It’s the claim that’s suddenly everywhere: The COVID-19 vaccine is going to make women infertile.
“No! You don’t know the science!” one woman posted on Twitter in response to naysayers. “The vaccine creates an immune response to the placenta and renders a woman sterile! They know this and this is the objective! It’s a shifty world sterilisation programme.”
As it turns out, this unfounded fear isn’t new, said vaccine expert and pediatrician Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, the chief of Stanford University School of Medicine’s division of pediatric infectious diseases, who is currently leading vaccine trials in children younger than 12.
“Oh my goodness, people have been saying this about every vaccine since I can remember,” said Maldonado, who also chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases. “There is no evidence that this vaccine will affect development or fertility.”
