Its been almost a year since Instagram pledged to reduce the spread of vaccine-related misinformation on its platform. But today, it continues to do the exact opposite.

When HuffPost created a new Instagram account and searched for the term vaccines on Saturday, almost all of the top results were anti-vax pages. (Searches from other accounts produced the same results.) At the very top was a profile with more than 74,000 followers and posts pushing blatant falsehoods about vaccines and the Wuhan coronavirus . As soon as HuffPost followed that account, Instagram recommended dozens more that, just like it, were promoting dangerous medical misinformation amid a global health emergency .

With its 1 billion users, the role that Facebook -owned Instagram plays in shaping public discourse is not easily overstated. More than one-third of American adults who use the app get news there, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center study . And while it has escaped much of the scrutiny cast upon its parent company and Twitter, Instagram has quietly become a breeding ground for fake news including public health hoaxes.

Vaccines go through rigorous testing and evaluation , have been ruled safe by a long list of independent studies and are often vital for preventing serious diseases. And yet, anti-vaxxers spreading debunked conspiracy theories are still thriving on Instagram, where their content is not only hosted but actively amplified.