Misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines can appear almost anywhere: from an uncle's Facebook post to a well-trusted news commentator. But where does it come from, and why do some myths spread further than others?
With the help of the internet research firm Graphika, NPR analyzed the rise of one persistent set of lies about COVID-19 vaccines: that they can affect female fertility.
Despite a mountain of scientific evidence showing the vaccines are safe and effective, the false information persists.
Graphika's data analysis tools allow the firm to track key points at which a piece of information is shared or amplified. It can illustrate how many of these kinds of lies often go viral.
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Step 1: Start with a kernel of truth
After receiving the COVID-19 vaccine this spring, "a lot of women noted heavy menstrual periods," says Alice Lu-Culligan, an MD-Ph.D. candidate at Yale University who studies the immune system and reproductive health.
Lu-Culligan says that immune cells play an important role in menstruation, and so it is in fact possible that the vaccine could temporarily alter that process. "It's very plausible that you could have abnormalities to the typical menstrual cycle," she says.
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Step 2: Find an influencer to spread doubts and questions
... One of the people reading [the 'COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects' Facebook group] page was an anti-vaccine campaigner named Naomi Wolf. Formerly best known for her writing about feminism, Wolf has, over the years, drifted into anti-vaccine advocacy. "She is a very highly followed influencer in what we call the pseudo-medical community," Smith says.
Wolf is not a medical doctor, and yet on April 19, she tweeted out a link to the Facebook group along with this message: "Hundreds of women on this page say that they are having bleeding/clotting after vaccination, or that they bleed oddly AROUND vaccinated women. Unconfirmed, needs more investigation, but lots of reports."
Smith points out that Wolf is using an old trick: by saying something "needs more investigation," she's raising doubts, without presenting facts that can be refuted.
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Step 3: Pile on some related myths
Wolf's tweet also seamlessly inserted a myth: that somehow vaccinated women could pass side effects on to the unvaccinated.
Lu-Culligan says that's absolutely not the case. She adds that this myth seems to echo another popular falsehood: that somehow women who live together can influence each other's cycles.
Wolf kept tweeting and piling on more misinformation in question form: Can vaccines cause infertility? Miscarriages?
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Step 4: Make waves in mainstream media
Days after Wolf started tweeting about vaccines and fertility, other influencers began picking it up, and a few clickbait websites wrote fake news stories.
But it was the real news that gave the lies their biggest boost. About a week after the initial tweets, a Miami private school, the Centner Academy, announced it would no longer allow vaccinated teachers into the classroom. It said there were too many questions about whether the vaccine could spread to unvaccinated mothers and children.
The school's CEO, Leila Centner, is an established anti-vaccine advocate, so her decision wasn't surprising. But the ban made national news anyway.
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Step 5: Morph to fit the messenger
Finally, because misinformation about vaccines is not grounded in data, it can mutate to fit any political message or worldview.
Vaccine myths about fertility and reproduction are particularly potent because they affect a large swath of the population, particularly when they incorporate myths about vaccinated women spreading the side effects. "It's kind of a one-size-fits-all theory in some ways, and the potential impact is everyone, rather than one specific community," Smith says.
In the weeks following the initial wave of coverage, others were using these ideas to grab audiences. Conservative commentator Candace Owens brought the link between vaccines and menstruation up on Instagram. In a six-minute video questioning vaccine safety, Owens never directly repeated the lies about fertility but didn't refute them either.
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Step 6: Repeat the cycle with new lies
By late June, the lies about fertility had spread everywhere from France to Brazil. But then, Smith says, they started fading away.
"It seems to have kind of fallen by the wayside in terms of the COVID-19 news cycle that happens in these spaces on the internet," she says.
And that's the last lesson about the lies: They don't stick around. They grab the attention, raise questions and doubt, but there's no substance there. So once they've shocked those they're meant to engage, they disappear.
Or more properly, they're replaced by a new, incredible story.
