There Are No Girls on the Internet - DISINFORMED: Instagram wellness "experts” are spewing yoga infused BS about miscarriages and vaccines

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

A flurry of self proclaimed health, wellness, and spirituality influencersare using their social media platforms to push inaccurate information about vaccines causing miscarriages.  Read Dr. Gunter���s great piece on the link between vaccines and menstrualirregularities: https://drjengunter.com/2021/04/12/the-covid-19-vaccine-and-menstrual-irregularities/ Listen of Ifeoma Ozoma’s episode (it’s one of my favorites!): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pay-us-what-you-owe-why-black-women-in-tech-are-tired/id1520715907?i=1000509470950 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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844-844-I-Hart. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear.

Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Just a heads up, this episode mentions miscarriage. You're listening to Disinformed, a mini-series from There Are No Girls on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd. So like many women, I've experienced a miscarriage, and 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 massive.

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-19 vaccine. The vaccines are safe and effective, the society said in a statement. And 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. So that's the fact, but here's where things get murky. Dr. Jen Gunter, an OBGYN 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 Lilly, and the article points 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. 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 warn my patients that steroid injections can cause a regular period so that if it happens, my patients are not surprised. Now, in this post, Dr. Gunter lays that 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 around how COVID might impact somebody's 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 on 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. 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 is probably accurate. And 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. 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 programming Americans and dressing them up in hippie-dippy yoga chic. One self-proclaimed health and medical freedom enthusiast

shared with her more than 64,000 followers that many women are, quote, catching menstrual irregularities 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 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 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 would use whatever platform they have to start the conversation. I get it. I really do. 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 listen to the episode of Disinformed with Ifoma 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'd get invited by the WHO, CDC, and others to talk about this health misinformation work that they had not thought about 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 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, 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 selling fake Gucci on the street and like, no, it can, people can scam online and they're misleading you in order to get you to buy whatever bullshit product they're hawking. 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. Like, 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. 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 $333.33.

And this is what really pisses 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 tangoity.com. Disinformed is brought to you by there are no girls on the internet. It's a production of IHeart Radio 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 Iheart radio app, podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel

and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-heart radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness

from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of I Heart Women's Sports.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves,

their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to SportsSlic on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slical Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on. A Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last?

Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.