Ebola conspiracy theories abound
/ Courtesy of cnn.com
Public fear over the Ebola outbreak has spawned various conspiracy theories, including one that suggests that the disease is part of a secret U.S. plan to depopulate the planet.
New York Times writer Alan Feuer tackled such theories in an article in the Sunday Review. He cited an article in Liberia’s Daily Observer, which alleged that the epidemic is a “bioweapon designed by the U.S. military to depopulate the planet.”
Feuer also cited online accusations that contended that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “patented the virus to make fortune with the vaccine.”
According to another theory, the New World Order – a conspiracy theory that refers to a worldwide totalitarian state – is using Ebola to implement martial law.
The article also pointed to conservative political commentators such as Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham, who said President Obama “sent aid to Africa, risking American lives, because of his guilt over slavery and colonialism.”
Even singer Chris Brown has got in on the conspiracy theorizing, tweeting “I don’t know ... but I think this Ebola epidemic is a form of population control.”
The article cited Michael Barkun, a professor emeritus of political science at Syracuse University, as saying the conspiracy theories are “not effective as accurate accounts...but effective as expressions of anxiety” and “have an answer for what mystifies and frightens.”
Mark Fenster, a professor at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law, added that the theories are “not necessarily a bad thing” but “something that’s available in American discourse as a way of telling stories, as a way of explaining who we are.”
Some 4,555 people had died from the disease out of 9,216 registered cases, Associated Press reported Monday.