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Between the scientific and the alternative: Women’s claims about copper toxicity caused by IUD use
Örebro University, Sweden.
Lund University, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3186-9054
2022 (English)In: Workshop "Assemblages of Rare Diseases: March 10- 11, 2022, Rare Disease Social Research Center (RDSRC) , 2022Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

The copper IUD is a widely used contraceptive, recommended to many women who want a long-acting contraceptive method and sometimes seen as an alternative for those who want to avoid side effects associated with hormonal alternatives. However, while many report being satisfied with their copper IUD, a growing number of women speak about a range of mental and physical symptoms believed to be caused by copper excess due to copper IUD use. This set of systemic side effects may be framed as a rare disease but is not recognized as such by established medical authorities. In Sweden accounts about copper IUD related side effects circulate on social media, primarily in a Facebook group which presently includes over 9000 members.Based on online group interviews and written essays, we examine how women embracing these alternative knowledge claims navigate various sources of information, focusing the role of scientificity in these epistemic negotiations. We show that participants were strongly invested in scientificity and criticized medical authorities for not being scientific enough. Meanwhile, due to a perceived lack of scientifically based expertise on their condition, many of the women reported having little choice but to turn to alternative or non-scientific modes of health-related knowledge and practices. We argue that medical authorities’ tendencies towards portraying these women’s claims as unscientific simplify the nature of lay knowledge production, potentially deepening divides between medical authorities and parts of the public.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Rare Disease Social Research Center (RDSRC) , 2022.
National Category
Gender Studies
Research subject
Social Sciences, Gender Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-117390OAI: oai:DiVA.org:lnu-117390DiVA, id: diva2:1709713
Conference
Assemblages of rare diseases, Institute of Philosophy & Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences,March 10 - 11, 2022, Warsaw, Poland
Funder
Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, 2018-00951Available from: 2022-11-09 Created: 2022-11-09 Last updated: 2022-12-16Bibliographically approved

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Wemrell, Maria

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf