Amazon search boosts anti-vax books

SEATTLE — As vaccine misinformation has prompted some to say they will refuse to be inoculated against the coronavirus, the world’s largest online retailer remains a hotbed for anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, according to a new study by University of Washington researchers.

Amazon’s search algorithm boosts books promoting false claims about vaccines over those that debunk health misinformation, the researchers found — and as customers engage with products espousing bogus science, Amazon’s recommendation algorithms point them to additional health misinformation.

Amazon is a “marketplace of multifaceted health misinformation,” wrote co-authors Prerna Juneja, a Ph.D. student at UW’s Information School, and professor of social computing Tanu Mitra in the new paper, which will be presented at a conference on human-computer interaction in May.

The top eight search results Thursday afternoon for the phrase “vaccine” in Amazon’s online bookstore, for instance, were vaccine denialist tomes — including books like “Anyone Who Tells You Vaccines Are Safe and Effective is Lying,” by the British conspiracy theorist Vernon Coleman, and “The Vaccine-Friendly Plan,” a book purporting to show a nonexistent causal relationship between vaccination and autism co-authored by Oregon physician Paul Thomas.

The Oregon Medical Board last year suspended Thomas’ license for misleading parents about vaccine safety and failing to adequately vaccinate patients, including a child who later contracted tetanus and was hospitalized for 57 days.

“This book confirmed everything I have suspected about vaccines,” one verified purchaser commented earlier last week below Coleman’s book, which is sold by Amazon.com. “Read this book!”

In the context of the ongoing mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign, “battling against anti-vax misinformation has never been more important,” Juneja said in an interview Thursday. “This is the most urgent time.”

Amazon provides “customers with access to a variety of viewpoints. We’re committed to providing a positive customer experience and have policies that outline what products may be sold in our stores,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “Our shopping and discovery tools are not designed to generate results oriented to a specific point of view and we are always listening to customer feedback.”

Amazon recently added a banner linking to the federal government’s fact page on COVID-19 vaccines above results for searches with the keyword “vaccine.”