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Anti-Vaccination Conspiracy Theories Thrive on Amazon (cnn.com)
Amid a growing measles outbreak in the United States, the role of powerful tech companies like YouTube and Facebook in spreading vaccine misinformation is under heavy scrutiny. But there is another massive platform offering spurious anti-vaccination content to people seeking information: Amazon, the world's largest online marketplace.
CNN Business: And, asked about it, an Amazon spokesperson only pointed CNN Business to the company's content guidelines page, which says the following: "As a bookseller, we provide our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable. That said, we reserve the right not to sell certain content, such as pornography or other inappropriate content." A recent search for "vaccine" on Amazon yielded a search page dominated by anti-vaccination content. Of the 18 books and movies listed on the search page, 15 contained anti-vaccination content. The first listing was a sponsored post -- that is, an ad for which Amazon was paid -- for the book "Vaccines on Trial: Truth and Consequences of Mandatory Shots" by Pierre St. Clair, which Amazon was also offering for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
UPDATE (3/2/2019): Amazon "has apparently started removing anti-vaccine documentaries from its Amazon Prime Video streaming service," CNN reports.
However, "a number of anti-vaccine books were still available for purchase on Amazon.com when CNN Business reviewed search results on Friday afternoon, and some were still being offered for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers."
UPDATE (3/2/2019): Amazon "has apparently started removing anti-vaccine documentaries from its Amazon Prime Video streaming service," CNN reports.
However, "a number of anti-vaccine books were still available for purchase on Amazon.com when CNN Business reviewed search results on Friday afternoon, and some were still being offered for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers."
No, herd immunity is not just unvaccinated people getting protected, although it includes that category. And unvaccinated people are not just adults who have chosen not to vaccinate themselves despite being able to be vaccinated. People are unvaccinated because they are newborn babies, are immunocompromised eg are being treated for childhood cancers, are elderly, etc etc.
Did you really think your argument was even vaguely compelling? You sound like someone claiming a plane couldn't possibly fly because it weighs more than air -- just laughably naive and ignorant of the basic science.
No vaccine is 100% effective, and none advertise that they are. Annually, about 20% of flu deaths in otherwise healthy children (so kids without other conditions that would make them particularly vulnerable) in the US are children who were properly vaccinated. Then there are people who cannot, for legitimate reasons, get vaccinated. So no, it's not just people who choose not to that are protected by herd immunity.
As for vaccines not working, when was the last time you heard about polio epidemics in western countries? Measles was all but eliminated in the US before the anti-vax movement. It's still early days but we are also already seeing positive results from HPV vaccination campaigns as well. Going back to my first statistic, around 80% of the deaths in healthy children from the flu each year is in non-vaccinated kids. 4 out of every 5.
It's a bold face lie to say vaccines do not work.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Physician here. Arguably, no intervention is health care is 100% effective.
It is maddening that anti-vaxxers say vaccines are not 100% effective so they are ineffective. It is flawed logic. Effective means it makes a difference when studied in a large group of people. Not effective means it has no effect on a large study group.
Many interventions in health care have numbers needed to treat (NNT) in the 10 or even 100 range to create one positive outcome. These are effective interventions. Vaccines are highly effective compared to most other interventions done in healthcare. Finding effective interventions in health care is hard.
On the other hand, antivaxxers and the like often push vitamins, herbs, adjustments, accupuncture and all sorts of other interventions that have no proven efficacy or even have been proven to have no efficacy (NNT is infinity!). There logic is literally backwards.
The health of children is at stake.
355 children in Sweden who got the H1N1 vaccine (Pandemrix), have since been diagnosed with narcolepsy. (the number may be higher now) This has been judged to be a direct result of the vaccine. Those 355 individuals can now never have a driver's license, or a normal job.
Sweden had to formulate a special law to give each up to 10 million SEK (1.1 million USD or so) in restitution.
There's a reason why some people are against vaccines.
The US has had the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) since 1988. So far, out of 3,454,305,356 vaccinations, there have been 4,153. That's 1.2 per 1 million vaccinations. Surprisingly, tetanus vaccines have the highest incidence rate of compensation. To win compensation, the claimant must present a biological theory of harm, demonstrate a logical sequence of events connecting the vaccine to the injury, and establish an appropriate time frame in which injury occurred.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
There is always a risk with any medical intervention, but with the vast majority of vaccines, it's often much lower than the risk of injury from the disease you are vaccinating against. Let's take this case. Pandemrix was given to about 30 million people in Europe in 2009. Of those, around 1,300 developed narcolepsy. And yes, there is a real link between the vaccine and those people getting the disorder. This was a new vaccine created to address the H1N1 strain that year and only used in the European market. It was discovered that the vaccine (probably due to a new adjunct used to stimulate the immune system) caused some people to form antibodies that could bind to neurotransmitter receptor sites in the brain that affect our wakefulness. So around 0.004% of those who received it had this reaction.
That same year in Europe, there were around 500,000 confirmed H1N1 infections, and about 2,900 deaths, or 0.6% of those infected. Two orders of magnitude higher than the rate of vaccine induced narcolepsy.
So yes, incidence like this will happen, it's unfortunate and everything that can be done should be done to prevent it. However, medicine is never going to be an exact science, things will go wrong along the way. People need to weigh the relative risks though.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.