Dusseldorf When she researched people who refused to be vaccinated and entered the keyword “unvaccinated” in their Internet browser, Beate Müller-Gemmeke landed on Amazon’s online marketplace to her surprise. What the Bundestag member from Bündnis90 / Die Grünen saw there made her puzzled: dozens of T-shirts that advertise quite drastically not to be vaccinated.
The writing “Human second class – healthy and unvaccinated” frames a skull, on other T-shirts the slogan “Unvaccinated” is accompanied either by the extended middle finger or by additions such as “Not a slave to the system” or “I’m not a laboratory rat”.
Apparently good money can be made with these products in relevant circles. The shirts cost between 16.49 and 22.99 euros – no discount goods.
“I am outraged and appalled that Amazon is offering such products a platform at a time when it comes to fighting a pandemic together,” said Müller-Gemmeke to the Handelsblatt. “We all have a responsibility to work to stop the virus from spreading,” she warns. The US retailer is also challenged.
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What makes the sale of products from vaccine opponents particularly explosive: At the same time, Amazon pays employees in the USA bonuses if they get vaccinated. In addition, the company held a lottery where employees who had proven they were vaccinated could win cash prizes of up to $ 500,000. “We firmly believe that the best way to protect our frontline employees from Covid-19 is vaccination,” Bloomberg news agency quoted an Amazon spokeswoman in August.
Green MPs write a protest letter to Amazon
In a letter to the German management of Amazon, which is available to the Handelsblatt, the Green MP Müller-Gemmeke pointed out the company to the unvaccinated T-shirts, which she calls “cynical and inhuman”. She accuses the dealer of playing down the Covid 19 pandemic with such sales offers. “At the same time you are supporting conspiracy theorists and science deniers,” she criticizes.
It was learned from corporate circles that the statements on the T-shirts do not reflect Amazon’s position. Officially, however, when asked, the company does not want to comment on the allegations in the MP’s letter or on the products on offer in general.
In a statement, an Amazon spokesman said: “The health and safety of our employees, partner companies and customers is our top priority, and the vaccination by our company doctors is an important step in giving our colleagues access to To give vaccination options. “
Müller-Gemmeke has not yet received a response from Amazon either. “I expect the company to end these sales campaigns and take the products off the platform,” says the member of the Bundestag. “I find that irresponsible of a company that has benefited from this pandemic to an unprecedented extent worldwide.”
In fact, Amazon didn’t just earn money from products that fight the pandemic, such as protective masks or disinfectants. The general online boom as a result of the corona crisis and the closure of stationary stores also brought Amazon double-digit sales growth.
Amazon collects license fees
And the US group does not earn too little from the sale of merchandising of the vaccine opponents. Because most of the T-shirts are produced using the “Merch by Amazon” program. The sales partners only have to provide the designs – Amazon takes care of the rest and collects license fees.
And they are quite abundant and increase with the selling price. Amazon collects a fee of EUR 3.04 for a T-shirt that costs EUR 17.99. At a retail price of 21.99 euros, 5.64 euros are due.
For the end customer on the platform, it is not at all clear who created the designs. For them, Amazon is the only sales partner for unvaccinated shirts.
This is also the case legally. Because in the service agreement of “Merch by Amazon” it is explicitly stated: “Amazon is the seller of the products on record.” And the shirts are not only manufactured by Amazon, but also delivered to end customers via Prime Service.
Motif with Star of David at Spreadshirt
Amazon isn’t the first platform to have trouble with anti-vaccination T-shirts. Last year, for example, a shirt was offered through the Spreadshirt shop that had a Star of David with the inscription “not vaccinated”.
After the product caused a stir on social networks, Spreadshirt took the t-shirt off the platform and apologized via Twitter. At the company, users can independently post motifs on the platform. “Despite technical and human filters, designs can slip through the web that we do not tolerate on our platform,” tweeted Spreadshirt.
The motif offered by Spreadshirt was particularly explosive because it drew parallels between the request to vaccinate and the persecution of Jews in the Third Reich. Such a motif was also offered on the French Amazon platform in the middle of this year, but it disappeared after public protests.
Even if this dimension is missing in the products now on offer, Müller-Gemmeke calls on the company to act. “I know that it is not illegal to sell T-shirts with the words ‘Unvaccinated’ on them,” says the member of the Bundestag. “But at a time when human life is at stake, I expect Amazon not to go along with something like that.”
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