Amazon reportedly pulls anti-vaccine documentaries

Amazon has reportedly pulled documentaries about the anti-vaccination movement from its streaming service shortly after Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) pressed the tech company to stop allowing the “harmful” content.

Anti-vaccine movies entitled “We Don’t Vaccinate!” “Shoot ‘Em Up: The Truth About Vaccines,” and “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” were previously available for Amazon Prime subscribers, CNN Business reported. Those titles were listed as “currently unavailable” on Saturday morning.

The Hill has reached out to Amazon for comment.{mosads}

News of the anti-vaccination movies apparently being removed from the streaming service came days after a CNN report highlighted the various anti-vaccine content available on the platform.

However, several anti-vaccine books were still available to purchase on Amazon.com Friday afternoon — including several available for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

Titles still listed include “Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies: 400 Important Scientific Papers Summarized for Parents and Researchers” and “The Vaccine-Friendly Plan: Dr. Paul’s Safe and Effective Approach to Immunity and Health — from Pregnancy Through Your Child’s Teen Years.” 

Schiff sent a letter addressed to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Friday urging the company to block “harmful” content from being allowed to “thrive and spread.”

“There is strong evidence to suggest that at least part of the source of this trend is the degree to which medically inaccurate information about vaccines surface on the websites where many Americans get their information, among them Amazon,” Schiff wrote to Bezos.

The California Democrat wrote that Amazon’s algorithms may be pushing recommendations for anti-vaccine or vaccine-skeptical books and movies to people to people who are not actively seeking them out.

“As the largest online marketplace in the world, Amazon is in a unique position to shape consumption,” Schiff wrote. “Yet the algorithms which power social media platforms and Amazon’s recommendations are not designed to distinguish quality information from misinformation or misleading information and, as a result, harmful anti-vaccine messages have been able to thrive and spread.” 

Various online platforms have attempted to curb anti-vaccine content amid an ongoing measles outbreak across New York, Washington and Texas predominately amid communities with higher populations of unvaccinated people.

Pinterest recently announced that it would not return results for vaccine-related searches.

“It’s better not to serve those results than to lead people down what is like a recommendation rabbit hole,” said Ifeoma Ozoma, Pinterest’s public policy and social impact manager. 

YouTube also announced it will demonetize videos that promote misinformation about vaccines and vowed to stop recommending those videos to users.

Facebook has said it is reviewing its options.