interview he gave in a book published last year.

An October 2021 Nature article titled “Scientists under attack” reported the results of a survey it did on over 300 scientists, in which 15% said they received death threats. Also, nearly 60% reported attacks on their credibility and over 40% reported emotional or psychological distress after speaking to the media about COVID-19.

The Nature survey, conducted together with science media centers, a global network of organizations providing expert commentary to the media, covered experts from around 20 countries and territories, including Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada and Taiwan.

Tanaka, a science communication expert who himself served as a member of the health ministry’s COVID-19 advisory board, attributes the attacks on COVID-19 experts to the pandemic’s enormous social impact and says that lashing out may have been a coping mechanism for some frustrated individuals.

However, harassment against experts should be more widely recognized in society and appropriate action should be taken against extreme cases, so that they can keep freely discussing issues on science and society, Tanaka said.

“Organizations should set up a place where experts can seek psychological counseling, for example,” he said. “For experts, it may also be wise for them to split tasks and send messages to the public in a group.”