Health companies use ‘misleading’ feminist narratives to market useless products, researchers find

Feminist health narratives are being co-opted by commercial interests to market new technologies, tests and treatments that are not backed by evidence, researchers have found.

Dr Tessa Copp at the University of Sydney and colleagues have argued that using feminist messages to promote “non-evidence-based products” risks harming women through inappropriate medicalisation, overdiagnosis, and overtreatment.

Their paper, published the British Medical Journal, described how these marketing messages echo those historically used to promote harmful products like tobacco and alcohol to women.

“The problem is not with the use of health technologies, tests and treatments per se, as many women benefit greatly and gain improved quality of life from them,” the authors wrote.

“The problem lies 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.”

Misleading marketing using feminist rhetoric

The team at University of Sydney’s school of public health discussed two current examples to argue how feminist discourse is being co-opted to promote non-evidence-based healthcare to healthy women.

The first was the anti-müllerian hormone (AMH) test, which measures levels of AMH in the blood, linked to the number of eggs in a woman’s ovaries.

Despite clear evidence that the test can’t reliably predict a woman’s chances of conceiving, the researchers found that some fertility clinics and online companies market and sell the test to the general public, using phrases such as “take charge of your fertility”.

Copp and colleagues argued that misleading marketing using feminist rhetoric that encourages women with no signs or symptoms of infertility to seek AMH testing to check their fertility or to inform their reproductive planning “ultimately undermines empowerment and informed decision making as the evidence to date shows the test is invalid for these purposes”.

The second example discussed was the view that all women having screening should be notified about their breast density, one of several independent risk factors for breast cancer.

Arguments emphasised women’s “right to know” but the authors noted that breast density notification is currently being used to promote additional screening without robust evidence – and without mentioning the lack of evidence – that it prevents breast cancer deaths.

Breast density notification, they said, can also increase women’s anxiety, confusion and intentions to seek additional screening.

While the researchers said they fully support stronger patient autonomy, they warned that marketing and campaigning for interventions and provision of information without stating the limitations or unclear evidence of benefit “risk causing more harm than good”.

“We need to ensure the goals of feminist health advocacy are not undermined through commercially driven use of feminist discourse pushing non-evidence-based care,” they concluded.