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The doctor who took on Goop and the biggest threat to women’s health
I’m staring at a freeze-frame of a bare-chested man behind the text “Why is menopause painful?” when a woman’s head pops up from the corner of the screen, wavy haired and bespectacled.
“You know what’s painful in menopause?” she says. “Having to listen to pontificating shirtless dudes who have no idea what the f--- they’re talking about.”
Dr Jen Gunter says the biggest concern for women’s health is misinformation.
The woman is Dr Jen Gunter, a Canadian-born, US-based gynaecologist and author who earned the moniker “vagina antichrist” after her searing critique of Gwyneth Paltrow’s $250 million wellness empire Goop in 2017, which was selling vaginal jade eggs, espousing the benefits of vaginal steaming and claiming bras caused cancer.
Seven years later, women are being bombarded with bad intel about their own bodies with rapid-fire repetition on TikTok and Instagram that trades on fear, often before hawking a pricey, unproven, potentially hazardous solution, Gunter says.
“Misinformation is the most pressing problem for women’s health today,” Gunter says before a visit to Sydney for National Science Week, including a speaking event at UNSW on August 15.
“These algorithms are creepy smart, and they favour fear,” she said. “It’s not just the original video we’re dealing with, it’s the people who stitch [which allows users to combine a video with a new video they create], then those videos get views and shares and comments, which [is rewarded by] the algorithm,” she said.
“We mistake repetition for accuracy. It’s very human. And once you are exposed to misinformation it’s very hard to then accept valid information.”
Social media may provide a vehicle for medical untruths, but it’s also a salve.
Gunter has 355,000 followers on TikTok, 289,000 on Instagram and 360,000 on X, and she’s not the only medical professional on TikTok and Instagram (not to mention scientists and official health departments and peak healthcare organisations) debunking wellness myths and providing science-backed information. Most are less sweary.
The proliferation of misinformation is understandable. It is what fills the vacuum when accurate, accessible information about women’s health is scarce.
“We know many women don’t get the healthcare they need because they are dismissed and sent home with pain. They are let down by the healthcare system, and that’s when predators or the wellness industry swoop in,” Gunter said.
Her targets include naturopaths, chiropractors, lifestyle coaches, and influencers who espouse unfounded and erroneous “health advice”.
An Instagram post that recently drew her ire was by a “body connection coach” with more than 13,000 followers who said she avoided cervical cancer screening, colonoscopies and mammograms before advertising her course for $750.
Gwyneth Paltrow at a Goop event in 2020.Credit: Getty Images
Gunter also responded to a TikTok (which had more than 677,000 likes) in which a woman recommended putting boric acid into one’s vagina to “be perfect down there”. Boric acid kills good bacteria as well as bad and is very irritating to the vaginal mucosa, Gunter told her followers.
The “worst myth” for Gunter, is the “hormone imbalance” trend, which co-opts hormonal health: the changes in hormones that influence the reproductive cycle, menstruation, puberty and menopause.
Proponents claim rebalancing hormones is responsible for an expanding array of ailments including gut problems and autoimmune diseases that can be treated with detoxes, ceasing hormonal contraception and hormone health courses.
“It’s a nonsensical thing, just a made-up term that people can turn it into whatever they want to suit their purposes,” she said.
‘When I started tackling misinformation online I thought I’d have this fixed in a few years.’
Gynaecologist Dr Jen Gunter
Her approach has brought her admirers and vocal critics.
“I certainly get attacked a lot by other women,” she said. “I just want you to have the power that comes with knowledge about how your body works. You can do with it what you want.”
She recalls a patient whose husband had read online that contraceptive pills irrevocably damaged fertility.
“They were having a little trouble getting pregnant the second time, and she was literally sobbing on the floor thinking she had damaged her fertility by taking birth control pills. That is cruel,” Gunter said.
“When I started tackling misinformation online I thought I’d have this fixed in a few years, then I won’t have to have these conversations in the office any more. I was so naive.”
The spread of misinformation has been recognised by social media companies. Both TikTok and Meta employ mechanisms aimed at curbing its spread.
A spokesperson for Meta (which owns Instagram) said, “Meta is committed to stopping the spread of misinformation. We use a combination of enforcement technology, human review and independent fact-checkers to identify, review and take action on this type of content.”
In a statement, a spokesman for TikTok said, “Our Community Guidelines prohibit misinformation, including medical misinformation, that may cause significant harm to people, and we remove millions of pieces of content in Australia each year.”
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