In a recent revelation, documents presented by the House Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government have shown that the Biden administration pressured Amazon to reduce the visibility of books critical of vaccines during the Covid pandemic. The findings suggest a deliberate effort to suppress dissenting voices regarding vaccine efficacy and safety.
In a series of posts on the social-media platform X, Judiciary Committee Chair Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) provided details on how Amazon compiled a “Do Not Promote” list, which eventually included 43 titles. The published internal Amazon emails revealed that the “impetus for this [was] criticism from the Biden Administration.”
As appears from the emails, the company apparently created a “new [Do Not Promote] class for anti-vax books,” as these were criticized by the Biden administration. The March 4, 2021, email, sent by an Amazon employee whose name is redacted, said that these “sensitive” books, which the company was “giving prominent placement to,” should have been “handled urgently.”
One of the Amazon employees also underscored the urgency of book suppression, pointing out in a March 8, 2021 email that “the next 4 months of the vaccine response/adoption are going to be critical.”
The full list of unfavorable titles was posted here:
Jordan highlighted a couple of examples of books that the Biden administration was critical of and asked Amazon to suppress.
One is titled What are Vaccines? (2019) by Amber Rae Johnson.
According to the description of the book, Johnson tried to address the discrimination against unvaccinated children and families, with the target audience being kids aged five to nine. “I knew I needed to find a way to explain to these children that there is nothing wrong with them,” wrote the author, adding that she hoped to inspire “love and kindness among our younger generations.”
Another disavowed book was an Amazon top-seller, The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child (2011) by Dr. Robert Sears, which is advertised as offering parents “a fair, impartial, fact-based resource from the most trusted name in pediatrics.”
“There is nothing the Biden Admin and the elites hate more than parents making their own decisions about their children’s education, health, and values,” lamented Jordan.
A critical review of 400 “important scientific papers” done by medical research journalist Neil Z. Miller was not meant to be promoted by Amazon algorithms, either.
Besides summaries and critical analysis of vaccine studies regarding their safety and efficacy, Miller “had the audacity to address whether Big Pharma’s funding of research has the potential to create conflicts of interest,” according to Jordan.
Miller’s other books, including Vaccine Roulette: Gambling With Your Child’s Life, Vaccine Safety Manual for Concerned Families and Health Practitioners, Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective?, Vaccines, Autism and Childhood Disorders: Crucial Data That Could Save Your Child’s Life, and Immunization Theory Vs. Reality: Expose on Vaccinations, also made the list.
Notably, a majority of books on the “do not promote” list include those dedicated to childhood vaccines. Among them are Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children, The Autism Vaccine: The Story of Modern Medicine’s Greatest Tragedy, The Vaccine-Friendly Plan: Dr. Paul’s Safe and Effective Approach to Immunity and Health — from Pregnancy Through Your Child’s Teen Years, and Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines — The Truth Behind a Tragedy, among many others.
The emails were obtained from Amazon through a committee subpoena on February 15, 2023.
These revelations, contended Jordan, are just “the tip of the iceberg.” He accused not only Amazon but also platforms such as YouTube and Facebook of succumbing to what he termed “the Biden White House’s censorship campaign.”
Jordan firmly refuted the administration’s stance that the campaign was aimed at combating online disinformation. “This is — and always has been — about suppressing disfavored views, not purported challenges of new technologies,” he asserted.
The committee’s exposé of the “Amazon files” began on February 5, 2024. Jordan took on X to share the email that “indicate that @amazon bowed down to Biden White House pressure to censor BOOKS.”
In a lengthy thread, the representative described the “high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation” stemming from the White House, evidently orchestrated by Andrew Slavitt, a former White House senior advisor for Covid-19 response.
The weaponization committee’s report of May 1, 2024, accused the government “anti-misinformation” initiative of violating the First Amendment, which had the most dire consequences for American people:
The Constitution is not suspended in times of crisis. The First Amendment did not hurt Americans’ lives and health; to the contrary, if the Biden White House and the Biden Administration had abided by the First Amendment, so much needless pain and suffering could have been avoided. Because public health measures could not be fairly debated by the public and assessed on their merits, the Biden Administration and other policymakers imposed public health measures that were [devastating] to schoolchildren, workers, and other Americans around the country.
The report concluded by stressing the need for free and open debate on pressing issues, asserting that “the Biden Administration should have trusted the intelligence of the American people to make up their own minds.”
This controversy echoes earlier revelations from “The Twitter Files,” where Elon Musk, after acquiring Twitter (now X), exposed internal company documents that detailed its content moderation practices under external pressures.
The Biden administration is currently sued by the states of Missouri and Louisiana and individual plaintiffs, mostly renowned scientists such as Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a former Harvard professor of medicine who recently spoke with The New American about the case and the pandemic-related policies of the federal government.
The case Murthy v. Missouri, previously known as Missouri v. Biden, was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court heard in March 2024. This case addresses significant First Amendment issues, focusing on whether the federal government improperly pressured social-media companies to censor and suppress content during the Covid-19 pandemic. The ruling is expected by late June.
