Most Studies Show COVID Vaccine Affects Menstrual Cycles, BMJ Review Finds
/From [HERE] Women experienced menstrual cycle disruption following COVID-19 vaccination, including changes in cycle length, flow and menstrual pain, according to a new “state of the science” review published Monday in BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health.
Although women comprised about half of the participants in the original COVID-19 vaccine trials, no data were collected on how the shots affected their menstrual cycles.
Soon after the shots were rolled out, many women started reporting longer periods and heavier-than-normal bleeding, and many women who did not normally menstruate — including women on long-acting contraceptives and post-menopausal women — also reported unusual bleeding.
Tens of thousands of women reported symptoms to researchers and medical regulators in the U.S. and the United Kingdom respectively by mid-2021.
At the time, women’s concerns were often “blown off” and they felt “gaslighted,” Dr. Alison Edelman, one of the review article authors, told NBC.
Researchers called for studies into the issue, in part because they said disrupted menstrual cycles were driving “misinformation” that the vaccines were dangerous and fueling “vaccine hesitancy.”
Since then, dozens of studies have been published on the issue.
For the BMJ review, researchers from Harvard, Boston University, Michigan State University and Oregon Health & Science University surveyed and summarized the existing published literature in the PubMed database — which contains peer-reviewed research in the biomedical and life sciences literature — on the COVID-19 vaccines and menstruation. [MORE]