Adding the word "experience" to an online survey of biological & immunological mechanisms does not make it anthropology. People who are spreading online rumors about vaccines need to take a hard look at what they are doing. There are valid ways to collect health data. Use them.
There are real, concerning, harmful gaps in knowledge in #womenshealth. Bad data of the GIGO method of data collection for quick and dirty "research" on "vaccine side effect" merely replaces one harm with another harm. searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/definition/gar…
If collecting data, overtly on "vaccine" and "side effect" claiming causation from temporal relation
for "after" on something as highly variable as menses, w/ deliberate inclusion of perimenopause (known menstrual variation)
=methodology used by anti-vaxx

sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/f…
First of all, 65% of women have said their cycle was already affected by the pandemic alone - likely due to stress, activity changes, sleep, diet, etc, etc

womenshealthmag.com/uk/health/a339…
Anyone can create an online survey in minutes, bypassing all the usual #privacy #quality #safety mechanisms we use to study by valid methods. It gets picked up by the media quickly

=ripe for adding to #vaccine hysteria (here using the uterus for fear)

courthousenews.com/study-finds-on…
In fact, long #COVID19 wreaks havoc on the whole body, including menses. This is a very important, understudied #womenshealth and #menstrualhealth issue that deserves attention. #MedTwitter

Vaccines prevent long COVID (by preventing COVID itself).

medicalnewstoday.com/articles/long-…
Gaps in knowledge in #womenshealth and #menstrualhealth and #fertility deserve #quality #data. Distrust of doctors and medical science on this issue is driven by the patriarchal past, primarily towards women of color, especially salves.

history.com/news/the-fathe…
As women of color are doctors or in STEM in the U.S. there is a bizarre, often women-driven by non-STEM women

silencing, shaming, & attacking of WOC in science who are seeking to democratize data by *valid*, vetted, verified methods that ensure #data #integrity. #WomeninSTEM
..because women deserve #quality

Yes, quality is hard & takes time

The unwillingness to invest time, money, other resources in #womenshealth & #menstrualhealth is why there is low #quality in #data or outcomes

New bad quality data on #womenshealth & #vaccines harms
With MMR we had essentially eradicated it. Is NOT the case with #COVID19. We know 65% of women were experiencing menstrual irregularity with the #pandemic alone
= baseline

We know how anti-vaxx ideas got conceived & spread

Same junk science
#vaccine

nature.com/articles/ni120…
None of us need self-appointed crusaders to keep adding to this kind of #misinformation on #vaccines that harms real people. Before taking on the heady, ego-affirming, activist role of "I'm going to uncover something about vaccines and menses" - think.

statnews.com/2017/05/08/mea…
Those who do keyboard activism do not deal with the real-life consequences of what they put out there

WIth zero biological plausibility of single dose of vaccine as "cause" for change in menses in perimenopause or pregnancy, one can only generate nonsense "data" for anti-vaxx
There's the vaccine hesitancy of those harmed in the past, which is logical.

Then there are vaccine conspiracies of anti-vaxx like microchipping and infertilty.

Creating junk data on menses (menstruation=fertility) can only add to the existing fears

healthline.com/health-news/no…
I call a spade a spade when it comes to #accuracy, #quality, #safety, #womenshealth, #menstrualhealth ...frankly, in general.

Honest assessment for harm avoidance and to use only vetted, validated, verified data offends many who seek short cuts or see selves as crusaders.
In trade offs of harm reduction

harm to a self styled crusader's feelings by poor #data #integrity called by it's appropriate term or not

Or harm of contributing or generating nonsensical "data" on "vaccine side effect" on menses

I choose the latter harm reduction.

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More from @usnehal

9 Apr
I state, highlight, mark up, not insinuate
Why is someone who likely does not menstruate a sudden expert on #womenshealth to identify a WOC seeking #data #quality & #integrity as the threat...to women?
"Respecting" social science = using respectable methods, not online surveys.
What you see in the tweet and the "study" is ego, defensiveness & flagrant Dunning-Kruger effect for #womenshealth, #menstrualhealth, #COVID19, #vaccine #research.

The best way to demonstrate the value of a field is to be consistent on #quality not

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Academic language on #online #survey #data:
"systematically assess carelessness in a crowdsourced sample" Denial that quick & dirty is poor #quality is an odd use of time & ineffective. One could better defend one's merit, by delivering #quality per best practices and standards.
Read 35 tweets
9 Apr
LOVE being faculty at @MIT this semester for a class on #dataanalytics & #datascience. I tend to PM my mentees, especially women and #blackexcellence to start to prepare questions to ask. Too often people stay silent. Speak up. Never be embarrassed to show #curiosity.
Listening right now to mid-semester progress reports from teams and am feeling like such a proud #datascience #BigData #bigdataanalytics momma. Bear cubs doing good (well AND good in world)

LOVE that this is a space within @MIT that focuses on #SDoH and #equity.
Literally right now, hearing about a study on #socialmedia chatter as a driver of vaccines hesitancy driven by #Twitter - start postulate "cause/effect" by an incident that happens within days after a vaccine - like ppl automatically assume a death is "caused" by vaccine
Read 27 tweets
9 Apr
Handling uncertainty has been the work of the last few years. First there was the abyss of #womenshealth issues I fell into following what seemed simple enough egg freezing, then the unearthing of years of remote & recent medical system trauma causing me to question my own work
Oh, cancer monitoring too. & other types of uncertainty

One thing that I changed was my level of frankness. I became much more direct and not concerned with whether what I communicated was liked

You can't be a "pleaser", outwardly focused, & deal with uncertainty from own body
My mom gave me "permission" to be less perfectionist despite that being a trait she had most of her life. You have to develop self-compassion. When you have the latter you seek less external validation

More than that is recognizing control is only ever an illusion. Ride the wave
Read 6 tweets
9 Apr
If you study #vaccine + #sideeffect... you automatically cross into #healthcare & #medicine regardless of what other label applied

I'm a #vaccineswork #vaccinessavelives #pediatrician & #tweetiatrician careful on #data #quality particularly for women, WOC, POC

This is my lane
Every seeming kind of "not a big deal" thing related to #vaccineswork blows up in our faces like death threats via online mobs against #pediatrician #SciComm

May seem extreme but take a look at the escalation of responses to my identifying "bad #data"

medpagetoday.com/special-report…
We can't wait for yet more false "vaccines affect (THEY DO NOT) fertility" trope to circulate

anyone who is generating data on #vaccine "#sideeffects" needs to think about clean, quality, meaningful data. Junk data: common, but this actually matters

healthline.com/health-news/no…
Read 9 tweets
8 Apr
Peak Twitter. Woman w/ stage 4 #endometriosis, #fibroids, latter condition more common in WOC, post 2 gyn surgeries

identifies online #womenshealth #vaccine #survey as poor #data #quality

instead of improving, response ~ "not to attack... but am glad you are not my doctor"
Indeed, I engage patients & families 1:1 without forcing them into fields I've pre-created for my #data collection, based on assumptions I have from personal experience

Respecting women & WOC allows people to not be forced into leading questions or pre-created fields
Measuring needs to be #quality to deliver quality. Your #results will never be better than your #studydesign or collection methods. Wrote this cuz we need less measurement & more humanity. I'm in b-school & everyone sends a new survey every 30 sec..
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
Read 7 tweets
8 Apr
Utterly irresponsible

An *anthropologist* spreading vaccine hysteria (hate the word but she’s using the uterus to spread vaccine fear) 😱😡

NOT AT ALL controlling for
prior COVID
b4 vaccine

Perimenopausal included?!?

This is why you need GOOD science
#MedTwitter
#COVID19
Some women trying to “lead” on #womenshealth only serve to harm

No, the way to win in a man’s world is NOT to be as nonsensical as Trump on science

You only harm WOMEN when you fear monger with ZERO understanding of female biology

This is akin to “bleach treatment” science
They literally included perimenopause (pregnancy and lactation) which is KNOWN to have fluctuating hormones and distressing symptoms.

There IS *zero* biological understanding yet claiming to study “immune” response.

OMG.
Women are women’s worst enemies, I am convinced.
Read 15 tweets

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