Conspiracy Theorists Rehash ‘Big Pharma’ Attacks Amid Ebola Outbreak
Narratives targeted companies and organizations developing vaccines for the deadly disease
TLDR
Open Measures found that alternative platform users promoted conspiracy theories attacking a host of pharmaceutical companies that develop vaccines last month after reports that global health authorities were responding to a deadly Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With the help of our new Research Assistant, researchers identified harmful narratives targeting several companies.
Context
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared on May 17 that the spread of Bundibugyo virus, which can cause Ebola in humans, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was a “public health emergency of international concern” and advised global health authorities to take precautionary measures to limit its spread. In response, medical scientists have expedited research into possible vaccines for the disease.
Amid international alarm over the outbreak, misinformation and conspiracy theories about Ebola have run rampant on social media, following close on the heels of such claims surrounding a hantavirus outbreak aboard a Dutch cruise ship weeks earlier. Some of these narratives have taken direct aim at major pharmaceutical companies, including one actively working to develop an Ebola vaccine.
Our Approach
Open Measures sought to better understand how communities on the platforms we monitor have refashioned grievances against pharmaceutical companies into new narratives and conspiracy theories surrounding the recent Ebola outbreak. The pharmaceutical companies included in our search queries included Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck, and GSK. We also searched for mentions of “big pharma” in posts discussing Ebola.
Our researchers used Open Measures’ new Research Assistant to generate a report summarizing claims made about major pharmaceutical companies related to Ebola across 24 platforms in our datasets in a month-long period spanning May 4 to June 3, 2026. An excerpt of the report produced by Research Assistant can be viewed below.
Informed by that report, researchers proceeded to use the analysis tools built into our platform to corroborate its findings and explore the themes it identified in greater detail. By using Research Assistant to identify prominent narratives in our datasets in the early stages of their analysis, our researchers saved hours that would otherwise be spent manually reviewing search query results to identify potential leads for their research.
‘Every. Single. Time’: Conspiracy Theorists Fault Pharmaceutical Companies Amid Ebola Outbreak
Open Measures found that hostile narratives about pharmaceutical companies surged across several platforms after the WHO declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was a public health emergency and again following reports the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) awarded millions of dollars to scientists developing potential vaccines against the disease.
Using our platform’s Discover tool, researchers reviewed more than 650 posts mentioning pharmaceutical companies in relation to Ebola to understand how different companies were being targeted.
Moderna
More than 75% of the posts we identified took specific aim at Moderna, an American pharmaceutical company that specializes in the development of mRNA vaccines. Earlier this year, the CEPI awarded $26.7 million to scientists working with the company to develop vaccines against several deadly filoviruses, including Ebola, and last week gave millions more to fast-track those efforts in light of the recent outbreak.
Health-focus conspiracy theorists have antagonized the CEPI for years, often fixating on its support for COVID-19 vaccine research and the substantial financial backing it receives from the charitable foundation of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
Across multiple platforms, our researchers saw users highlighting reports about the CEPI’s funding of Moderna to insinuate that the Ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was orchestrated to generate profits for pharmaceutical companies and advance supposed sinister agendas of global elites.
A Telegram post shared May 27 pointed to the CEPI’s “perfectly timed investment” as evidence that the WHO’s advisories around Ebola were “propaganda to sell toxic vaccines.” Another Telegram post, shared on May 24, derided Moderna as one of many “pandemic profiteers” that haven’t been “held accountable.”
“Forecasting future pandemics, expanding emergency powers, and rapidly deploying vaccines has become a lucrative global industry,” a May 25 Telegram post mentioning Moderna read.
Other posts that mentioned Moderna made reference to a supposed “playbook” that health officials used to push vaccines on the public, as seen in this Truth Social post shared on May 18:
The same playbook always repeats: Develop “vaccine” → Fearmonger new outbreak → Declare emergency → Gain power & control → push “vaccine” as [the] only solution.
A Gab post shared on May 19 also alluded to this supposed scheme: “The same playbook always repeats. Every. Single. Time.” Another Gab user posted on June 2 that the response to Ebola was following “the same script” used to hype fears about previous outbreaks.
Pfizer
Our researchers also saw users targeting Pfizer, an American pharmaceutical and biotech company that is not among the groups expediting development of an Ebola vaccine. Several posts we reviewed promoted narratives that insinuated the Ebola outbreak was the fault of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
A Gab post shared on May 25 declared that the Ebola outbreak was a “Pfizer Adverse Event.” In a May 30 comment shared on a Breitbart News article via the Disqus platform, another user wrote that the “Pfizer Ebola outbreak” was “sponsored by the CIA, NED, and USAID” – referencing three US federal agencies often attacked in “deep state” conspiracy theories. A comment posted to Rumble on May 12 declared that Ebola fears amounted to “fear porn brought to you by Bill Gates and Pfizer.”
Other Companies
Health-focused conspiracy theories about the Ebola outbreak also targeted other pharmaceutical companies, though our researchers identified significantly fewer of those posts than those that targeted Moderna and Pfizer. One such post was a comment shared on a Breitbart News article via Disqus, where a user wrote they would “rather catch Ebola than have anything produced by AstraZeneca jabbed into my body.”
‘Murder by injection’: Anti-Vaccine Users Encourage Refusal of Potential Ebola Vaccines
When reviewing posts mentioning pharmaceutical companies, our researchers also saw users prematurely declaring their refusal of any potential Ebola vaccines and encouraging others to decline them, should they eventually be available.
Wayne Allyn Root, a conservative radio host and longtime Trump ally, shared a Truth Social post on June 1 mocking anyone who might eventually receive an Ebola vaccine:
Good luck to all those dumb-as-a- doorknob sheeple who take it. If it’s anything like Covid vaxx, I’ll never be able to say, “I told you so.” Because it will kill or cripple you.
Similar warnings appeared in other posts. On May 20, a Truth Social user warned: “Be prepared. This is going to be Murder by injection.” Five days later, on May 25, a 4chan user posted: “REMEMBER TO NOT TAKE ANY MRNA VACCINE FOR EBOLA.”
Across platforms, our researchers saw users sharing posts categorically rejecting global concerns about Ebola. From a Gab post declaring Ebola was a “nazi fascist communist satanic ploy” to a BitChute video questioning whether the outbreak would be “what strips US citizens of their Constitutional Rights,” health-focused conspiracy theorists portrayed the deadly outbreak as a ruse meant to advance the interests of sinister liberal elites.
What We’re Watching
Conspiracy theories about medicine can influence believers to make unwise decisions related to healthcare, like forgoing preventative treatments, experimenting with unproven alternative medicines, and skipping routine check-ups. The spread of anti-medicine narratives can also complicate responses to global health emergencies and elicit threats against the individuals and entities leading those efforts, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Open Measures will continue to monitor developing narratives around the Ebola outbreak as they appear on alternative platforms, where our researchers have repeatedly seen high-impact narratives first appear before achieving wider online spread.
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