JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

While the evidence base on online cancer misinformation continues to develop, relatively little is known about the extent of such information on the world’s largest e-commerce website, Amazon. Multiple media reports indicate Amazon may be enabling people to sell dangerous and misleading cancer-related products, such as books on purported cancer cures. The current context suggests an urgent need to evaluate Amazon.com for cancer misinformation.

Objective:

This study sought to (1) examine to what extent are misleading cancer cure books for sale on Amazon.com and (2) determine how Amazon.com cancer cure books provide misleading cancer information.

Methods:

We searched “cancer cure” on Amazon.com and retrieved the top one thousand English-language book search results. We reviewed the books’ description and title to determine whether the book provided misleading cancer cure or treatment information. We considered a book to be misleading if it suggested scientifically unsupported cancer treatment approaches to cure or meaningfully treat cancer. Among books coded as misleading, we conducted an inductive latent thematic analysis to determine the informational value books sought to offer.

Results:

Nearly half (49.4%) of the sampled “cancer cure” books for sale on Amazon.com appeared to contain misleading cancer treatment and cure information. Sixteen of 33 Amazon results pages had 50% or more of the books listed coded as misleading. The first search result page had the highest percentage of misleading books (69.7%). Misleading books contained eight themes: 1) efficacious cancer cure strategies (91.3%), 2) over-simplifying cancer (39.3%), 3) falsely justifying ineffective treatments as science-based (38.3%), 4) discrediting conventional cancer treatments (34.2%), 5) finding the true cause of cancer (26.9%), 6) homogenizing cancer (26.7%), 7) discovery of novel cures (24.1%), and 8) cancer cure suppression/conspiracies (16.6%).

Conclusions:

The results demonstrate misleading cancer cure books are for sale, visible, and prevalent on Amazon.com, with prominence in initial search hits, despite policies that prohibit non-regulatory agency approved medical claims. These can be conceived of as forming part of a wider, cross-platform online information environment in which misleading cancer cures are often given prominence. Our results suggest greater enforcement is needed from Amazon and that cancer-focused organizations should engage in pre-emptive misinformation debunking.