Bridget Todd (00:00):

Just a heads-up, this episode mentions miscarriage.

Bridget Todd (00:06):

You're listening to Disinformed, a miniseries from There Are No Girls on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd.

Bridget Todd (00:16):

Like many women, I've experienced a miscarriage. It was one of the hardest, most painful experiences of my entire life. That's why I'm so deeply disturbed by the latest COVID vaccine misinformation floating around corners of the mommy internet. So-called wellness gurus and momstagram influencers are using their social media platforms to spread fears that getting a COVID vaccine, or even just being around someone who has gotten a vaccine, can cause a miscarriage.

Bridget Todd (00:41):

To be clear, I am not a doctor. This episode is really me parroting information from actual doctors. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine has endorsed vaccination during pregnancy based on evidence it's been evaluating for over a year. "Everyone, including pregnant women and those seeking to become pregnant, should get a COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccines are safe and effective," the society said in a statement. The preliminary results of one of the largest reports on COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy bolsters evidence that it's safe to get vaccinated, although the authors of the report say more comprehensive research is needed.

Bridget Todd (01:14):

That's the facts, but here's where things get murky. Dr. Jen Gunter, an OB-GYN and one of my favorite slayers of medical misinformation, said that a lot of people were contacting her reporting heavier periods than usual after having gotten the COVID vaccine. She wrote an entire blog post about it, which you should definitely read. You can find it in the show description. She writes, "This was first formerly covered in The Lily. The article pointed out that the impact on vaccines on menstruation isn't typically tracked in studies. Bleeding that is heavy enough to require a trip to the emergency room would be picked up by most vaccine studies, but not an early period or breakthrough bleeding or a heavy period or a more painful one."

Bridget Todd (01:53):

This lack of information is maddening. Not because I think there's something harmful happening to the uterus post-vaccination, but because this is something that we should understand. People like to be warned of side effects in advance. For example, I warn my patients that steroid injections can cause irregular periods so that if it happens, my patients are not surprised.

Bridget Todd (02:12):

Now in this post, Dr. Gunter lays out all the possible reasons why a vaccine might impact somebody's period, including the possibility that there is no link at all. Basically, Dr. Gunter says that until there is more research about how COVID might impact somebody period, we won't actually know for sure. So why haven't doctors been collecting this kind of data? Well, it's kind of because the impact of vaccines menstruation has not been deemed worth studying by our medical field that is so often dominated by men studying male bodies. But in the absence of actual information, a slew of self-proclaimed health, wellness, and spirituality experts on Instagram have stepped in to fill that gap with bad misinformation.

Bridget Todd (02:53):

Even worse, many of them are spreading the idea that just coming into contact with someone who has been vaccinated, even if you have not gotten the vaccine yourself, can cause menstrual issues or miscarriage. I actually don't want to name names here, because honestly, I don't want these accounts getting more attention and traction, but whatever you're conjuring up in your head about the kind of women who run these accounts, it's probably accurate. I say this as someone who is interested in a fair amount of woo-woo spirituality stuff, which you can definitely ask me about because I love talking about.

Bridget Todd (03:22):

These accounts use the guise of wellness and spirituality to mask the fact that they're actually spreading potentially dangerous health misinformation. Many of them are just repackaging good old fashioned conspiracy theories like that you shouldn't trust public health officials or that vaccines are really about programing Americans and dressing them up in hippy-dippy yoga chic.

Bridget Todd (03:42):

One self-proclaimed health and medical freedom enthusiast shared with her more than 64,000 followers that many women are, "Catching menstrual regularities or miscarriages from being around the recently vaccinated," and to their credit, Instagram added a fact check to a viral video with almost half a million views from a so-called wellness expert warning that women are miscarrying just from being around people who have been vaccinated. When we actually unpack this, it shows us so much about how bad medical information travels online.

Bridget Todd (04:14):

Disinformation is when someone intentionally spreads untrue information purposely to mislead people. They know what they're saying isn't true, but they want to cause confusion and chaos. But misinformation is when someone spreads something that isn't true and they don't even realize what they're spreading isn't true. It's unintentional and it may even be well-intentioned.

Bridget Todd (04:34):

Now, I suspect that some of the women spreading bad information are doing so because they're worried. They don't know if there's actually truth to the idea that being around someone who's been vaccinated can cause a miscarriage. They're probably thinking that it's better safe than sorry to share what they've heard with their followers, but people deserve accurate information about their health and self-styled Instagram healers can cause a dangerous situation if they're amplifying untrue health data.

Bridget Todd (04:58):

It's also hard, because like I said earlier, the medical field tends to understudy women and our bodies and our issues. Case in point, it's important for doctors to know if a fever is a symptom of a vaccination, but they've deemed it less important to study that same vaccine's impact on menstruation. If you're used to medical issues that impact you being ignored, as so many of us women are, it makes complete sense that people will use whatever platform they have to start the conversation. I get it. I really do.

Bridget Todd (05:25):

But on the flip side, the land of wellness Instagram influencers is not always that well-intentioned. Some people who call themselves experts may very well be pushing COVID vaccine disinformation to intentionally cash in. If you listened to the episode of Disinformed with Ifeoma Ozoma, the former public policy lead at Pinterest who worked to curb health misinformation on the platform, she says that the majority of the time when someone is pushing bunk medical information on Pinterest, it was because they were selling something, supplements or essential oils, something that they were pushing a natural cure to an actual medical problem.

Bridget Todd (06:00):

Here's a clip.

Ifeoma Ozoma (06:01):

A point that I made often, because I'd get invited by the WHO, CDC, and others to talk about this health misinformation work, that they had not thought about it as much is the financial incentives that are tied to a lot of misinformation. Whether it's Alex Jones selling his nonsense t-shirts and supplements and whatever else, these people are scam artists. Their number one job is scamming folks. They use the values that people have, they use the fears that people have to then sell their products.

Ifeoma Ozoma (06:35):

But at the end of the day, these are spammers and scammers. You need to also be looking at what it is that they're trying to push on your platform. For almost every single health misinformation site, they were selling supplements.

Bridget Todd (06:51):

Wow.

Ifeoma Ozoma (06:51):

If you would address dangerous supplements on the platform as spam, why would you not consider this at the same level of harm to the platform and ultimately harm to legitimate advertisers?

Bridget Todd (07:05):

I think that we're so used to thinking about scammers as people selling fake Gucci on the street. No, people can scam online. They're misleading you in order to get you to buy whatever bullshit product they're hawking.

Ifeoma Ozoma (07:20):

I would actually argue that the person selling the Gucci handbag that's fake, that's not harmful. You get a cheaper bag. If it's made well, it looks pretty good. You get a deal. They get a deal. Gucci doesn't get a deal, but what do they need one for? But that's not harmful in the same way that telling parents, and especially at the point at which most parents make decisions about vaccines in the last trimester before they have the kid, that they instead of getting a vaccine for their child, which will save their child's life, they should instead go buy your vitamin K supplement. That is so harmful and dangerous in a way that we need to take it more seriously. It's not a difference of opinion. It's actually costing people's lives.

Bridget Todd (08:10):

And I have to say, at least one of the spiritual mom influencers I've mentioned in this episode is currently selling spirituality workshops on how to tap into your motherly intuition and heal your womb for the low, low cost of anywhere from $100 to $333. This is what really pisses me off. Women are already shamed for speaking up about our miscarriages, our periods, our pain in our bodies, and the medical field often ignores us when we do. People are capitalizing on this culture of stigma and shame to make themselves richer at the expense of women who are just trying to sort out who they can turn to for trustworthy health information.

Bridget Todd (08:56):

If you've enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi, we'd love to hear from you at hello@tangoti.com. Disinformed was brought to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our supervising producer and engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host Bridget Todd. For more great podcasts, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.