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3. The Greeks Are Injecting Themselves With HIV To Claim Benefits

This story was a flash in the pan last November, but what a flash. Exposing the idiocy of tabloid reporting online and on certain news programs, as well as in the social media habits of a shocking number of ordinary people, this was one of those moments when you really, really wish you could be in the room when certain people found out how dumb they were. The World Health Organisation had issued a report last September on social and economic factors and the health care issues involved in Greece, part of which stated that half of new HIV infections were self-inflicted to obtain monetary benefits. The report went wide a month later, and everyone and their mother jumped all over it€ but not to query the findings with WHO and ask for the data that backed up this incredible statement. No, to condemn the Greeks and the immorality of socialised medicine. WHO immediately issued a partial retraction, at first attempting to suggest that it had been a proofreading/editing error, and that they€™d meant to say that half of new HIV infections were via needles and a few of those were from people welfare shopping. Later that same day, WHO was admitting that there wasn€™t even sufficient evidence in their data to suggest that. They€™d just heard a couple of stories that someone had heard of someone who€™d done it. Someone had clearly written up the report from someone else€™s notes, while asleep, and possibly on drugs. WHO€™s embarrassment, sadly, was shared by half the world€™s irresponsible tabloid media, and by every clueless muppet that shared the story on social media. That wasn€™t you, right? Good.