The rollout of Covid-19 vaccines has laid bare some hard lessons, among them the need to fund the United States’ crumbling public health infrastructure and prioritize equitable access to high-quality health information. But it’s also drawn attention to some long-ignored problems in the way new vaccines and other medical products are studied — including the way researchers evaluate the effects of those products on menstrual cycles.
Like most clinical trials, the 2020 Covid-19 vaccine studies didn’t collect data about menstrual variability among participants. Younger people became eligible for vaccination in early 2021, and as they did, high-profile people — including former Pfizer executive Michael Yeadon and feminist author Naomi Wolf — raised concerns that vaccines could negatively affect reproductive health, often in the name of women’s wellness. Menstruating people worldwide began to ask questions about whether changes in their periods portended more serious changes in their current or future ability to conceive.
Soon after, myths linking Covid-19 vaccines with infertility began spreading with surprising ferocity — facilitated, say experts, by the absence of data addressing the menstrual side effects of vaccination.
Read more at Vox.