Self-published ebooks spread fear, few facts on Ebola
The age of ebooks and instant self-publishing has empowered thousands of novelists to profit from their imagination’s output. But the story isn’t so positive when it comes to self-published, non-fiction books around scary topics like the current Ebola outbreak.
According to some top-selling ebooks in Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle store, for example, the Ebola virus is spreading like wildfire across the United States, can be transmitted in the air, can be warded off by vitamins and may be spread intentionally as a plot by the government.
Those outlandish claims are not true, and they’re commonly repeated in a bevy of ebooks self-published by "experts" seeking to profit from Ebola fears. The Washington Post reviewed 84 recently published ebooks about ebola and found almost all “contain information that’s either wildly misleading or flat-out wrong.”
Ebook publishing has become a $3 billion a year market, with estimates that self-published authors bring in 5% to 20% of those sales. Amazon offers self-published authors a 70% royalty rate for ebooks priced under $10, a cut that has encouraged some authors to throw up half-baked and unsubstantiated offerings whenever a crisis hits the news.
The 2014 outbreak in Africa, while having killed fewer than 3,500 people thus far, is still the largest in history, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And this outbreak included the first travel-associated case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States, after a man arrived in Dallas having contracted the disease while in West Africa.
In the 99 cent ebook “EBOLA: The Last Resort: How A Homemade Vaccine Could Save Your Life,” the authors explain “a method to produce your own last-resort Ebola vaccine from home using little more than household items, boiling water, and an open fire.”
Such nonsense prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to issue a warning this summer. “There are no approved vaccines, drugs, or investigational products specifically for Ebola available for purchase on the Internet," the agency said. "By law, dietary supplements cannot claim to prevent or cure disease.”
Spreading tales of secret cures or strategies to ward off Ebola isn’t just misleading. It can also be deadly. In Nigeria, two people died after drinking salt water on the basis of false rumors about its Ebola-fighting qualities, according to the World Health Organization.
“Another source of public misunderstanding, especially in affected areas, comes from rumours on social media claiming that certain products or practices can prevent or cure Ebola virus disease,” the group said in a recent warning against Ebola misinformation. “Decades of scientific research have failed to find a curative or preventive agent of proven safety and effectiveness in humans, though a number of promising products are currently under development.”
Fear mongering is a common theme, as well. “Let me state that again -- in the next 24 months the number of humans effected by and infected with Ebola could be more than 6 billion,” claims the ebook “Ebola Survival Guide 2015: 10 Things you Must Know to Survive the Coming Ebola Outbreak!” Experts say there’s virtually no chance of such a rapid outbreak since the disease is only spread via contact with bodily fluids and is not communicable until symptoms are manifest in an infected individual.
Other ebooks on the subject may be less dangerous but not worth the cover price. The 31-page, double spaced ebook “Ebola: The Ebola Survival Guide” costs $2.99 but contains little more information than a reader could learn perusing the CDC and WHO web sites about the virus.
Amazon's guide for Kindle "content quality" does not deal directly with misinformation. A section on wrong content notes: "Books with wrong content are always removed from sale. Wrong content occurs when a customer receives something other than what is advertised."
The company didn't respond to a request for comment.
To be sure, ebooks are hardly the only source of misinformation about Ebola. New York newspapers screamed headlines about an Ebola victim in the city in August. Two days later, city officials said the man was not infected. And real estate tycoon Donald Trump spread fear with few facts on an appearance on Fox News this week. And even the big, national newspapers go overboard sometimes.
All that fear-mongering and incorrect information has left Americans with many misperceptions about Ebola. More than two-thirds of Americans believe Ebola spreads “easily” and 39% are concerned about a large outbreak in the country, according to a poll taken in August by the Harvard School of Public Health and SSRS. And 33% believe there is an effective medicine to treat infected patients – also not true.
