Search for “vaccines” on Amazon’s bookstore, and a banner encourages shoppers to “learn more” about COVID-19, with

How Amazon became an engine for anti-vaccine conspiracy theories

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2021-06-06 18:00:07

Search for “vaccines” on Amazon’s bookstore, and a banner encourages shoppers to “learn more” about COVID-19, with a link to the Centers for Disease Control. But the text almost vanishes amid the eye-catching book covers spreading out below, many of which carry Amazon’s orange “bestseller” badge.

One top-ranked book that promises “the other side of the story” of vaccine science is #1 on Amazon’s list for “Health Policy.” Next to it, smiling infants grace the cover of the top-selling book in “Teen Health,” co-authored by an Oregon pediatrician whose license was suspended last year over an approach to vaccinations that placed “many of his patients at serious risk of harm.” Another book, Anyone Who Tells You That Vaccines Are Safe and Effective Is Lying, by a prominent English conspiracy theorist, promises “the facts about vaccination — so that you can make up your own mind.” There are no warning notices or fact checks—studies have shown no link between vaccines and autism, for instance—but there are over 1,700 five-star ratings and a badge: the book is #1 on Amazon’s list for “Children’s Vaccination & Immunization.”

Offered by small publishers or self-published through Amazon’s platform, the books rehearse the falsehoods and conspiracy theories that fuel vaccine opposition, steepening the impact of the pandemic and slowing a global recovery. They also illustrate how the world’s biggest store has become a megaphone for anti-vaccine activists, medical misinformers, and conspiracy theorists, pushing dangerous falsehoods in a medium that carries more apparent legitimacy than just a tweet.

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