Naba Khan, Contributing Writer
“I’d rather deal with this pain than give my baby autism.”
“I read online that I should avoid this vaccine.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?”
These were just some of the many conversations I heard during my OB-GYN rotation.
I vividly remember encountering a pregnant patient in October 2025 who was curled up and writhing in pain because of six fibroids — painful, fleshy masses growing on her uterus — refusing Tylenol for fear of what our president had said only a month prior in a national address.
Nowadays, when public figures stand at their digital pulpits and make unsubstantiated medical claims, they are rarely met with any meaningful resistance. Instead, those claims are often loudly echoed by sycophants who prioritize loyalty over evidence. The correction — if it comes at all — arrives too late, lost beneath hundreds of reposts and a comment section already convinced.
Nowhere is this damage more visible than in women’s health. For decades, women were excluded from clinical trials, their symptoms chalked up to “anxiety,” their pain classified as normal. The gaps left behind created space for uncertainty, and where uncertainty exists, misinformation festers.
As a rising fourth year medical student, here are just a few examples of common myths and misinformation that I’ve seen cause real tangible harm for my patients.
‘Natural’ does not always mean safe.
Arsenic is natural. So is poison ivy, smallpox and the black mold growing in the carcass of Johnson Hall. The word “natural” is slapped onto jars and bottles purely for marketing purposes, with no real clinical weight.
You can’t ‘scoop out’ your period.
In a since-deleted TikTok video that garnered millions of views, a woman claimed to go to her doctor to get her period “scooped out,” encouraging others to do the same.
This is not possible. There is a procedure to remove the uterine lining that I’ve seen multiple times in the OR, and it’s not some quick clinic pitstop. D&C, or dilatation and curettage, is a surgical procedure that we do for various reasons, including precancerous overgrowth of the endometrial lining and abortions — not to get rid of a period.
Vaccines do not cause autism.
This is perhaps the most studied and thoroughly debunked claim in modern medical history.
The original 1998 paper that sparked the association between autism and MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccines was retracted. Its author lost his medical license. Dozens of large-scale studies have since found no connection between vaccines and autism.
The Hepatitis B vaccine does not cause autism. The annual flu shot does not cause autism. Thimerosal — a preservative that was removed from most childhood vaccines anyway — does not cause autism.
What the fear of vaccines does cause is outbreaks of preventable diseases in children whose parents loved them enough to worry, but were given the wrong thing to worry about.
And while we’re on the topic — Tylenol does not cause autism.
Acetaminophen, more commonly known by its brand name Tylenol, is an over-the-counter pain reliever and fever reducer. It’s also one of the only pain relievers that is safe to take in pregnant patients.
Despite this, our president — a man, and one who is definitely not a trained medical professional — advised expectant mothers to “tough it out” and avoid taking the medication if they could due to an unsubstantiated link to autism.
Despite multiple different doctors, scientists and health organizations coming out and strongly refuting these claims, the damage was done. Orders for Tylenol dropped nearly 20% in emergency rooms for pregnant patients, but stayed the same for non-pregnant ones.
Medicine is not infallible. Doctors get things wrong. Guidelines change. There is plenty of legitimate room for patients to ask questions, push back, seek second opinions and advocate fiercely for themselves in a system that has not always served them well — especially women.
But when we allow medical misinformation to persist, everyone suffers.