AIDS conspiracy beliefs directly reduce condom use among black men

Evidence

In 2005, a study published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes found that 53 percent of African Americans surveyed said they believed the government was withholding a cure for AIDS from poor people; 27 percent thought AIDS was produced in a government lab; 48 percent called HIV a “man-made virus.” However, more intentional conspiracy theories were less common: just 15 percent called AIDS a form of genocide against black people, and only 16 percent said the government created AIDS to control the black population. … But AIDS conspiracy theories are particularly dangerous in that they can lead directly to unsafe sex. The 2005 study found that black men who held conspiratorial beliefs about AIDS were less likely to use safer sex practices. The more a man supported one of these theories, the less likely he was to use a condom. (Women didn’t show that tendency.) The researchers also suggested that for men who didn’t particularly want to wear a condom in the first place, the conspiracy theories helped serve as justification for declining to slip one on. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 181

Categorization

• SEED: Presents a concrete, counterintuitive harm pathway: a belief’s severity on the spectrum of distrust is less behaviorally dangerous than its presence, which legitimizes desired unsafe behavior.
• XREF: connects to: Pseudoscientific racial theories of immunity undermine realistic AIDS prevention messaging — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3355; Reducing conspiracism requires curing underlying social unfairness — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 992; AIDS conspiracy beliefs directly increased black men’s unsafe-sex behavior. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 181 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Pseudoscientific racial theories of immunity undermine realistic AIDS prevention messaging #expands (0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3355
• Reducing conspiracism requires curing underlying social unfairness #expands (0.75) — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 992