Vax Opponents Distort Breast Milk Study 

Critics of the COVID-19 vaccines have a pretty extensive toolbox when it comes to casting doubt on the safety of the vaccines. One tactic is to draw sweeping conclusions from minor developments.

The latest example of this came when some claimed to find a smoking gun in the form of a JAMA Pediatrics study that looked for the presence of vaccine mRNA in breast milk samples.

Researchers at NYU Long Island School of Medicine collected expressed breast milk samples from 11 women, between one hour and five days after vaccination with either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines. The results, published on Sept. 26, found trace amounts in seven samples from five women up to 45 hours after vaccination. 

One frequent purveyor of vaccine misinformation called the findings "a disaster for infants." Another said the study was evidence that those breastfeeding shouldn’t get vaccinated. It is neither.

Science Editor Jessica McDonald -- who, unlike these vaccine critics, is a trained scientist with an advanced degree in immunology --  and staffer Catalina Jaramillo explain that "the amount of mRNA was exceedingly small, was detected only for up to 48 hours after vaccination, and does not mean that vaccination is hazardous to infants."

Oh, and the results are not new, either.

"Two other papers have also found vaccine mRNA in breast milk from some — but not all — of a small number of lactating women, always in extremely small amounts," Jessie and Catalina write. 

The study’s author, Dr. Nazeeh Hanna, told them he was not suggesting that lactating mothers not get vaccinated, but that if mothers had any concerns about the mRNA in milk, they could “pump and dump” for the first 48 hours after a vaccination. 

However, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other experts said that those precautions weren’t necessary, since there is no evidence that the mRNA is harmful.

“There is absolutely no justification to withhold breastmilk after getting the vaccine, even with the detection of trace amounts of mRNA,” Dr. Stephanie Gaw, a maternal-fetal medicine physician scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, said in an email.

For her part, Jessie breastfed her baby after three mRNA COVID-19 vaccinations -- and says she would make the same decision again.

Read the full story, "No Indication Breast Milk After Vaccination Unsafe, Despite Posts About New Study," which is available in English and Spanish. 

Reader: Can i get where all your donations come from. We all know where it is. U call yourself transparent. Make public all the donations from left n Democrats.  N let ppl decide after. But u won’t do that. Even as kids, u call that cowards

FactCheck.org Director Eugene Kiely: We post quarterly financial reports on our website. The reports disclose any donations of $1,000 or more. So, yes, we are transparent.
 
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Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

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• "TV Ads Distort Tshibaka’s Position on Birth Control": A super PAC supporting Sen. Lisa Murkowski claims in several TV ads that her top challenger, Kelly Tshibaka, “wants to ban birth control in the mail.” Tshibaka has said she would ban the sale of the morning-after pill via the mail, but the ads leave the misleading impression she would ban all forms of birth control. 
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• "Ad Distorts Abortion Views of Republican House Candidate from Nevada": An ad from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee falsely claims that Nevada Republican House candidate April Becker supports a nationwide abortion ban and “taking away a woman’s right to abortion with no exceptions.” 
• "Pro-Dixon Ad Uses ‘Joke’ About Drag Queens in a Misleading Attack on Whitmer": Michigan’s Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel said that she was joking when she said in a June speech that there should be “a drag queen for every school.” But a TV ad from a super PAC supporting Republican Tudor Dixon is using a version of Nessel’s quote out of context in a misleading attack against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. 
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• "Preguntas y respuestas sobre las vacunas de refuerzo contra el COVID-19 actualizadas para la variante ómicron": Las vacunas de refuerzo contra el COVID-19 rediseñadas para apuntar específicamente contras las subvariantes de ómicron del coronavirus ya están disponibles en EE. UU. Aquí respondemos preguntas sobre estas nuevas vacunas. 
• "Video afirma falsedades sobre la cobertura del seguro de vida de un francés vacunado": Tanto los ensayos clínicos como las condiciones de la vida real han demostrado que las vacunas contra el COVID-19 son seguras y efectivas. Pero un video en internet afirma sin fundamento que una compañía de seguros francesa rehusó pagar la póliza de un hombre que falleció tras recibir la vacuna porque la consideró como un “experimento médico”. El video menciona erróneamente que esto también ha ocurrido en Estados Unidos. 
• "No hay indicios de que la leche materna no sea segura tras la vacunación, a pesar de publicaciones sobre nuevo estudio": No hay pruebas que siguieran que sea peligroso para los bebés consumir leche materna de personas que han sido vacunadas contra el COVID-19. Sin embargo, publicaciones digitales apuntan a un estudio que encontró rastros temporales del ARNm de la vacuna en la leche materna tras la vacunación para afirmar que las vacunas no son seguras.