The latest marketing ploy, feminist themes, may expose women all around the world to hazardous practices such as overdiagnosis and unneeded therapies.
According to an examination published Thursday in the British Medical Journal by Australian academics, firms were pushing ineffective tests and treatments by exploiting feminist messages.
Promises for empowerment
“Feminist narratives of increasing women’s autonomy and empowerment regarding their healthcare, which first arose through early women’s health movements are now increasingly adopted by commercial entities to market new interventions (technologies, tests, treatments) that lack robust evidence or ignore the evidence that is available,” write researchers.
They claim that by “promising empowerment through knowledge control and control” over one’s body, corporations promote therapies with little or no benefit.
Using the example of menstrual tracking apps that claim diagnostic expertise on problems like polycystic ovarian syndrome, the authors say the problem is not with the use of these health technologies, but “in the way commercial marketing and advocacy efforts push such interventions to a much larger group of women than is likely to benefit without being explicit about their limitations.”
“Promoting healthcare interventions that are not supported by evidence, or while concealing or downplaying evidence, increases the risk of harm to women through inappropriate medicalisation, overdiagnosis, and overtreatment,” they write.
Furthermore, they argue that using feminist narratives to market interventions “gives the impression health and sex equality are commodities that can be bought (by those who can afford it)”.
“Take charge of your fertility”
The writers, for example, mention an often-imposed service on women: the anti-müllerian hormone (AMH) test.
AMH tests are used to anticipate AMH levels in the blood, which are linked to the amount of eggs in a woman’s ovaries. This is inversely related to age, and research suggests that these tests “cannot reliably predict the likelihood of pregnancy, time to pregnancy, or the specific age of menopause for individuals.”
Despite this, fertility clinics and online companies continue to market and sell the tests with statements such as “information is power” and “take charge of your fertility”.
“Health consumers and clinicians need to be wary of the simplistic narratives that any information and knowledge is always power,” write researchers.
However, senior author of the report, Dr. Brooke Nickel, as quoted by The Guardian, adds that it should not be placed on women to traverse these health messages.
Instead, she says “The responsibility should largely be placed on companies that market these health interventions to be clearer about their limitations.”