Dr. Anthony Fauci has invalidated Nicki Minaj‘s claims from Monday about swollen testicles being one of the side effects of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
The rapper recently revealed that she skipped the 2021 Met Gala due to its vaccine requirement and further explained how she was opting out of getting the jab until she conducts more research herself. Within her viral tweets about the vaccine, Minaj also shared a story about how one of her cousins’ friends suffered from adverse side effects after being vaccinated in her native Trinidad.
“My cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent,” she wrote. “His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding. So just pray on it & make sure you’re comfortable with ur decision, not bullied.”
On Tuesday (Sept. 14), Jake Tapper brought Dr. Fauci as a guest on CNN’s The Lead and asked him if there is any truth to Minaj’s claims about vaccinated people possibly suffering from reproductive issues as a result of receiving the Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
“The answer to that, Jake, is a resounding no,” responded the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “There’s no evidence that it happens nor is there any mechanistic reason to imagine that it would happen.”
When asked about how to combat misinformation about the vaccine from highly acclaimed individuals, especially someone like Minaj who shared her perspective on the vaccine to her 22.6 million Twitter followers, Dr. Fauci said, “It’s very difficult. There’s a lot of misinformation, mostly on social media, and the only way we know to counter mis- and disinformation is to provide a lot of correct information and to essentially debunk these kinds of claims, which may be innocent on her part, I’m not blaming her for anything. But she should be thinking twice about propagating information that really has no basis except as a one-off anecdote, and that’s not what science is all about.”
See Dr. Fauci discuss Minaj’s claims about the COVID vaccine below.
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