New york – If widespread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and infertility have taken hold on social media, the rumors are spreading as fast as the virus itself and some women are afraid to get a chance.
Jay Huber, a fertility doctor in New Orleans, is asked daily by his patients if the vaccine causes infertility. He said there was no evidence that this had happened.
“I think it’s important to dispel the myths because patients need to have access to accurate information,” Huber told CBS News.
What, then, is the biggest misconception?
“This concept that the vaccine will actually train the human immune system to create an antibody that cross-reacts with the important placenta protein, which can eventually cause infertility,” he said.
The unfounded fear, Huber said, is that an antibody will not only attack the virus, but also the placenta.
Stacey Clarke, a 36-year-old nurse, receives fertility treatments from Huber. She fears that the vaccine could somehow affect her ability to conceive.
“It’s just too soon to put something strange in my body that goes through me,” she said. “There’s a lot of emotion. Because I’ve done it twice before, and it was not successful.”
Clarke said the thought of becoming infertile came to her, but Huber reassured her.
“Of course he feels very much that there is enough evidence for me to get the vaccine,” she said of their discussions. “We have reached an agreement so far.”
Clarke said many of her female colleagues share the fears.
“We have the same feeling about the vaccine … We just do not know what the long-term effects are on ourselves or on the fetus,” she said.
Huber addressed the case: “I do not think reproductive women should be concerned about their future fertility if they receive this COVID-19 vaccine. The data we have so far is that the vaccine is very safe.”
Clarke said she does not think there is anything that will change her from the vaccine. Not even this warning story of 35-year-old Anna Almendrala. She became ill with COVID after her fertility treatment.
In a video, she can be seen lying prone and gasping for air.
“The scary thing is that things can change on a double with this virus,” she said.
Days later, she was in the hospital and wrote a farewell letter to her daughter.
When asked what she would say to women who do not want the vaccine at all, Almendrala referred to how common COVID is in the US.
“I would say at this point … with the virus so widespread, you choose whether to get the vaccine or to get COVID,” she said.
Almadrala said she was relieved that there was a vaccine and that she would be happy to take it – when it was her turn.
“I think what this experience has really shown us is that we already have so much to be thankful for,” she said. “I almost felt like I was lost from everything for a few days.”
Read more from our CBS news series “Women and the Pandemic” below: