False claims that coronavirus vaccines can cause infertility drive doubts among women of childbearing age

As the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine ramps up across the United States, women of childbearing age have emerged as a surprising roadblock to efforts to halt the pandemic by achieving herd immunity.

Officials have encountered hesitancy among other groups, including some Black and Hispanic adults and those who believe the pandemic is a hoax. But the reluctance of women in their 20s and 30s — largely around disinformation spread on Facebook, Twitter and other social media — has been more unexpected. With such women making up a large share of the health-care workforce, vaccine uptake at nursing homes and hospitals has been as low as 20 to 50 percent in some places — a far cry from the 70 to 85 percent population target that health officials say may be needed to stop the virus.

“I’m worried, frankly,” said Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. “There are stories out there on the Internet about how vaccination can lead to infertility. There’s absolutely nothing to that. But when we look at people who are expressing hesitancy, in many instances those are women of childbearing age.”

Women’s concerns come against a backdrop of national surveys showing that a growing share of Americans are open to getting the vaccine. Roughly 40 percent of people said in January that they would get it as soon as they could, up from 34 percent in December, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report. But many groups that were hesitant late last year remain hesitant.

Women are more likely than men to turn down the shots, and they are especially worried about long-term side effects, with nearly three-quarters saying they were very or somewhat concerned, according to the KFF survey conducted Jan. 11-18. About 12 percent of respondents said they had heard debunked claims that the vaccine causes infertility and either believe it to be true or are unsure if it’s true. ...