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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."
There's hardly a freedom more important than the right to be wrong. The right to hold, discuss, and publish ideas that more people think are downright stupid and dangerous is the core right in a free society. After all, saying and doing what everyone in society thinks is correct needs little protection.
If people want to separate fools from their money on Amazon, that's their clear right. The nice thing is: if a clear bestseller emerges, education can then be focused on debunking that specific work, and have a very broad reach compared to a million stupid misconceptions across the internet.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Actually smoking is a really good comparison because failure to vaccinate harms not just the individual who doesn't have a vaccine but people around them. Here immunity is important https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity.
No.
If innocent children suffer or die because medical advice was not followed, the problem did not solve itself
Adults can decline care for themselves all they want, fine.
But withholding proven preventative care from children should be deemed reckless and punished accordingly.
Just like we punish parents who malnourish their children to death because of their (parents') crazy vegan beliefs.
I don't respond to or upvote ACs
How many people love to write a conspiracy-laden book about evil corporations and doctors, and promise enlightenment by not following that path?
My guess is the latter.
Is that really Amazon's fault that there are more Anti-Vax books than Pro-Vax? My guess is any brick-and-mortar book store would contain the same.
War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery. Welcome to our brave new world where it is 'common sense' to ban everything that doesn't fall in the 'consensus'.
The word "ban" is nowhere in the article.
Your argument seems to be that any discussion whatsoever of what is sold by Amazon can have no purpose other than resulting in a call for banning books. Therefore, even if banning books is not mentioned at all, you will react as if it was a proposal to ban books.
By attempting to shut down discussion of something that you think might lead maybe to somebody expressing an opinion you don't like... you are the example of what you criticize.
Being vaccinated does not 100% protect you from getting sick in every case. Stop perpetuating this stupid nirvana fallacy that you morons like so much.
Under ideal circumstances a vaccine makes you immune. More commonly it gives your immune system a boost, a head start against a disease which can protect you from severe symptoms that leave you mutilated or dead. By extension vaccination reduces the chance that disease spreads by minimizing the time frame in which a carrier is also a vector.
...Also, I will certainly never get a vaccine shot with aluminium or mercury in it.
They stopped using Thimerosal in pediatric vaccines in 2000.
If you want to avoid mercury exposure, don't eat fish.
Everything I've read and heard, the concern is that babies who can't be vaccinated and folks who have compromised immune systems are the ones being impacted by the anti-vaxxers. The most recent articles are the teenagers and young adults who have not been vaccinated are going behind their parents backs to get vaccinated. I've not read about any vaccinated people getting diseases from the non-vaccinated. Even a quick google search shows the same results. It's the folks who aren't vaccinated or who can't get vaccinated who are being impacted by the anti-vaxxers.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
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.
1. No, not everyone who gets the vaccine is immune, generally vaccines have around an 95% success rate.
2. No, not everyone who doesn't get a vaccine did it by choice. Some people with certain allergies can't have certain vaccines.
That's were herd immunity comes in, we are trying to protect THOSE people. By electing to not inoculate your children, you lower the effectiveness of herd immunity by skewing the coverage group in the wrong direction. Unfortunately though, your "choice" can endanger the lives of people around you and your children.
Non medical exemptions are dangerous to the population as a whole and should be banned.
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.
When my youngest son was two weeks old he developed whooping cough while on a trip to visit my parents. I remember him going from slight cough to blue lips in about an hour. I will never forget the desperate trip to the local hospital, the ambulance to the slightly larger regional hospital, and the air ambulance trip to the major center. We were lucky, my son is still with us and healthy today. But it was touch and go.
There is some question of how he contracted it, but still the most likely vector is from someone who was unvaccinated. The church I attended at the time was quite conservative and vaccination conspiracy theories were pretty popular then.
If vaccination conspiracy nuts only hurt themselves, I would tend to agree. But there are many diseases that you can't vaccinate for right away. Plus, remember, it's not the conspiracy nut who is the one hurt in any case. It's the conspiracy nut's innocent children. They don't deserve deadly diseases, or the knowledge that they passed on a lethal disease to an infant.
A theory has a meaning in science and society, and there is no such thing as a anti-vaccination theory, because no evidence has been presented to agree with the hypothesis that vaccinates cause things such as Autism.
THIS!
I've argued with the Anti-Vaxx militants, they are seriously long on opinion and very short on knowledge and caring about anybody including their own children.
Measles is a SERIOUS illness for babies not yet born or to young to be vaccinated. It may not be as serious as it used to be, when it killed 1 in 10K or so, but it can still kill. It still causes serious illness, high fevers, and sends kids to the hospital with frightening frequency. It is VERY easy to transmit and extremely hard to avoid exposure for the unvaccinated.
The problem here is that the Anti-Vaxx lobby have a whole host of "The MMR vaccine causes X" statements which are absolute hogwash. I've heard it causes autism, SIDS and all sorts of childhood illnesses. NONE of these theories are borne out in the scientific studies, none. Yet they keep pushing them, scaring the young impressionable parent who think they are doing right by their kids by refusing the vaccines in their religious like fervor.
The MMR vaccine is highly effective if administered as directed. It is also safe, compared to the alternative.
What's missing here is that most parents don't have any experience with any of these nasty childhood illnesses. The vaccines have been so very effective that nobody remembers what polio was or how unpleasant Measles really is for children. They have no idea what they are avoiding, so the minimal risks associated with the vaccine look huge in comparison.
I wonder if the whole anti-vaxx thing would die on the vine if some illness like Measles was running rampant, kids where routinely getting seriously ill, some where hospitalized and even a few died? I think it would and quick. The Anti-Vaxx Zealots would be relegated to the tin-foil hat conspiracy level and laughed at like the flat earth folks, because THAT's exactly what they really are.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Should a Christian book store be forced to carry Christopher Hitchens or Salman Rushdie books?
Amazon is free to stock and promote what Amazon wants to stock and promote -- the same as any other business. The first amendment protects against government interference in speech -- and it's what Orwell warned us about -- not the ability of a sovereign merchant to choose the products they sell.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
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.
This isn't quite the same issue. The more common reason that people get influenza after being vaccinated is that there is no single influenza virus. Each year, the flu shot includes the strains that medical professionals predict to be the most common, and it's very difficult to get that prediction correct.
So you have to also include the question of how many of those 20% died from an influenza strain that was part of the vaccine that year. It's almost certainly greater than zero since, as you said, no vaccine is guaranteed effective, but it's probably less than all of them.
Measles still has a mortality of 1 in 10k, with 1 in 1k suffering permanent severe effects. And unfortunately I'm not old enough to get vaccinated back when I was a kid, so I went through the whole MMR routine. I survived, as you can see. But I wouldn't wish the experience on anyone. Even if there wasn't a fairly high chance of lasting effects, it's something you should protect your kids from if you can.
Do anti-vaxxers hate their kids that much that they want them to get sick?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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 numbers are from the CDC and are for patients vaccinated for the strains that infected them.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
we measured the total mercury concentration in vegetables and grain crops collected from farms located near two coal-fired power plants. We found that 79% of vegetable samples and 67% of grain samples exceeded the PTWI’s food safety standards
https://www.nature.com/article...
Arsenic in rice is also very common.
While I believe that parents should have the right to choose what is right for their children,
Like genital mutilation ?
Well, a dead kid sure is less work than an autistic kid, I can see their motivation...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The so-called 'religious right' has been selling 'science is of the Devil' for a long time now, because 'knowledge is power' and The Few that hold positions of power within mainstream religion are no different than anyone else who has power: they don't want to give it up, and having people be knowledgeable makes them harder to maintain control over. I wouldn't at all be surprised if mainstream religion has something to do with the anti-vax 'movement'.
I think a more accurate headline would have been "Anti-Vaccination Conspiracy Theories Remain Popular and Lucrative - Amazon Marketplace Reflects This". And, for that matter, it's not limited to anti-vaccination conspiracy theories. Societies have always had problems with people who are all too willing to believe what they want to believe regardless of evidence to the contrary, and others willing to exploit those people for money.
When your mirror shows you something that upsets you, the correct solution is not to try to bend the mirror.
Vaccines are 95ish percent effective (varies by vaccine). And no, that isn't some big new discovery. We have always known that vaccines don't always work. Herd immunity protects the 5%ish where the vaccine just doesn't work.
As well as the immunocompromised and those too young to get the vaccine.
So no, antivaxxers are not just harming themselves....in fact they are usually vaccinated themselves so they're actually harming their children. In addition, there's a lot of other people put at risk when antivaxxers destroy herd immunity.