What Pandemic Conspiracy Theories Reveal About Us
Conspiracy theories are nothing new when it comes to epidemics. But they provide a powerful window into society’s fears.
When a novel coronavirus spread around the globe in early 2020, it didn’t just bring disease. It also birthed multiple conspiracy theories.
Was the virus secretly created in a laboratory? Could COVID-19 be a form of biological warfare? Or should we blame 5G and Bill Gates for the pandemic?
The history of pandemic conspiracy theories is as old as disease itself.
For centuries, we’ve looked for explanations — however outlandish — during pandemics.
But pandemic conspiracy theories reveal more about the society afflicted by deadly pathogens than the disease itself.
Take, for example, the Spanish flu of 1918, which swept across the world and killed 50 million people. When the deadly influenza virus first appeared, many connected the disease with World War I, still raging in Europe. Did the Germans release the germs to attack its enemies at home?
A U.S. Army official told the New York Times, “It would be quite easy for one of these German agents to turn loose Spanish influenza germs in a theater or some other place where large numbers of persons are assembled.”
German submarines — a new technology in 1918 — were the likely culprits, the official declared.
“This new evil, like early evils, must be traced to Germany,” another newspaper concluded.
The plague’s death toll included thousands of healthy people.
Stories of German submarines spreading influenza might seem harmless today, but other pandemic conspiracy theories proved deadly.
Take the Black Death, which devastated Europe in the 14th century. When the bubonic plague, it killed many who never contracted the disease — thanks to conspiracy theories.
In 1348, as the Black Death savaged the continent, many Christians blamed Jewish communities for spreading the sickness.
In Strasbourg, chronicler Jacob von Königshofen reported, “In the year 1349 there occurred the greatest epidemic that ever happened. Death went from one end of the earth to the other.”
In the wake of such devastation, many searched for a scapegoat. “The Jews throughout the world were reviled and accused in all lands of having caused it,” Königshofen wrote, “through the poison which they are said to have put into the water and the wells.”
According to the conspiracy theory, Jews were sprinkling plague-carrying poisons into the water in an attempt to murder Christians. The conspiracy theorists ignored the fact that Jews were also dying from plague.
Because so many believed the conspiracy theory, “The Jews were burnt all the way from the Mediterranean into Germany,” Königshofen recorded.
From 1348–1350, Europeans destroyed over 1,000 Jewish communities. Thousands of innocent people were slaughtered based on a conspiracy theory with no proof.
White Americans have also attacked minority communities during epidemics.
Blaming minority groups for spreading disease didn’t end with the plague.
When smallpox broke out in several U.S. cities in the late 19th century, white Americans turned on black communities, claiming they spread the disease.
In 1896 in Memphis, a black man named William Haley was beaten by a crowd of 20 white men. They accused Haley of spreading smallpox, sending him to the hospital with three bullets in his body.
In Alabama, white farmers fired at a hospital housing black smallpox patients, explaining, “this is the best and quickest means of ridding the town of smallpox.”
In 1899, a steamship brought plague to Honolulu. After first victim, a Chinese man, died, authorities quarantined Chinatown and set the entire neighborhood on fire.
When bubonic plague reached San Francisco in 1900, California’s governor, Henry Gage, promoted the conspiracy theory that whites were immune from plague, claiming that only Chinese people could catch the disease.
As the plague ravaged Chinatown, whites blockaded the community and refused to let anyone leave, even to buy food.
Los Angeles took a similar approach to a plague outbreak in 1924. Concerned that Mexican communities were spreading the disease, city authorities blockaded a section of south LA and tore down hundreds of homes.
Cholera riots in the 19th century targeted the wealthy.
Unlike multiple other epidemic conspiracy theories, the cholera riots targeted the powerful rather than marginalized communities.
In the 1830s, cholera became a worldwide pandemic. An outbreak that started in India quickly grew, eventually reaching Europe and the Americas. Over the next century, multiple cholera pandemics swept the globe.
Riots broke out in Liverpool, New York City, and St. Petersburg. Smaller communities also experienced cholera riots.
What motivated the riots? A conspiracy theory that claimed elites spread the disease to kill the poor.
Overpopulation was a major problem for 19th century cities, and many believed those in power were sacrificing the poor to ease the burden of crowding.
In Italy, rioters broke into hospitals to “liberate” cholera patients from the plot to slaughter them. A Calabrian town turned on the census taker, convinced that the count was marking people “for the sacrifice.”
A mob of 10,000 attacked a cholera hospital in Russia based on rumors that the city had transformed the hospital into a slaughterhouse for the poor.
Rioters even targeted doctors and nurses, claiming they were part of the conspiracy to cull the poor.
In the 1950s, conspiracy theories blamed nuclear bombs and communists for disease.
In 1957, a deadly influenza virus appeared in China for the first time. Worried scientists watched as the virus quickly leapt to other countries, thanks in part to modern air travel.
“This is where air travel turns up a new kind of health problem,” the Washington Evening Star reported. “A newly infected person can board a plane in the Pacific area and go halfway around the world before he shows symptoms of the disease. Meanwhile he can exhale the bug in the presence of fellow travelers and so propagate the chain of infection.”
What caused the virus? Some blamed nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean, certain that the deadly bombs had somehow disrupted nature and caused the influenza mutation. U.S. Surgeon General Leroy Burney had to reassure a worried public that the bomb hadn’t caused the epidemic.
Others saw a communist plot behind the flu. Could the Soviets be responsible for the deadly pandemic? “I don’t believe that is a possibility,” Burney explained, “We have epidemics occasionally and have had them in the past.”
In the end, the 1957 Asian flu killed 116,000 Americans.
Are conspiracy theories worse today?
It’s hard to imagine a deadlier conspiracy theory than the 14th century well-poisoning rumors that caused the slaughter of thousands of Jews.
But today’s conspiracy theories may pack a greater punch than 20th century theories that pointed to communists or submarines as vectors of disease.
That’s because our trust in institutions is at an all-time low.
Consider the 1918 flu. During a war, it’s easy to imagine that an enemy might target civilians with germ warfare. After all, World War I saw the Germans gassing thousands in the trenches.
Yet it’s even more dangerous when people begin to distrust their own government institutions. In the early years of the AIDs pandemic, conspiracy theories that blamed the CIA fed on the mistrust in America’s institutions to care for citizens.
Similarly, the 2010s saw an Ebola conspiracy theory that blamed the Red Cross for spreading the disease. This undermined people’s trust in medical institutions, paradoxically increasing the deadliness of the disease.
Here’s the truth: deadly pathogens don’t care about whether communists or submarines plague our nightmares. Instead, pandemics hold up a mirror to the fault lines in society. Conspiracy theories give us easy scapegoats for the fear that inevitably comes with an epidemic.
While it might ease our fears to believe conspiracy theories about diseases, history provides a stark warning about their danger: pandemic conspiracy theories often lead to a higher death toll than the disease alone.
Genevieve Carlton holds a Ph.D in history from Northwestern University and taught the history of science and medicine as a professor at the University of Louisville.
