>> buildina,ving forward, findig solutions, this is abc 7 news. kristen watching "getting answers we talk about experts in the bay area and we get answers in real-time. today is the final workday before a lot of people start traveling for the holidays, before the kids get out of school and all the holiday gatherings get underway. with a spike in clube, covid, and rsv, you want to game plan for minimizing your risk without missing out on all the fun. our special correspondent will be here and we are inviting you to join us in playing two truths and alive. regulars of our program know that that is when he presents us with three statements and we

pick out the one live. today you will actually get to vote. have your device ready. maybe a phone, maybe an ipad. go to abc7news.com along. but first, a discuss medical deepfake information -- misinformation and why you should care about it. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. kristen: annie, you forbes 30 under 34 for the bay area, you are on the list while still in high school, right? annie: that's correct, thank you. kristen: dr. patel and i are shaking in our boots. >> i'm slow clapping. kristen: and you are getting your undergrad and masters at the same time concurrently? annie: yes, that's correct.

kristen: we should leave now. [laughter] >> i'm handing in my microphone, i'm out. kristen: honestly, you were selected for having invented some super cool stuff. i don't want to embarrass you too much and we have a lot to talk about with the deepfakes but i want you to tell us about what you invented. annie: sure. i've been an inventor for years. since i was eight years old and i have continued since then, looking at the problems around me in our everyday world where i thought i could help people to try to fix. i was on the energy list for a few patents. one was for redesigning the microwave oven to work more energy efficiently and thoroughly. the other was a device, a small sized device that could be used in a household to charge batteries used on indoor lighting.

kristen: oh my gosh. [laughter] ok, dr. patel, i'm still speechless. dr. patel: that's awesome. kristen: it's great that you put that brainpower into paying attention to medical deepfakes, that's a great thing. medical deepfake disinformation is coming and we aren't ready. let's start with what is a deepfake. while you talk about that i want to show your article. a few years ago there was a viral one where it looked like nancy pelosi was drunk. explain how this is done. dr. patel: sure -- annie: sure, yeah. i started researching this topic , it came into the public eye in 2017 although the technology has been around since the late 90's. at deepfake is manipulated video, image, media, anything like that, used with the purpose

of trying to deceive someone as an end result. most of the ones you could normally think of, like the nancy pelosi one, those are more public, they go around on social media or are more publicly shared but more recently scientists have been looking more in the direction of what other use cases are, like satellite imagery, which is scary to think about, or thinking about other kinds of deepfakes like medical deepfakes. really seeing how this could impact beyond the silly context or just slurring speech. it can get much worse. kristen: dr. patel, i want you to jump in here. i'm sure that you can anticipate certain types of deke fakes with regards to medical diagnoses that could be harmful not just to the individual but to society at large.

patel: absolutely, like a deepfake of say anthony fauci going on i narrative that's untrue. in the op-ed one of the examples used is manip scans, mri's, manipulating those images with other misinformation out there could be potentially disastrous. someone could be out there manipulating images in order to have chemotherapy when they don't need it or it could be a targeted attack saying here is proof of why this works and why you should buy my product. we have examples of certain people in the health profession industry who spread misinformation and try to gain money from it. ivermectin him people seeing things online, social media, they don't necessarily fact check the source. this is something we will all have to play -- pay close attention to in the following era. kristen: who has got that cute

baby screaming in the background? dr. patel: there are babies screaming in my house right and -- right now. [laughter] kristen: i knew it. if you need to go handle her, please do that. bring her to the screen if you like and bounce her around if that helps. we love all baby alora appearances. annie, what can we do to stop it?bye, dr. patel, come later. what can be done to stop it? annie: it's a great question and it is evolving as the technology evolves, which is extremely fast , making it difficult to come up with a solution to this. i think there needs to be a technology solution in tandem to a policy solution. there is a need for better deepfake detection, automating the techniques that are used at the pixel level, instead of just initial cursory view.

or from the policy standpoint, there really is i think a need for a new classification around what defines a deepfake as well because part of the problem we are facing is certain mediums, different types of social media varying in definition and therefore there is a huge difference between what's allowed and what's not allowed to be posted and what is being shared with the public. some standardization could also help. it's a technology and policy solution in tandem, which can be difficult as the technology advances with ai, as we have seen in the past week with chat gb t, but hopefully there is a tandem solution. kristen: i want to look, medical information being faked could beat potentially dangerous. sometimes it can be used for lighthearted fun. i want to show something from "game of thrones," a deepfake about game of thrones that

illustrates the point. >> let us burn the script of season eight. kristen: altered video snow apologizing for how the series ended. [laughter] i wanted our viewers to see how they can be hard to discern and that was a few years ago and you can kind of tell it didn't match up perfectly but annie, you are in the field studying this and it is getting to the point where it is hard for anyone to discern it. right? annie: yes, for sure. dr. patel: dr. patel, -- kristen: dr. patel, did you have any questions question mark dr. patel: are you -- questions? dr. patel: are you worried about patients in the future, where it is even more burdensome, or will the average consumer be savvy enough? to pick out the deepfakes?

annie: i think it will be more of a burden over time. certain solutions people try to impose, there can be time to flush them out, like having a sort of watermark on different images where you can tell if something has been manipulated or the only way you would be able to post it is if the watermark is in the corner. that's been bounced around but ultimately i think that as viewers in the general public, we have to be much more skeptical, which is a shame. seeing is not necessarily believing anymore. we have to be thinking more intently on what we are viewing. kristen: and already, with the thayer gnosis story, it's been easy for people to be deceived. with a prickle of a finger to get your blood they could tell diseases but what if you had deepfakes supporting any claim out there, right? annie: exactly, it's a huge concern. and i think that if you are able

to generate falsified information that easily, especially because a lot of the technology to do this is becoming more open source. and sometimes that's for an unintentional purpose, open source has a lot of positive to it but if it is used in a malicious way, it can cause problems. kristen: technology itself is not good or people. really interesting conversation, annie. appreciate you joining us. don't go away, dr. patel is sticking around to offer health advice (boy) i think this is going to work... (vo) small businesses like this learning center... (smb) there's only one way to find out. (vo) ...help communities thrive. that's why wells fargo has donated roughly $420

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kristen: all right, we are back

with abc 7 special correspondent dr. patel to talk about how the triple deming is going to be the grinch this holiday season. we are putting you, our smart viewers, to the test, time for a special edition of "two truths and ally." go to abc7news.com/vote to weigh in. which is true in which is false? dr. patel: game show host, awesome. this is worse than the grinch, by far, this triple deming. everyone check out these three to tell us which is not true and they are all very important. a, 90% of u.s. kids have had at least one past covid infection. b, rsv cases are slowing as covid and influence arises. or see, the estimated flu vaccination rate is at 60%, including adults, children, and

pregnant women. which of these is not true? kristen: ok, voting, folks, as we consider that. if you are on your device and are voting. i had ruled out b. looks like the viewers have as well, because they pay attention. i was torn between a and c and i was tempted to go with c being the lie because i thought the vaccination rate might be lower than that but more people are going with a, 60%. i'm going to go with c is the lie. kristen: -- dr. patel: stick with your first instinct, c is the lie. we wish that number was higher. the vaccination rate is under 50%. it's important to remind everyone that the flu shot is designed every single year to

match what scientists predict will be the upcoming strains and the dominant strain right now matches one of the strains of the vaccine, so it is going to be effective and give you a much better chance of staying out of the hospital. a is surprising. it's based on a survey looking at the amount of antibodies that kids have and they are estimating almost 90% of u.s. kids have run into covid at some point. unknown questions there -- which covid did they get, how long does the immunity last. but i think it tells us a lot about what we can expect in terms of policy in the future and paying attention to individual risk as opposed to global federal mandates and b, i hope that rsv continues to decline. influenza and covid are still rising right now and flew hospitalizations over covid hospitalizations, which is alarming, influenza is not slowing down just yet. kristen: that was a good round,

not only because i got it right, by the way. thanks for playing, folks. it seems them -- that more and more parents are reluctant to give their kids a vaccine now. not just covid, but any vaccine. dr. patel: unfortunately. we just look at the covid vaccine but we are still looking at misinformation about vaccines. it's important that we are not -- honest about these surveys to show that kids have run into covid in the past, telling parents that my kid is not going to stay away from covid forever. a lot of kids have already run into it. it's a small minority that hasn't yet had it. it's going to come down to hedging your risks. the second thing that you brought up about vaccinations in general, what's alarming is we have seen these headlines about measles, there was a measles outbreak in ohio.

the majority of those infected kids were unvaccinated. we shouldn't be seeing that in headlines. there has been a vaccine for it since the 1960's but in the new climate, upwards of 20% to 30% of parents are against school vaccination mandates that have been around for a very long time . far longer than the pandemic. there is a shift right now in scientific trust. kristen: but kids have been getting these vaccines for a long time, they are safe, helping us to not worry about things like measles that had been eliminated. well, unlike the past few christmases, this year people are going to gather. they just want to be able to do so safely, minimizing the risk. let's come up with a plan. i want to give "the new york times" some credit, we are calling this our holiday health menu, so let's go ahead and tell the people what this looks like.

does this make sense to you, dr. patel? i avail an booster, pay attention to symptoms, test wisely? does that make sense? dr. patel: definitely. you and i have played this game the last two holiday seasons and yes, we are veterans to keeping your family safe. i think that number one is hands down one of the most important things people should be paying attention to or that they are already doing. you hear people say this like i'm going to be careful, my mother is 90 years older my son has this high risk condition. number one is important. be honest about who's around and who you are going to be seeing. we just got data showing that the bivalent booster is effective at preventing illness in the senior population. as high as 80% effective

compared to the adults that just waited and had nothing else afterwards. covid or not, if you are sick, don't go to the gathering. and test wisely. you know, if you test negative for covid-19, you might have something else. if you test positive, you know what to do. it all depends on testing but to paying attention to what you are testing for and what you will do with the information. i'm rambling now, giving a ted talk, but that's ok. isolating away from others for a time. i will be honest, wearing a mask on an airplane, i'm in the minority of people who do that. ventilation is great not only for covid but for all respiratory viruses. kristen: all right, do those things and hopefully you will be able to enjoy a healthy christmas. don't go away, up next we respond to some fewer tweets as

kristen: dr. patel, talking about medical deepfakes at the top of the show but even without deepfakes there is plenty of misinformation and combating that is why dr. patel wants to respond to some tweets today. can you share the tweets you feel compelled to respond to? dr. patel: absolutely and it's not just at tweets about misinformation, this one is important. as far as monkeypox, middle eastern respiratory system, it's -- covid is the latest pandemic and hostility towards masking and public health organizations, the tweets as we are going to see more pandemics in the past -- then we have in the past and we are not set up right now and a great way for the next one so it is important that we take a look

at ourselves and our hostility towards mitigation measures. look at the fact that the world is becoming more global. we have deforestation. a much easier time to travel around. we are going to see more emerging diseases. there's another respiratory virus swirling around in a vat somewhere. there are references to reports that in the world cup right now that there is a concern about mers. these respiratory viruses, by the way, we have to be prepared. kristen: and hopefully we are more ready for the next one because of what we went through. any others? dr. patel: we can be rapidfire, i have two more. i think again, we go on twitter and we get a pulse of what's happening with what people are thinking. this one is from a colleague of ours, dr. patel, great last name, be real.

hospitalization risk for boosters, 50%. the first robust data to show prescribed additional protection beyond the monovalent series. broader protection. but you know you look at these surveys, for example this one from the kaiser family foundation showing that one out of four people said that they would go out and get it. this is an adults above the age of 65. one third said they didn't know anything about the bivalent booster having any benefit and another third said they didn't think it was worth it. so there definitely is targeted information that needs to get out there and it's beyond just a bivalent rooster. what's going to happen to the fate of the trust in science? it goes back to our first segment about deepfakes, i worry that people are going to use that information and that technology to further their talking point. kristen: all right, one more. dr. patel: one more, again, we

are using these as the headlines , this is from governor desantis of florida, creating a grand jury to investigate cardiac related deaths tied to the mrna vaccine, overseeing the medical establishment. i don't need to rant about this, it basically looks like to a lot of people make things -- mixing politics and science. it's going to happen no matter what we do but yes it's important to have transparency and what people keep forgetting is that scientists have been monitoring cardiac related events to the mrna vaccine. everyone of these is investigated. there's an ocean out there that scientists are ignoring all of these but they are absolutely not. i can tell you firsthand that we take every single side effect seriously. not just for covid but for every vaccine and scientists on both sides of the aisle want to see

more transparency. it's a division in the country where people want to say what their voters want to hear. kristen: before we go, important things to talk about, this one is important to mention coming from a pediatrician, cdc just expanded bmi charts for children . what do they do and why do they do it? dr. patel: simply put, bmi is rough measurement of obesity and there are more factors to it. before it stopped at 37 kids. because of childhood obesity it has gone up. it may go farther than that now so that doctors, pediatricians can actually monitor a child's growth and outcomes and monitor their progress to say you are above 37. it also just once again introduces an important talking point about how dangerous

obesity really is for the overall health of everyone, the number of diseases it increases the risk for and we need more priority of decreasing obesity not just at the individual level but on a public health level as well in terms of things like access to fresh and healthy foods. kristen: thank you for joining us for the half-hour but i don't hear a lura anymore and i hope that you have sooth her to sleep with your talking. dr. patel: i hope so. kristen: thank you, happy holidays to you into you and your wonderful family. dr. patel: happy holidays to you. kristen: be right back.

kristen: thanks so much for tonight, breaking news on former president trump, what could soon be coming, what abc news has learned tonight, and the storm slamming part of the northeast at this hour, and then what's right behind it as we lead up to christmas. first, the breaking headline sources tell abc news the january 6th committee is preparing to refer former president trump to the department of justice to face criminal charges for the attack on the u.s. capitol. jon karl live in washington. also tonight, the powerful nor'easter slamming the northeast at this hour. the winter storm warnings from pennsylvania through new york up to maine, where they're measuring snow in feet. winds gusting to 50 miles per hour, from new york to boston. rob marciano here again tonight. this evening, the case that centered on this issue -- should parents will held