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Anti-vaccination books are being sold on Amazon and the Waterstones and Foyles websites, amid requests for warnings on items to combat the spread of misinformation.
Best-selling books on Amazon include Anyone Who Tells You Vaccines Are Safe and Effective Is Lying, and Vaccine-nation: Poisoning the Population, One Injection at a Time.
The number of customer reviews and book ratings like these show that there has been a huge increase in purchases since the pandemic began.
Sky News also found that Amazon, Waterstones, and Foyles are selling texts that spread other medical misinformation from conspiracies around the world. coronavirus to deny that AIDS is a contagious disease.
In the UK, more than 20 million doses of vaccines have been administered as part of efforts to defeat COVID-19, but concerns remain that misinformation is preventing some people from having the jab.
Shadow Health Minister Alex Norris told Sky News: “Vaccinating our population is a huge priority and it is very sad to see these things available so free.
“We expect retailers to act responsibly and consider whether they want to be associated with such products and whether they want to be seen as benefiting from those products.”
Five of the 10 bestsellers in the childhood vaccination category were anti-vaccine texts, as seen in this recent screenshot. Photo: Amazon
Sale of anti-vaccination books
Searching for the term “vaccine” in Amazon Books brings up a link to the government advice on coronavirus, as well as other legitimate texts.
But it also brings books against vaccination, with texts like Raising A Vaccine-Free Child appearing on the first page of results.
Anti-vaccine books also regularly appear in the top 10 best sellers in the children’s immunization category on Amazon.
A recent screenshot taken by Sky News shows the controversial books that make up half of the top 10 best sellers in the Vaccination and Immunization for Children category.
One of the most popular books of that genre is Anyone Who Tells You Vaccines Are Safe and Effective Is Lying, which is also available on the Foyles website.
The author of that book, Vernon Coleman, stridently denies that he is against vaccines or that he publishes medical misinformation, and claims that he is publishing truths that are being suppressed.
Many of the anti-vaccination books have mostly positive reviews.
For example, more than 84% of the 1,263 reviews of Coleman’s book are five stars. About 1,000 of those top reviews were left by verified buyers.
There were only 61 reviews left before March 2020, indicating that purchases increased after the pandemic began.
Not all reviews are positive, with a recent verified review giving it a star, saying the reviewer was disappointed after looking for a reliable vaccine book and had bought it because it had a “high rating.”
Amazon and Foyles do not provide annotations to suggest that Coleman’s book contains disputed claims.
This lack of a “health warning” is something Norris has asked for.
He told Sky News: “This is anti-vax content. Much of it has been strongly rejected and discredited.
“I don’t think burning the books or throwing them all away is a solution because I actually think the mystique will grow into that. But instead, we would really appreciate a sense of health warnings provided when we start to see them emerge online.”
Calls have been made to put warnings in the disinformation books. Photo: Amazon
Medical misinformation and COVID conspiracy
Books by the late Andreas Moritz titled Heal Yourself with Sunlight; Cancer is not a disease, it is a healing mechanism; and a text on AIDS denial Ending the AIDS Myth can be found on the websites of all three retailers.
Amazon also sells its anti-vaccine book Vaccine-nation: Poisoning The Population, One Shot At A Time, one of the best sellers in the children’s category.
COVID conspiracy books are also being sold.
The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Big Reboot, Shutdowns, Vaccine Passports, and New Normal bills itself as exposing how coronavirus data has been “widely manipulated and misrepresented” and states that “major security questions have left with no answer “about the vaccine.
A book denying that AIDS is contagious is available to buy at Waterstones and other retailers. Image: Waterstones
An anonymous representative for the author said they deny that the book is fostering misinformation and accused Sky News of executing “public relations messages from the pharmaceutical industry.”
Advocates for free speech say that any calls for a ban on these books must be resisted.
Toby Young, Secretary General of the Free Speech Union, told Sky News: “The problem with putting a limit on free speech and saying ‘we’re going to ban people from saying or writing things that are potentially harmful’ is that word potentially is quite vague.
“If you grant yourself that right, you are granting yourself the right to prohibit almost anything.”
He added: “The second [issue] that is, who defines what is harmful. We think there is a scientific consensus around things like COVID vaccines, but in reality the science is constantly developing and new information is coming to light. “
The Amazon algorithm
Amazon has previously taken action against controversial coronavirus products sold on its platform, including blocking products for false claims.
However, research from the University of Washington School of Information found that 10% of vaccine-related search results on Amazon led to products promoting misinformation.
Scholars Prerna Juneja and Tanu Mitra also found that Amazon ranked misinformation search results above search results that debunked misinformation.
Mitra, an assistant professor, said: “It was surprising that the platform didn’t really take much into account about ensuring that people actually get accurate information when looking for vaccines or health-related content.”
Amazon marketing is also set up to create a “filter bubble” effect, meaning when someone clicks on, for example, an author’s anti-vaccine book, other authors show them advertisements for other anti-vaccine books. available on the website.
The Amazon algorithm offers you suggestions based on what a user does, including misinformation. Photo: Amazon
What are the authors and retailers saying?
All the authors of the texts included in this report deny that they are spreading disinformation or are anti-vaccines.
In response to our findings, Waterstones and Foyles said that selling a book does not mean the company approves of its content, while Amazon said it encourages customers to read official sources of information and will remove any product that violates its guidelines.
