ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) – State Representative Dave Vella (D) introduced the Combating Health Misinformation Act, which would create a Health Misinformation Response Unit within the Illinois Department of Public Health.
“What it does is, it really is creating a rubric to combat medical misinformation as it comes up,” said Vella. We’re creating a unit within the state of Illinois that really focuses on making sure that when people get misinformation, either from the internet, or from other sources in government, that we are there to make sure that they know what’s the true facts.”
Vella said recent public health concerns motivated him to introduce the legislation.
“I think before COVID, during COVID and after COVID, we’ve gone through a lot of misinformation about medical stuff, and I think people have gotten hurt,” said Vella. “Whooping cough is up. We’ve had measles outbreaks. People are not getting the medications they deserve or need because they’re being either being lied to or misinformed.”
The Health Misinformation Response Unit would monitor and counter health misinformation, offer public health literacy grants and recruit and train trusted messengers to communicate accurate health information.
“I think this is going to help people physically, because, again, if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything,” said Vella.
The proposal would also require certain entities that distribute or communicate health-related information in Illinois to disclose funding sources and provide citations for alleged facts. Organizations that knowingly violate provisions of the act could face penalties under the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.
“There’s been a lot of misinformation not just about vaccines but also just everything else. We’ve seen measles outbreaks which we haven’t seen in many, many years,” said Vella. “The federal government has kind of devalued the value of vaccines.”
Vella said the bill focuses on empowering communities rather than telling people what to believe.
“It’s a lot easier to trust your neighbor, right? You trust your local health department,” Vella said. “All this bill really does is empower the people to understand what’s true and what’s not true on their own.”
The bill would also revise the School Code to require health literacy instruction as part of comprehensive health education.
“We are going to be going into schools and teaching kids, not what’s true and what’s not true, but how they can figure out what’s true and what’s not true,” Vella said. “It’s just a commonsense way of education people across the state.”
State Representative John Cabello (R) opposes the proposal; calling it unnecessary.
“It’s more tax and spend, and democrats trying to spend more of the taxpayer’s dollars for something that’s not needed,” said Cabello.
Cabello said people already have access to information without state involvement.
“You can research all that stuff online without having a state agency having to put this together,” said Cabello. “This is not the state government’s job. I would not support really anything on that. We need to start reducing the size of government. We don’t need to be increasing it.”
Cabello said he does not believe medical misinformation poses a threat to public health.
“I do not in any way, shape or form,” he said. “People are pretty smart and they have the internet, so they can look at it themselves.”
The bill has been filed and will be reviewed by the rules committee in the house and then sent to a committee.
“I’ve talked to some health providers across the state, county health departments, and there’s a lot of interest in this, because a lot of people feel, I think, the same way I do, which is, we want people to be able to have the power to decide for themselves in the right way,” said Vella.
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