People who are hesitant about getting the COVID-19 vaccine don’t have to work hard to find internet rumors and theories that will fuel their fears regarding the vaccine’s safety. That’s because anti-vaccine groups and individuals are working overtime to promote frightening, false theories about the two COVID-19 vaccines that have now been administered to more than 24 million Americans, infectious disease experts say. “These kind of rumors have been around ever since Edward Jenner made his smallpox vaccine in the late 1700s,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “There was a belief if you got the vaccine, which was derived from cowpox, that you would take on bovine characteristics. You’d get a snout, you’d get a tail, you’d get floppy ears. That was the internet 1802, basically.” There are two major types of disinformation being promulgated about the coronavirus vaccines: Anecdotal “cause-and-effect” rumors that erroneously tie a person’s untimely demise to the fact they recently got a COVID-19 vaccine. “Big lie” conspiracy theories that allege the vaccine can cause all manner of major side effects, from infertility to permanently altering your genetics. Health care workers had braced for stories coming out that tie people’s personal health problems and untimely deaths to their recent vaccination, even though there’s no evidence linking the two. For example, vaccine…  read on >  read on >

People who are hesitant about getting the COVID-19 vaccine don’t have to work hard to find internet rumors and theories that will fuel their fears regarding the vaccine’s safety. That’s because anti-vaccine groups and individuals are working overtime to promote frightening, false theories about the two COVID-19 vaccines that have now been administered to more than 24 million Americans, infectious disease experts say. “These kind of rumors have been around ever since Edward Jenner made his smallpox vaccine in the late 1700s,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “There was a belief if you got the vaccine, which was derived from cowpox, that you would take on bovine characteristics. You’d get a snout, you’d get a tail, you’d get floppy ears. That was the internet 1802, basically.” There are two major types of disinformation being promulgated about the coronavirus vaccines: Anecdotal “cause-and-effect” rumors that erroneously tie a person’s untimely demise to the fact they recently got a COVID-19 vaccine. “Big lie” conspiracy theories that allege the vaccine can cause all manner of major side effects, from infertility to permanently altering your genetics. Health care workers had braced for stories coming out that tie people’s personal health problems and untimely deaths to their recent vaccination, even though there’s no evidence linking the two. For example, vaccine…  read on >  read on >

People who are hesitant about getting the COVID-19 vaccine don’t have to work hard to find internet rumors and theories that will fuel their fears regarding the vaccine’s safety. That’s because anti-vaccine groups and individuals are working overtime to promote frightening, false theories about the two COVID-19 vaccines that have now been administered to more than 24 million Americans, infectious disease experts say. “These kind of rumors have been around ever since Edward Jenner made his smallpox vaccine in the late 1700s,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “There was a belief if you got the vaccine, which was derived from cowpox, that you would take on bovine characteristics. You’d get a snout, you’d get a tail, you’d get floppy ears. That was the internet 1802, basically.” There are two major types of disinformation being promulgated about the coronavirus vaccines: Anecdotal “cause-and-effect” rumors that erroneously tie a person’s untimely demise to the fact they recently got a COVID-19 vaccine. “Big lie” conspiracy theories that allege the vaccine can cause all manner of major side effects, from infertility to permanently altering your genetics. Health care workers had braced for stories coming out that tie people’s personal health problems and untimely deaths to their recent vaccination, even though there’s no evidence linking the two. For example, vaccine…  read on >  read on >

People who are hesitant about getting the COVID-19 vaccine don’t have to work hard to find internet rumors and theories that will fuel their fears regarding the vaccine’s safety. That’s because anti-vaccine groups and individuals are working overtime to promote frightening, false theories about the two COVID-19 vaccines that have now been administered to more than 24 million Americans, infectious disease experts say. “These kind of rumors have been around ever since Edward Jenner made his smallpox vaccine in the late 1700s,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “There was a belief if you got the vaccine, which was derived from cowpox, that you would take on bovine characteristics. You’d get a snout, you’d get a tail, you’d get floppy ears. That was the internet 1802, basically.” There are two major types of disinformation being promulgated about the coronavirus vaccines: Anecdotal “cause-and-effect” rumors that erroneously tie a person’s untimely demise to the fact they recently got a COVID-19 vaccine. “Big lie” conspiracy theories that allege the vaccine can cause all manner of major side effects, from infertility to permanently altering your genetics. Health care workers had braced for stories coming out that tie people’s personal health problems and untimely deaths to their recent vaccination, even though there’s no evidence linking the two. For example, vaccine…  read on >  read on >

Could something as simple as taking a low-dose aspirin once a day guard against pregnancy loss among women who have already suffered miscarriages? New research suggests that’s the case, though exactly how low-dose aspirin helps stave off miscarriages is not fully understood yet. But “aspirin is anti-inflammatory and in a certain subset of women, miscarriage may be the result of an underlying inflammation,” noted study author Ashley Naimi, an associate professor of epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta. In his study of more than 1,200 women aged 18 to 40 who had a history of one or two miscarriages, those women who took low-dose aspirin (81 milligrams) five to seven days a week were more likely to get pregnant, stay pregnant and deliver a live baby. The same was seen among women who took aspirin at least four days a week. The study was published Jan. 25 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The new findings run counter to a previous analysis of the same data, which found no difference in pregnancy loss among women who took aspirin or dummy pill while trying to conceive. When the researchers went back to the data and looked at whether women stuck to the daily aspirin regimen or not, they found that consistency appeared to be linked to the findings. “Aspirin in this group of women could play…  read on >  read on >

Could something as simple as taking a low-dose aspirin once a day guard against pregnancy loss among women who have already suffered miscarriages? New research suggests that’s the case, though exactly how low-dose aspirin helps stave off miscarriages is not fully understood yet. But “aspirin is anti-inflammatory and in a certain subset of women, miscarriage may be the result of an underlying inflammation,” noted study author Ashley Naimi, an associate professor of epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta. In his study of more than 1,200 women aged 18 to 40 who had a history of one or two miscarriages, those women who took low-dose aspirin (81 milligrams) five to seven days a week were more likely to get pregnant, stay pregnant and deliver a live baby. The same was seen among women who took aspirin at least four days a week. The study was published Jan. 25 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The new findings run counter to a previous analysis of the same data, which found no difference in pregnancy loss among women who took aspirin or dummy pill while trying to conceive. When the researchers went back to the data and looked at whether women stuck to the daily aspirin regimen or not, they found that consistency appeared to be linked to the findings. “Aspirin in this group of women could play…  read on >  read on >