In May 2014, in El Carmen de BolÃvar in northern Colombia, mainstream news and social media were awash with reports and viral videos of adolescent girls experiencing symptoms of a ““, including fainting and numbness. Claims were made that this was linked to side effects from the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine.
Although Colombian health authorities’ investigations found of a biological link between the vaccine and the symptoms reported, the effects of these claims, which had been spread via social media, lingered. By 2016, Colombia’s female , one of the world’s…