The Ebola Conspiracies

Katy Hall of The Huffington Post interviewed me earlier
this week for a story about Ebola conspiracy theories. Her article
is
up now; here’s an excerpt:

Medical conspiracy theories pop up around any
widespread health scare, sometimes bolstered by the inadequate or
opaque government responses that can follow. Such theories captured
the public imagination during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s,
surfaced around the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak, and they remain a
staple of the anti-vaccination movement. Conspiracy theories
represent a way for people to try to make sense of a chaotic health
threat—especially one like Ebola that’s horrific and far from being
contained overseas.

“You’re going to have gaps in the signals that are coming in about
what’s happening in the world, and you’re going to want to fill in
those gaps somehow,” said Jesse Walker, books editor of Reason
magazine and author of The United States of Paranoia: A
Conspiracy Theory. “If you’re afraid of something, you’re
going to find a fearful pattern. Obviously infectious disease is
something people are very afraid of.”

In addition to talking with me, Hall interviewed
Conspiracy Theories author Mark Fenster, who had some
sensible things to say about the fears fueling some of the Ebola
theories that have been floating around. Check the rest of the
piece out
here.

Bonus link: The inevitable plug for the new, expanded

paperback edition of my conspiracy book.