Medical conspiracy theories through the ages

News archive

COVID conspiracies PM 23/04/20

“There are those with an interest in wild and wacky conspiracy theories. They include utterly unsupported claims that the virus is a result of 5G exposure, a mass depopulation project or a ploy to vaccinate people with a tracking microchip; there are many more besides.”

Social media 5G 13/05/20

 “As in other crises and debates social media has enabled false claims and conspiracy theories to race around the world.”

Zoe Ferguson: Since the outbreak of COVID-19, people around the world have been trying to answer the question - where did it come from? But this isn’t the first time people have turned to conspiracy theories in an effort to explain a medical mystery. Hello, I’m Zoe Ferguson and in this program, we’ll be looking at the history of various health and disease-related conspiracy theories, and what connects them through the ages. So what exactly is a conspiracy theory?

 Joe Uscinski: A conspiracy theory is a theory in which a small group of powerful people are working in secret for their own benefit and against the common good. And they're doing it in a way that undermines our bedrock ground rules against the widespread use of force and fraud. Now, interestingly, conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories and not conspiracies, because the appropriate knowledge building bodies haven't determined that these theories are, in fact, true. 

Zoe Ferguson: That’s Joe Uscinksi.

Joe Uscinski:  I am a professor of political science at the University of Miami. 

Zoe Ferguson: He’s also the coauthor of American Conspiracy Theories and editor of Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them.

Joe Uscinski: There are numerous conspiracy theories about health, and they've been around for a long, long time, particularly in the United States. There's always been this feeling that there are secret cures out there that are being hidden by either the government or by pharmaceutical companies. There are views that there are natural cures out there that are really cheap, but they are being hidden because the medical industry would much rather sell us much more toxic but also more expensive, quote unquote cures.

Zoe Ferguson: Despite popular belief, conspiracy theories aren’t new. They've been with us ever since humans started wondering about the world around them. But the first record we have of a health-related conspiracy theory takes place in Ancient Rome.

Victoria Pagan: In 331 BCE, before the common era in the city of Rome, we're told that citizens were dying of a plague.

Zoe Ferguson: That’s Dr Victoria Pagan

Victoria Pagan: I teach at the University of Florida in the Department of Classics. And one of my main areas of research is conspiracy and conspiracy theory and the ancient Roman world.

Zoe Ferguson: The historian who recorded the story of this plague in 331 BCE was named Livy

Victoria Pagan: He says that I'm about to tell you a terrible story. I wish it weren't true. This is the sort of thing that I really don't like to report. So you get this very reluctant sense from the historian about this plague and leading citizens were dying, and they were showing symptoms of this same sort of problem and they were dying and they took it to be a plague until a slave woman came forward and said that she had information about why this was occurring, and she said that she knew that women of a class above her not slave women, but women of a property class were preparing poisons and that if they would follow her, she could bring them to the women poisoners and bring this problem to light.

Zoe Ferguson: And so, the officials go with her...

Victoria Pagan: And she brings them to the women that she said were preparing the poisons. So two of the women said, no, no, these aren't poisons. These are actually very helpful remedies. There's no problem here. So the informant said that if they're so helpful, you should drink them and when they drink them, they died. And they were then shown to be part of this ring of women that were preparing poisons. And according to our historian, there were about one hundred and seventy women that were involved in this poisoning ring. So this should bring an end to the problem, and they were brought together and punished. But just to make sure the Roman officials said we need to take one more precaution, which is an old practice of what they call driving in the nail or affixing a nail. And this was a very ancient practice that was meant to ward off insanity and madness and derangement that would come over the people. So they elected just for the moment, a dictator because Rome didn't keep dictators around. But when they needed one, they elected one. So they elected a dictator to drive in the now, and he drove in the nail. And that, according to Livy, is the end of the story. He drove in the nail, who gave up his dictatorship and life went on as normal.

Zoe Ferguson: And we can draw a thread from Ancient Rome to today - and that’s why conspiracy theories are created in the first place

Victoria Pagan: At the root of any conspiracy theory is an absolute abhorrence of the possibility, even the remote possibility, that we are at the mercy of chance or of fate, and that sometimes bad things just happen, and that rather than understand it that way, we try to find reasons. So always driven by a deep desire to have a reason so that we can feel more in control of our circumstances. And so it's much easier to find a reason for something in a group of people that are basically marginalised, whether it's by status, class, gender, race, whatever. Anybody who's marginalised can then become a target for the explanation that we seek that would make us feel safer than if we were simply at the mercy of chance. 

Zoe Ferguson: Fast forward to the 1300s and we see the same thing happening.

Victoria Pagan: Part of the explanations that were put forth for the plague in the 14th century were that Jews were poisoning wells, and this was part of the roaring anti-Semitism at the time that that was already alive and well in the community. But then, with the plague made it very easy to say, Well, here's a group of people that are responsible for this, and it was done. It was very easy to do because it was already a group that was being targeted.

Zoe Ferguson: This pattern repeats itself through the ages - during times of fear, disease, and uncertainty, people strive to find answers ... and in that process, can find consolation in conspiracy theories. And we’ve seen this since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.

Joe Uscinski: There have been many conspiracy theories about COVID-19.

Zoe Ferguson: That’s Joe Uscinski again.

Joe Uscinski: When the pandemic first started those tended to take on one of two strands, and the first was that the pandemic wasn't real and it was being exaggerated for political purposes. In the United States, that largely meant that the pandemic was the Democrats' new hoax, which is being used to attack President Trump during an election year. And the other strand of COVID-19 conspiracy theory involved it being a bioweapon. The idea that it was purposely deployed to harm people for some clandestine reason.

Zoe Ferguson: And the percentage of Americans who believe that Covid was deliberately created to harm us is surprisingly, and shockingly, high.

Joe Uscinski: The idea that COVID is some form of bioweapon that was either purposely deployed or purposely created on our surveys, we get about 30 percent of Americans agreeing with that. With the idea that COVID is being exaggerated for political purposes again, we get around 30 percent of Americans agreeing,

Zoe Ferguson: The Wuhan lab leak theory is the most recent example of bioweapon-related conspiracy theories. These theories have roots that reach back to the mid-20th Century when the Cold War was raging, says historian of medicine and quarantines, Dr Peter Hobbins

Peter Hobbins: That Cold War, of course, involved nuclear weapons again, many of which we've tended to forget about. But there were also significant developments in biological warfare at that time, and by biological warfare, I mean, the deliberate release of potentially infectious agents and also the deliberate manipulation of infectious agents to make them deadlier, more easy to spread. None of those concerns have entirely gone away. I think, you know, we forget about the Cold War, but some of those facilities and some of those feelings are still there. And I think part of the response to COVID has been, you know, a concern here in Australia, but also in the US about the growing global economic and cyber power of China. And I think tied up in some of those fears about the growing dominance of one part of the world over the other is a concern that there were some bio weapons being developed in China, whether for research purposes only or for possible deployment.

Zoe Ferguson: Bioweapon-related conspiracy theories circulated during the 1980s and 90s in relation to HIV AIDS. The conspiracy theory claimed that HIV was an artificial virus created by America’s Central Intelligence Agency - the CIA - to kill African-Americans, or that its cure was being withheld.

Belief in AIDS conspiracy theories is highly racialized. As early as 1990, a New York Times CBS poll found that 10 percent of black New Yorkers believed it was true that “the virus that causes AIDS was deliberately created in a laboratory in order to infect black people.” That's compared to 1 percent of white New Yorkers. And according to a 2009 survey of young adults in Cape Town, South Africa, 16 percent of black respondents agreed that “AIDS was invented to kill black people” and “created by scientists in America”.

Joe Uscinski says these beliefs impact testing rates and protective measures.

Joe Uscinski: So there were a number of studies done of AIDS conspiracy theories back in the 1990s, and it was fairly clear that people who held conspiracy theories about aids were less likely to want to get tested or engage in health protective behaviours. So these beliefs were associated with dangerous behaviours. And that's the case outside of the United States, too. I mean, it is estimated, particularly in Africa, that these beliefs led to perhaps hundreds of thousands of unnecessary early deaths because people were taking cues from political leaders who are claiming that AIDS could be cured by vitamins and massage and that the pills that could stave off AIDS were actually part of a Western conspiracy. So these beliefs do play a role in the treatment.

Zoe Ferguson: Dr Faye Belgrave is a Professor in Health Psychology at the Virginia Commonwealth University. She says that historical mistrust in authority is at the heart of African Americans believing in HIV AIDS-related conspiracy theories.

Faye Belgrave: It's really related to the notion of mistrust in the medical system and a history in this country where black people have been subject to racism and discrimination because of being black. So given the history of systemic and institutional racism and medical experiments and other kinds of atrocities that have been experienced by African-Americans, it's not surprising that there would be some sense of conspiracy, the fact that the government wants to systematically in some way hurt black people through HIV.

Zoe Ferguson: And she points out that often those who believe in these theories are more vulnerable.

Faye Belgrave: So people who are most vulnerable, unfortunately, tend to be less educated, oftentimes don't have access to preventative information and messages about the importance of HIV testing and engage in preventative behaviour. So the same kinds of variables that impact the fact that people will believe in conspiracy also is linked to lower access, lower knowledge to get to the preventive kinds of programmes and messages. So I think these will be the more vulnerable people in a population.

Zoe Ferguson: This is a pattern observed by many experts, says Dr Claire Hooker - a senior lecturer in Health and Medical Humanities at the University of Sydney.

Claire Hooker: People who have less social advantages shown thus far a higher rate to the degree that we can identify the uptake of such misinformation. And that is greatly concerning. Inequality makes their bodies more likely to be negatively hit by a disease and to have worse outcomes. It means their economic conditions mean that they're less likely to be able to avoid the disease, either by being able to refrain from work or to be able to be in living conditions that allow them to not spread it further in their home environment. And they have long, long, deeply entrenched histories of bad experiences from public health policy and from health services themselves that will make them far less likely to have any trust in those institutions whatsoever. The basis of being able to successfully control and prevent pandemics is to reduce inequality in your society.

Zoe Ferguson: You’re listening to Radio National’s Rear Vision with Zoe Ferguson And in this program we’re looking at the history of health and disease related conspiracy theories from Ancient Rome to today. As we’ve heard, fears that a shadowy group of people are deliberately spreading disease have been with us for a long time.  New technologies have often been a lightning rod for such concerns.

Back in 2019, lecturer in psychology at La Trobe University Dr Mathew Marques surveyed a thousand people about their level of belief in various conspiracy theories. Respondents were asked whether they believed that the Australian government was covering up known ill effects of the new 5G technologies.

Mathew Marques: And so our research suggested that about 20 per cent agreed with that. And you know, this seemed reasonably high. But we also asked these kind of longstanding medical conspiracy theories around water fluoridation and the idea that fluoride was being used in water supplies to dim the minds of ordinary Australians and make them easier to control something which on the surface, you would think this sounds pretty bonkers. But something where about one in 10 people tended to agree with that statement. Now, whether it's 5G or maybe 10 or so years ago, 4G, or even 100 years ago, AM Radio, you can find historical reports where public is wary of new technologies and, you know, potential hazards or dangers of these sorts of things. And so often people are responding and reporting on these conspiracy beliefs as a way to try to make sense of what's happening in society and in their lives, and not necessarily because they have knowledge or evidence that supports these specific beliefs.

Zoe Ferguson: Joe Uscinski agrees. He analysed letters to the editor of The New York Times from 1890 to 2010, to see when and why allegations of conspiracy cropped up.

Joe Uscinski: And what was interesting with these letters was that over the course of a century, people had expressed conspiracy theories about all sorts of different things. And when you go through history, there's all sorts of these little conspiracy theories out there. So it's not a phenomenon that's confined to just big events like coronavirus or assassinations or moon landings. It's something that people engage in to try to explain a whole range of phenomena. And it's not just about particular big events, it's about circumstances that we encounter in our daily lives. So in that sense, conspiracy theorising isn't so much about the theories themselves, but much more about these worldviews that we have, that we apply to the world around us that help us interpret that world.

Zoe Ferguson: From letters in the 19th century to Tweets today, how these theories are spread has evolved, and so has our understanding of why they’re shared. Mathew Marques again.

Mathew Marques: The advent of social media hasn't necessarily increased conspiracy theories, per se. That may certainly have made them more visible for people to take part in or to kind of go out and search for them. So more recently, there's some emerging research coming out to suggest that people will share things despite understanding that they are not accurate. And one of the motives may be that people are sharing conspiracy theories and other forms of misinformation as a way to remain and stay connected with others. Certainly, there's a recent study that suggests that people will trade off this accuracy for the social motive of connecting and belonging to a group.

Zoe Ferguson: Joe Uscinski argues that social media has provided a new platform but that it hasn’t led to a rapid rise of conspiracy theories

Joe Uscinski: And of all the beliefs I've been polling on, none of them have increased when I've gone back and re-polled over and over and over again. So what we found is that Americans either believed conspiracy theories about it when it first started, or they didn't. And it doesn't seem to be the case that these ideas are spreading everywhere and convincing everyone in their path. There's just no evidence that that's happening.

Zoe Ferguson: But social media disinformation can impact public health outcomes, like vaccination rates.

Helen Petousis-Harris: So countries like Romania have an enormous problem with disinformation on social media. And you can see that reflected in the very low vaccine uptake.

Zoe Ferguson: That’s Dr Helen Petousis-Harris.

Helen Petousis-Harris: I'm an associate professor at the University of Auckland. And I'm a vaccinologist. So my main areas of interest are vaccine effectiveness, vaccine safety.

Zoe Ferguson: She says the conspiracy theories about Covid-19 vaccines are nothing new.

Helen Petousis-Harris: COVID vaccine myths are actually very much in line with the myths that we've observed arising from vaccines through the ages, so going right back to the 19th century. So in some ways, nothing changes. So there are a lot of themes that emerge. For example, the idea that the vaccines containing things that are somehow toxic or poisonous or mysterious. And an example of that would be something that's going to change your genes or turn you into a magnet. That's a common one or even put some sort of tracking microchip in you. I think we're seeing ideas that the vaccine was rushed and therefore we don't know much about it. That's another thing that probably comes in to under those ideas that there was like a conspiracy between the government and the Big Pharma. It's a money making exercise, and they whipped this up really quickly. So those are just some examples of the things that come through that a fairly kind of consistent with the arguments we've seen across the ages.

Zoe Ferguson: The first instance of a vaccine conspiracy theory dates back to the late 18th century, when a British doctor named Edward Jenner thought of a way to immunise people against smallpox. Peter Hobbins again.

Peter Hobbins: He'd noticed that women, particularly who had developed the disease cowpox, which just basically led to sores on their hands, appeared to be immune from the disease smallpox. So he deliberately infected a child with the disease cowpox and exposed them to smallpox. And that boy seemed to survive. So very rapidly in those last few years of the 18th century, Jener started to cultivate and spread this mild disease cowpox as what he called vaccine matter. It was called vaccine because it came from the French, La Vache or the cow. And he basically encouraged people right around the world. And then he developed many advocates who also furthered this technique to insert this material into their bodies. So it was hailed as a great medical breakthrough. But it was still also a cause of concern for many people because this was a new idea. It was a new technique to introduce foreign material into your body with one disease in order to try to prevent another disease.

Zoe Ferguson: This marked the beginning of what we now term ‘vaccine hesitancy’. People had religious concerns about this, and personal concerns for two main reasons...

Peter Hobbins: One was around their liberties and the fact that they wanted to maintain control over their own bodies, and they were reluctant to have anything inserted into their bodies that they felt was foreign. And the second concern was that this material came from an animal. It was actually, you know, produced usually from calves who were carrying the cowpox disease. And so there were many people right through the 19th century and into the 20th century who felt that this was a filthy technique, that they were having dirty material from animals put into their bodies or into their children's bodies, and that they were really worried that that would create some sort of cross-species hybrid that would lead to them potentially manifesting some sort of cow like phenomena.

Zoe Ferguson: At the time there were cartoons depicting people growing cow horns, cow heads and tails.

Peter Hobbins: That probably it was an exaggeration of what people believed, but they were genuinely concerned about contaminating their bodies with animal materials so right from the very outset of the process of vaccination, there were concerns amongst, you know, a sizeable part of the community that there was something not quite right about the technique, even as evidence was growing that it really was doing a good job of reducing the spread of smallpox on all continents around the world.

Zoe Ferguson: And these concerns never really went away. Then in 1998 a fateful paper was published in the Lancet journal.

Peter Hobbins: In the 1990s there was this concern brought out by British doctor Andrew Wakefield he felt that he could establish a link between children who'd been vaccinated with MMR and the development of autism in some of those children as well. And I think there were two chicken and egg scenarios around the MMR vaccine that I can think of. One was around autism itself. You know, what is autism? How is it diagnosed? How do you know when children are developmentally delayed or have problems relating to other people? Basically, autism became increasingly well understood, increasingly diagnosed, increasingly accepted in society, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. And we now talk about the autism spectrum. So in other words, we became much better at diagnosing autism during the 1980s and 90s. So for that reason, it appeared that there was a major increase in cases. Whether or not there really was an increase has been really hard to establish, but certainly there was a much larger number of cases being diagnosed. And the second thing, of course, was then well, also there'd been a major uptake in MMR vaccine in the decades before the 1980s and 1990s. And so it could be seen on the one hand, you say, well, there's been more vaccination and there's been more cases of autism, therefore, vaccination causes autism. Now that's one chain of thinking, but to prove that causal causal chain to say that vaccination causes autism proved to be a lot harder, and certainly Wakefield's data that linked MMR vaccination with autism has been robustly criticised over the past few decades. But there are still many people who maintain their scepticism and still feel that there may well be a link between that vaccine and autism.

Zoe Ferguson: Helen Petousis-Harris says the difference between correlation and causation is an important one when it comes to vaccine conspiracy theories, especially the MMR vaccine and autism.

Helen Petousis-Harris: Autism is often diagnosed in the second year of life, and this is the same time that the first dose of MMR vaccine is given at around the same age. If you have a look at the increase in autism, for example, it correlates beautifully with the increase in organic food sales as well. It also correlates with the rise in piracy. So there are many, many things that you can correlate together, as you could draw beautiful graphs that prove it if you like. But of course, it doesn't mean it's something that if B follows A it doesn't mean that A has caused B, and this is one of the biggest challenges I think we face.

Zoe Ferguson: She says the fallout from Andrew Wakefield’s refuted Lancet paper marked a new age.

Helen Petousis-Harris:The events of the late 90s as really the, I guess, the birth of the modern anti-vaccine movement and resulted in the decline of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. So if you're in the UK, it was a significant decline by probably about, you know, 30 per cent or something of vaccine uptake and that resulted in some major disease resurgence and indeed some deaths.

Zoe Ferguson: The belief in medical conspiracies can have serious ramifications. From Ancient civilisations to today’s modern era, conspiracy theories have always existed and the experts say they’ll always be with us. Mathew Marques again.

Mathew Marques: So it's quite likely that going into the future, conspiracy theories won't go away, despite our best attempts to maybe educate part of the public they’ll still linger around. And the formats and the narratives and the tropes will just change depending on what the anxieties are of that particular time. What there is hope for, I think, is being aware of how conspiracy theories operate and the sorts of things that we can do as a community to support people who either believe in conspiracy theories or work towards the conditions that are less conducive to conspiracy theories.

Zoe Ferguson: Mathew Marques. Thanks to him and my other guests: Victoria Pagan, Claire Hooker, Helen Petousis-Harris, Faye Belgrave, Joe Uscinski and Peter Hobbins. Ann-Marie deBettencor is the sound engineer. I’m Zoe Ferguson, thanks for listening to Rear Vision.