Fertility fears and other scare stories lower jab rates

False claims COVID-19 vaccines can cause ­infertility and other online scare stories are discouraging Americans from receiving the shots.

US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden at the White House without masks after the US health agency eased mask restrictions last week. Picture: AFP

False claims that COVID-19 vaccines can cause ­infertility are discouraging Americans from receiving the shots and leaving health professionals to persuade patients that scare ­stories they have read online are unfounded.

Among the worst examples of such misinformation spread on Facebook are that immunised men can render unvaccinated women sterile through sex, that 97 per cent of vaccine recipients will become infertile and that the jabs could be “sterilising an entire generation”.

With vaccine uptake already slowing, the claims are a threat to the President Joe Biden administration’s goal of achieving herd immunity in the US.

Research published earlier this month showed about two-thirds of those who said they will “definitely not” get a vaccine were worried about the impact on their fertility.

And about half of unvaccinated people say they are concerned the vaccine “may negatively impact their fertility in the future”, said Ashley Kirzinger, associate director at Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy non-profit group that conducted the study.

About 50 per cent of women and 47 per cent of men aged 18 to 49 who had not been vaccinated say they had such fears.

The initial exclusion of pregnant women from COVID-19 vaccine trials created space for falsehoods, and the latest effort by anti-vaccine groups coincides with fewer people stepping forward for inoculations. “They are largely just recycling things that scare people about previous vaccines onto these new vaccines, whether or not it makes scientific sense,” said Devon Greyson, health communications professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The messages are targeting women because “fertility is just one of those things that we react so strongly to, and it’s so personal”.

“So if you’re looking for a ­bogeyman, ‘It will make you infertile’ is a really good one.”

Katharine O’Connell White, associate professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Boston University School of Medicine, agreed, saying that “concerns about fertility with the vaccines strike at the heart of what it means to be a woman, for a lot of women”.

The American College of ­Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and the Society for Maternal-foetal Medicine said in a joint statement that “there is no evidence that the vaccine can lead to loss of fertility”. Despite more than half a million Americans dead from COVID-19, vaccine hesitancy persists and it has left doctors having to assure ­patients that their fears about not being able to have children are misplaced.

“I tell my patients all the time, print out whatever you find that makes you nervous, makes you scared. And let’s talk about it,” Professor White said.

Abinash Virk, an infectious diseases doctor and co-chair of Mayo Clinic’s COVID-19 vaccination ­effort, said people who were staunchly against receiving the vaccine either do not ask their doctor or do not come in at all.

A history of women’s health concerns being more likely to be dismissed by health care professionals compounds the problem.

“The needs of women historically have not been included in ­research studies. Often it’s because the person designing the research study is not a woman,” Professor White said.

With women often the default healthcare managers of their families and the decision-makers on whether to vaccinate their children, debunking misinformation is especially important as the US has opened up Pfizer vaccines to children 12 and older.

AFP