Amazon Finances and Spreads Anti-Vax Disinformation

 

If you're like me and millions of other people you have recently bought something from Amazon. You're also probably not aware that they are a major supporter and enabler of the anti-vax movement.

According to the blog Popular Information, Amazon directly donated more than $40,000 to one of the nation's leading sources of vaccine misinformation, the so-called National Vaccine Information Center. The amount donated has increased each of the last three quarters.

According to an article in the The Guardian, in addition to endorsing and legitimizing the anti-vax movement with these donations, Amazon supports the movement by selling books by anti-vaxxers. It then uses its recommendation algorithm to push more anti-vax books to people who have bought them. 

In September of this year NPR reported that a book by Joseph Mercola was the number one recommendation when they did a search on "COVID-19." In the spring of 2019 the American Medical Association sent a letter to Amazon asking them to stop these practices. I can find no evidence of a response.

But wait, there's more.  Amazon also pays "influencer" anti-vaxxers a commission on products they recommend. So for example, if a COVIDiot like Robert Kennedy Jr. recommends that people take ivermectin horse paste from Amazon instead of getting vaccinated and they buy the stuff,* he gets a cut. 

This looks to me like it could be a main way these grifters support themselves—and support themselves they do. It also means decision makers at Amazon are partly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people who refused to get vaccinated. 

I knew anti-vaxxers write books and I knew Amazon sells books, but I had no I idea they were in bed together like they are. I like buying stuff from Amazon, but I'm going to think twice next time I have a choice to buy something from them that I can get somewhere else.

*In case you were wondering whether Amazon sells ivermectin the answer is yes. Search for ivermectin on their site and you get six pages of results.


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