Disinformation
Disinformation is deliberately misleading information announced publicly or leaked by a government, intelligence agency, corporation or other entity for the purpose of influencing opinions or perceptions.
Unlike misinformation, which is also a form of wrong information, disinformation is produced by people who intend to deceive their audience.
A group might plant disinformation in reports, in press releases, in public statements or in practically any other routine, occasional or unusual communique. Disinformation can also be leaked, or covertly released to a source who can be trusted to repeat the false information.
A common disinformation tactic is to mix truth, half-truths, and lies. Disinformants sometimes seek to gain the confidence of their audience through emotional appeals or by using semi-neutral language interlaced with threads of disinformation.
"Disinformation is a fact of life in politics. Those who practice politics for a living call it "spin." Honest people call it lying through your teeth." Says Doug Thompson [1]
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When "scientists" and such refer to statistics that indicate people live longer lives than they did in past times, often infant mortality rates are not taken into consideration.
High infant mortality rates can skew the statistical data in a misleading way. Yes, these statistics are "accurate," but they create a false picture of the truth about reasonable life span expectancies, and the causes and effects going into this.
Today, all sorts of heroic efforts are made to enable babies (particularly ones born prematurely) to survive. In the past, they would have died. It is nice that these babies can now be saved, but infant mortality rates will always have a certain skewing effect on the entire facts involved in longevity rates.
It has been said that people live longer today than they did in the past because of the use of pharmaceutical drugs. While this could be true IN SOME INDIVIDUAL CASES, it is also true that if a longevity rate is only 30 or 40 years (in some segment of time and place history), this longevity rate could have been cut in half (or so) simply by a very high infant mortality rate.
Please just remember this the next time you hear the pharmaceutical companies take credit for longer life spans. This is only so true and partly because of the skewing effects of infant mortality rates.
Similarly, pharmaceutical companies take credit for an increased number of cures for childhood cancer; without mentioning the accelerating increase in number of childhood cancer victims. Their cure rate, or percentage cured, may in fact be falling due to the increasing incidence rate.
