Amazon began removing anti-vaccine documentaries from its video streaming service March 1, hours after U.S. House Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., expressed concern that the tech giant is helping propel the anti-vaccination trend, CNN reports.
In a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Mr. Schiff said the emerging anti-vaccination trend is a result of misinformation spread on the internet, referring to it as a "direct threat to public health," according to CNBC.
"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," Mr. Schiff wrote, according to CNBC. "As the largest online marketplace in the world, Amazon is in a unique position to shape consumption."
Anti-vaccine documentaries on Amazon, including "We Don't Vaccinate!" and "Shoot 'Em Up: The Truth About Vaccines," have been listed as "currently unavailable," since March 1, CNN reports.
In February, Mr. Schiff issued a report to Google and Facebook over concerns that the companies' algorithms promote anti-vaccination messages. To combat the issue, Google introduced strategies such as "knowledge panels," which display authoritative information when medical conditions are searched.
YouTube and Pinterest have also taken measures against the spread of anti-vaccination content by enhancing search and recommendations for medical content. Pinterest stopped returning search results for vaccination-related terms.