Speaker 1: Just a heads up. This episode mentions miscarriage. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Disinformed, a mini series from There Are No Girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd, So like many women,
Speaker 1: I've experienced a miscarriage and it was one of the hardest,
Speaker 1: most painful experiences of my entire life. That's why I'm
Speaker 1: so deeply disturbed by the latest COVID vaccine misinformation floating
Speaker 1: around corners of the mommy Internet. So called wellness gurus
Speaker 1: and momstergram influencers are using their social media platforms to
Speaker 1: spread fears getting a COVID vaccine, or even just being
Speaker 1: around someone who has gotten a vaccine, can cause a miscarriage.
Speaker 1: So to be clear, I am not a doctor, so
Speaker 1: this episode is really me parroting information from actual doctors.
Speaker 1: The American Society for Reproductive Medicine has endorsed vaccination during
Speaker 1: pregnancy based on evidence it's been evaluating for over a year. Everyone,
Speaker 1: including pregnant women and those seeking to become pregnant, should
Speaker 1: get a COVID nineteen vaccine. The vaccines are safe and effective,
Speaker 1: the society set in a statement, and the preliminary results
Speaker 1: of one of the largest reports on COVID nineteen. Vaccination
Speaker 1: during pregnancy bolsters evidence that it's safe to get vaccinated,
Speaker 1: although the authors of the report say more comprehensive research
Speaker 1: is needed. So that's the facts. But here's where things
Speaker 1: get murky. Dr Jen Gunter and O. B. G. Y An,
Speaker 1: and one of my favorite slayers of medical misinformation, said
Speaker 1: that a lot of people were contacting or reporting heavier
Speaker 1: periods than usual after having gotten the COVID vaccine. She
Speaker 1: wrote an entire blog post about it, which you should
Speaker 1: definitely read. You can find it in the show description.
Speaker 1: She writes. This was first formally covered in The Lily,
Speaker 1: and the article points a out that the impact on
Speaker 1: vaccines administruation isn't typically tracked in studies. Bleeding that is
Speaker 1: heavy enough to require a trip to the emergency room
Speaker 1: would be picked up by most vaccine studies, but not
Speaker 1: an early period or breakthrough bleeding, or a heavy period
Speaker 1: or a more painful one. This lack of information is maddening,
Speaker 1: not because I think there's something harmful happening to the
Speaker 1: uterus post vaccination, but because this is something that we
Speaker 1: should understand and people like to be warned of side
Speaker 1: effects in advance. For example, I warned my patients that
Speaker 1: steroid injections can cause a regular period, so that if
Speaker 1: it happens, my patients are not surprised. Now. In this post,
Speaker 1: doctor Gunter lays that all the possible reasons why a
Speaker 1: vaccine might unpact somebody's period, including the possibility that there
Speaker 1: is no link at all. Basically, Dr Gunter says that
Speaker 1: until there is more research abound how COVID might unpack
Speaker 1: somebody's period, we won't actually know for sure. So why
Speaker 1: haven't doctor has been collecting this kind of data. Well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of because the impact of vaccines administruation has
Speaker 1: not been deemed worth studying by our medical field that
Speaker 1: is so often dominated by men studying male bodies. But
Speaker 1: in the absence of actual information, a slew of self
Speaker 1: proclaimed health, wellness and spirituality experts on Instagram have stepped
Speaker 1: in to fill that gap with bad misinformation. Even worse,
Speaker 1: many of them are spreading the idea that just coming
Speaker 1: into contact with someone who has been vaccinated, even if
Speaker 1: you have not gotten the vaccine yourself, can cause menstrual
Speaker 1: issues or miscarriage. I actually don't want to name names
Speaker 1: here because honestly, I don't want these accounts getting more
Speaker 1: attention and traction. But whatever you're conjuring up in your
Speaker 1: head about the kind of women who run these accounts,
Speaker 1: it is probably accurate. And I say this is someone
Speaker 1: who is interested in a fair amount of woo woo
Speaker 1: spirituality stuff, which you can definitely ask me about because
Speaker 1: I love talking about. These accounts used the guise of
Speaker 1: wellness and spirituality to mass the fact that they're actually
Speaker 1: spreading potentially dangerous health misinformation. Many of them are just
Speaker 1: repackaging good old fashioned conspiracy theories like that you shouldn't
Speaker 1: trust public health officials, or that vaccines are really about
Speaker 1: programming Americans and dressing them up in hippie dippy yoga chik.
Speaker 1: One self proclaimed health and medical freedom enthusiast shared with
Speaker 1: her more than sixty four thousand followers that many women
Speaker 1: are quote catching menstrual regularities or miscarriages from being around
Speaker 1: the recently vaccinated, and to their credit, Instagram added a
Speaker 1: fact check to a viral video with almost half a
Speaker 1: million views from a so called wellness expert warning that
Speaker 1: women are miscarrying just from being around people who have
Speaker 1: been vaccinated. So when we actually unpack this, it shows
Speaker 1: us so much about how bad medical information travels online.
Speaker 1: So disinformation is when someone intentionally spreads untrue information purposely
Speaker 1: to mislead people. They know what they're saying isn't true,
Speaker 1: but they want to cause confusion and chaos. But misinformation
Speaker 1: is when someone spread something that isn't true and they
Speaker 1: don't even realize what they're spreading isn't true. It's unintentional,
Speaker 1: and it may even be well intentioned. Now, I suspect
Speaker 1: that some of the women spreading bad information are doing
Speaker 1: so because they're worried. They don't know if there's actually
Speaker 1: truth to the idea that being around someone who's been
Speaker 1: vaccinated can cause a miscarriage, and they're probably thinking that
Speaker 1: it's better safe than sorry to share what they've heard
Speaker 1: with their followers. But people deserve accurate information about their health,
Speaker 1: and self styled Instagram healers can cause a dangerous situation
Speaker 1: if they're amplifying untrue health data. It's also hard because,
Speaker 1: like I said ear here, the medical field tends to
Speaker 1: understudy women and our bodies and our issues. Case in point,
Speaker 1: it's important for doctors to know of a fever is
Speaker 1: a symptom of vaccination, but they've deemed it less important
Speaker 1: to study that same vaccines impact on menstruation. If you're
Speaker 1: used to medical issues that impact you being ignored, as
Speaker 1: so many of us women are, it makes complete sense
Speaker 1: that people would use whatever platform they have to start
Speaker 1: the conversation. I get it, I really do. But on
Speaker 1: the fliff side, the land of wellness Instagram influencers is
Speaker 1: not always that well intentioned. Some people who call themselves
Speaker 1: experts may very well be pushing COVID vaccine disinformation to
Speaker 1: intentionally cash in. If you listen to the episode of
Speaker 1: Disinformed with Foma Isoma, the former public policy lead at
Speaker 1: Pinterest who worked to curb health misinformation on the platform,
Speaker 1: She says that the majority of the time when someone
Speaker 1: is pushing bunk medical information on Pinterest, it was because
Speaker 1: they were selling something supplements or essential oils, something that
Speaker 1: they were pushing as a natural cure to an actual
Speaker 1: medical problem. Here's a clip A point that I made
Speaker 1: often because I get invited by the w h O,
Speaker 1: CDC and others to talk about this health misinformation work,
Speaker 1: um that they had not thought about it as much
Speaker 1: is the financial incentives that are tied to a lot
Speaker 1: of misinformation, whether it's Alex Jones selling his nonsense T
Speaker 1: shirts and supplements and whatever else. These people are scam artists.
Speaker 1: That's their number Their number one job is scamming folks.
Speaker 1: They use the values that people have, they use the
Speaker 1: fears that people have to then sell their products. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, these are spammers and scammers,
Speaker 1: and so you need to also be looking at what
Speaker 1: it is that they're trying to push on your platform.
Speaker 1: For almost every single health misinformation site, they were selling supplements.
Speaker 1: So if you would address dangerous supplements on the platform
Speaker 1: as spam, why would you not consider this at the
Speaker 1: same level of harm to the platform and ultimately harm
Speaker 1: to legitimate advertisers. I think that we're so used to
Speaker 1: thinking about scammers as people, you know, selling fake Gucci
Speaker 1: on the street, and like, no, it can people can
Speaker 1: can scam online and they're misleading you in order to
Speaker 1: to get you to buy whatever bullshit product they're hocking.
Speaker 1: I would actually argue that the person is selling the
Speaker 1: Gucci handbag that's fake, that's not harmful. You get a
Speaker 1: cheaper bag if it's made well, it looks pretty good,
Speaker 1: like you get a deal. They get a deal. Gucci
Speaker 1: doesn't get a deal, but what do they need one for? Um?
Speaker 1: But that's not harmful in the same way that telling parents,
Speaker 1: and especially at the point at which most parents make
Speaker 1: decisions about vaccines in the last trimester before they have
Speaker 1: the kid, that they instead of getting a vaccine for
Speaker 1: their child, which will save their child's life, they should
Speaker 1: instead go buy your vitamin case supplement. That is so
Speaker 1: harmful and dangerous in a way that we need to
Speaker 1: take it more seriously. It's not a difference of opinion,
Speaker 1: it's actually costing people's lives. And I have to say
Speaker 1: at least one of the spiritual mom influencers I've mentioned
Speaker 1: in this episode is currently selling spirituality workshops on how
Speaker 1: to tap into your motherly intuition and heal your womb
Speaker 1: for the low low cost of anywhere from a hundred
Speaker 1: to three hundred and thirty or three dollars. And this
Speaker 1: is what really pisces me off. Women are already shamed
Speaker 1: for speaking up about our miscarriages, our periods, our pain,
Speaker 1: and our bodies, and the medical field often ignores us
Speaker 1: when we do. And people are capitalizing on this culture
Speaker 1: of stigma and shame to make themselves richer at the
Speaker 1: expense of women who are just trying to sort out
Speaker 1: who they can turn to for trustworthy health information. If
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing.
Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
Speaker 1: just want to say hi. We'd love to hear from
Speaker 1: you at Hello at tango dot com. Disinformed is brought
Speaker 1: to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeart Radio and unbost Creative. Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland is our executive producer. Tory Harrison is our supervising
Speaker 1: producer and engineer. Michael Lamtto is our contributing producer. I'm
Speaker 1: your host Bridget Tod. For more great podcasts, check out
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get
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