DISINFORMED: Instagram wellness "experts” are spewing yoga infused BS about miscarriages and vaccines

around corners of the mommy Internet. So called wellness gurus and momstergram influencers are using their social media platforms to spread fears getting a COVID vaccine, or even just being around someone who has gotten a vaccine, can cause a miscarriage. So to be clear, I am not a doctor, so 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 nineteen vaccine. The vaccines are safe and effective, the society set in a statement, and the preliminary results of one of the largest reports on COVID nineteen. Vaccination during pregnancy bolsters evidence that it's safe to get vaccinated, although the authors of the report say more comprehensive research

is needed. So that's the facts. But here's where things get murky. Dr Jen Gunter and O. B. G. Y An, and one of my favorite slayers of medical misinformation, said that a lot of people were contacting or 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 formally covered in The Lily, and the article points a out that the impact on

vaccines administruation 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. 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 and people like to be warned of side

effects in advance. For example, I warned my patients that steroid injections can cause a regular period, so that if it happens, my patients are not surprised. Now. In this post, doctor Gunter lays that all the possible reasons why a vaccine might unpact somebody's period, including the possibility that there is no link at all. Basically, Dr Gunter says that until there is more research abound how COVID might unpack somebody's period, we won't actually know for sure. So why

haven't doctor has been collecting this kind of data. Well, it's kind of because the impact of vaccines administruation 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. 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 is probably accurate. And I say this is 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. These accounts used the guise of wellness and spirituality to mass 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 programming Americans and dressing them up in hippie dippy yoga chik.

One self proclaimed health and medical freedom enthusiast shared with her more than sixty four thousand followers that many women are quote 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. So when we actually unpack this, it shows us so much about how bad medical information travels online. So 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 spread 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. 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, and 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. It's also hard because, like I said ear here, the medical field tends to understudy women and our bodies and our issues. Case in point, it's important for doctors to know of a fever is a symptom of vaccination, but they've deemed it less important

to study that same vaccines 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 would use whatever platform they have to start the conversation. I get it, I really do. But on the fliff 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 listen to the episode of Disinformed with Foma Isoma, 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 as a natural cure to an actual

medical problem. Here's a clip A point that I made often because I get invited by the w h O, CDC and others to talk about this health misinformation work, um 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. That's their number 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. But at the end of the day, these are spammers and scammers, and so 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.

So 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. I think that we're so used to thinking about scammers as people, you know, selling fake Gucci on the street, and like, no, it can people can can scam online and they're misleading you in order to to get you to buy whatever bullshit product they're hocking.

I would actually argue that the person is 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, like you get a deal. They get a deal. Gucci doesn't get a deal, but what do they need one for? Um?

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 case 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. 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 a hundred to three hundred and thirty or three dollars. And this

is what really pisces me off. Women are already shamed for speaking up about our miscarriages, our periods, our pain, and our bodies, and the medical field often ignores us when we do. And 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. If you 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 at tango dot com. Disinformed is brought to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet. It's a production of iHeart Radio and unbost Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tory Harrison is our supervising producer and engineer. Michael Lamtto is our contributing producer. I'm

your host Bridget Tod. For more great podcasts, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.