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A growing number of stories about COVID-19 vaccines affecting a person’s menstrual cycle stimulates attention and research funding.
Why is this important: Efforts to stop the pandemic are hampered by continued reluctance to vaccinate, in part because of misinformation about side effects. A CDC scientist told Axios “there is absolutely no evidence” that the changed rules some reported cause infertility, a common refrain among anti-vaccines.
- “Women of childbearing age absolutely need to be vaccinated,” said Christine Olson, CDC chief medical officer responsible for the v-safe pregnancy registry.
Threat level: Pregnant people who have symptomatic COVID infection “have a double risk of admission to intensive care and a 70% increased risk of maternal death,” especially with the highly transmissible Delta variant, according to Olson.
What is happening: There are “thousands and thousands and thousands” who report an impact of the COVID vaccine, especially on menstruation, explains Namandjé N. Bumpus, director of the department of pharmacology and molecular sciences at the Faculty of Medicine of the Johns Hopkins University.
- However, adds Bumpus, “it remains to be seen whether there is a causal link or not.”
- Olson points out that the CDC “is aware of reports of menstrual irregularities” and continues to study the issue. The NIH is funding five additional one-year grants worth $ 1.67 million to further investigate whether there is a link and what may be the underlying mechanisms.
- One of the theories is that the change in a person’s period could be caused by a temporary immune response to the vaccine, because the endometrium that lines the uterus contains multiple immune cells, says Alice Lu-Culligan, MD-Ph .D. a Yale School of Medicine student researching the topic and writing an opinion piece in April.
Changes in menstrual cycles can be caused by many factors such as stress or new drugs, can occur frequently and is often temporary without impacting fertility, says Viki Male, senior lecturer in reproductive immunology at Imperial College London.
- The problem, she says, is the combination of the infertility misinformation with people saying, “Oh, I noticed this changed my period. This led to hesitation and questions like, “You say they don’t cause infertility, but if they don’t cause infertility, then why did my friend’s period have five? days late? “
- “But people find [menstruation] returns to normal very quickly, ”Male says.
- “Someone’s period change doesn’t mean she was sterile that month,” adds Lu-Culligan.
Background: Misinformation about the vaccine’s effect on fertility was first promulgated in the UK in December by Michael Yeadon, former vice chairman of Pfizer, Male said. Since then, many different scientists have looked closely at the claim, she says, and have not found any evidence to support this claim.
- “The concern about infertility is hypothetical. There is no current evidence to support this, and there are most certainly pregnancies that occur every day after the COVID-19 vaccination,” Olson said.
Between the lines: Multiple sources say the decision taken in early vaccine clinical trials to exclude pregnant women fueled the reluctance.
- “It was a terrible mistake not to include pregnant people in clinical trials” for COVID-19 vaccines early on, Male says. “We should have known that we were going to have to vaccinate pregnant people, but we ended up without test data from them. I think that’s something we should learn from in the future as well.”
- “Much of this early opportunity was lost” by not including pregnant women in randomized controlled trials of the vaccine with a blinded placebo cohort, says Lu-Culligan. “There are trials going on right now, but we have to wait for them and wait for the numbers to pile up.”
The bottom line: Vaccination is essential “for anyone who wants to make sure their pregnancy is as healthy as possible and that they give birth to a healthy baby,” says Olson.
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