Famous rapper Nicki Minaj has been criticized by Trinidad and Tobago’s health minister over her tweets saying that person on the Caribbean island had suffered swollen testicles after being vaccinated against Covid-19.
The Trinidad-born hip-hop star sparked a backlash from health experts when she claimed her cousin had refused to get vaccinated as a friend became impotent after being vaccinated.
“His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding,” Minaj told her 22.6 million Twitter followers on Monday.
On Wednesday, Minister Terrence Deyalsingh responded to the tweets, describing Minaj’s claim as “false.” He also said such misinformation had wasted his department’s time.
“One of the reasons why we could not respond yesterday in real-time to Miss Minaj is that we had to check and make sure that what she was claiming was either true or false. Unfortunately, we wasted so much time yesterday running down this false claim,” Mr. Deyalsingh explained.
Trinidad and Tobago’s health ministry had not logged a single incident of swollen testicles due to the Covid-19 vaccine in the country or “anywhere else in the world,” he added.
The Grammy-nominated artist’s remarks also sparked international backlash, and senior health officials from all around the world condemned her claims.
US leading disease and infection expert Dr. Anthony Fauci answered questions about the rapper’s tweets, saying there was a lot of misinformation on social media.
“I’m not blaming her for anything – but she should be thinking twice about propagating information that really has no basis as except a one-off anecdote, and that’s not what science is all about,” Dr. Fauci said.
England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty also criticized Minaj’s comments and said she should be “ashamed.” He argued that there are “several myths that fly around, some of which are just clearly ridiculous and some of which are clearly designed just to scare.”
“That happens to be one of them. That is untrue,” he went on.
In a separate tweet, Minaj told her followers she had not decided to get vaccinated for the Met Gala, as she couldn’t complete her own investigation on Covid-19 vaccines. However, the singer later said she would get the coronavirus shots to be enabled to tour.
