In the lead-up to the Food and Drug Administration’s first emergency approval of a COVID-19 vaccine, far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones used his Infowars outlet to bombard the internet and terrestrial radio with the false claim that COVID-19 vaccines cause infertility in women.
Widespread rejection of vaccines against COVID-19 would frustrate the lifesaving goal of achieving herd immunity against the disease through vaccination rather than through natural infection. Not only would widespread death continue for an indeterminate amount of time, but public health orders that restrict activities would also continue, hampering an eventual return to normalcy.
The infertility claim’s origin is a petition submitted to the European Medicines Agency by Michael Yeadon, a retired doctor who worked for Pfizer, and physician Wolfgang Wodarg, that baselessly suggested Pfizer’s vaccine is a potential threat to the placenta. Both Yeadon and Wodarg have previously spread misinformation