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Comment and Health

Conspiracy theorists are turning their attention back to HPV vaccines

We are living in a vaccine-hesitant moment, with conspiracy theories thriving on social media. We need to push back, says Simon Williams

By Simon Williams

6 November 2024

91av. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Adrià Voltà

In May 2014, in El Carmen de Bolívar in northern Colombia, mainstream news and social media were awash with reports and viral videos of adolescent girls experiencing symptoms of a ““, including fainting and numbness. Claims were made that this was linked to side effects from the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine.

Although Colombian health authorities’ investigations found of a biological link between the vaccine and the symptoms reported, the effects of these claims, which had been spread via social media, lingered. By 2016, Colombia’s female , one of the world’s…

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