COVID Vaccine Placenta Misinformation Debunked
A PhD in English Literature Is Laudable, but...
No evidence that COVID-19 vaccination affects placenta, contrary to a claim by Naomi Wolf - Health Feedback
Writer and conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf has opined that the COVID vaccine is associated with widespread placental abnormalities. She quotes a midwife who claims there are virtually no normal placentas anymore as evidence.
There is just one problem, Wolf in wrong. From the Health Feedback article linked above, “In summary, research so far has shown that COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy isn’t associated with placental defects. Numerous studies also showed that COVID-19 vaccines don’t cause miscarriages, stillbirths, or preterm births, as Health Feedback reported before. In fact, COVID-19 vaccination is instrumental in protecting pregnant women from pregnancy complications caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection, including placenta inflammation and vascular defects.”
The question I have is how could Dr. Wolf be so wrong? There are really only two answers: Malfeasance or Epistemic Trespassing.
Naomi Rebekah Wolf (born November 12, 1962) is an American feminist author, journalist and conspiracy theorist.[1][3][4][5]
Following her first book The Beauty Myth (1991), she became a leading spokeswoman of what has been described as the third wave of the feminist movement.[6][7] Feminists including Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan praised her work. Others, including Camille Paglia, criticized it. In the 1990s, she was a political advisor to the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.[8]
Wolf's later books include the bestseller The End of America in 2007 and Vagina: A New Biography. Critics have challenged the quality and accuracy of the scholarship in her books; her serious misreading of court records for Outrages (2019) led to its US publication being cancelled.[9] Wolf's career in journalism has included topics such as abortion and the Occupy Wall Street movement in articles for media outlets such as The Nation, The New Republic, The Guardian, and The Huffington Post.
Since around 2014, Wolf has been described, by journalists and media outlets, as a conspiracy theorist.[a] She has received criticism for promoting misinformation on topics such as beheadings carried out by ISIS, the Western African Ebola virus epidemic and Edward Snowden.[10][11][12]
She has objected to COVID-19 lockdowns and has criticized COVID-19 vaccines.[13][14] In June 2021, her Twitter account was suspended for posting anti-vaccine misinformation.[15]
How is it that Dr. Wolf is so wrong? There are really two major options: malfeasance or epistemic trespassing. If Wolf knowingly writes things that are untrue, then she is simply profiteering on misinformation. As we have seen, that can be very lucrative. RFK, Jr has built an entire career hawking antivaxx misinformation and accumulated considerable wealth doing so.
The other option is epistemic trespassing (venturing afield of one’s education and training). As impressive as a PhD in English Literature is, a deep appreciation of Keats and Shelley does not confer the minimum requisite skill set to discern scientific fact from artifact. Brilliance in one field is just that.
Throughout COVID we have seen the emergence of the self-identified expert. Everyone it seems is a COVID authority. No training in science, medicine or infectious disease is necessary. If you feel like an expert, you are! The problem of course is that untrained people are more likely to be persuaded by false arguments because they don’t have the skill set to engage in critical appraisal of the medical literature.
The bottom line? Wolf is wrong. She should stick to Shakespear.
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edline ® Abstract for Reference 12 of 'COVID-19: Overview of pregnancy issues'
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PubMed
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Association between menstrual cycle length and covid-19 vaccination: global, retrospective cohort study of prospectively collected data.
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Edelman A, Boniface ER, Male V, Cameron ST, Benhar E, Han L, Matteson KA, Van Lamsweerde A, Pearson JT, Darney BG
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BMJ Med. 2022;1(1) Epub 2022 Sep 27.
OBJECTIVESTo identify whether covid-19 vaccines are associated with menstrual changes in order to address concerns about menstrual cycle disruptions after covid-19 vaccination.
DESIGNGlobal, retrospective cohort study of prospectively collected data.
SETTINGInternational users of the menstrual cycle tracking application, Natural Cycles.
PARTICIPANTS19 622 individuals aged 18-45 years with cycle lengths of 24-38 days and consecutive data for at least three cycles before and one cycle after covid (vaccinated group; n=14 936), and those with at least four consecutive cycles over a similar time period (unvaccinated group; n=4686).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURESThe mean change within individuals was assessed by vaccination group for cycle and menses length (mean of three cycles before vaccination to the cycles after first and second dose of vaccine and the subsequent cycle). Mixed effects models were used to estimate the adjusted difference in change in cycle and menses length between the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
RESULTSMost people (n=15 713; 80.08%) were younger than 35 years, from the UK (n=6222; 31.71%), US and Canada (28.59%), or Europe (33.55%). Two thirds (9929 (66.48%) of 14 936) of the vaccinated cohort received the Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) covid-19 vaccine, 17.46% (n=2608) received Moderna (mRNA-1273), 9.06% (n=1353) received Oxford-AstraZeneca (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19), and 1.89% (n=283) received Johnson&Johnson (Ad26.COV2.S). Individuals who were vaccinated had a less than one day adjusted increase in the length of their first and second vaccine cycles, compared with individuals who were not vaccinated (0.71 day increase (99.3% confidence interval 0.47 to 0.96) for first dose; 0.56 day increase (0.28 to 0.84) for second dose). The adjusted difference was larger in people who received two doses in a cycle (3.70 days increase (2.98 to 4.42)). One cycle after vaccination, cycle length was similar to before the vaccine in individuals who received one dose per cycle (0.02 day change (99.3% confidence interval -0.10 to 0.14), but not yet for individuals who received two doses per cycle (0.85 day change (99.3% confidence interval 0.24 to 1.46)) compared with unvaccinated individuals. Changes in cycle length did not differ by the vaccine's mechanism of action (mRNA, adenovirus vector, or inactivated virus). Menses length was unaffected by vaccination.
CONCLUSIONSCovid-19 vaccination is associated with a small and likely to be temporary change in menstrual cycle length but no change in menses length.