[Helen (OP)]

There is a metastudy entitled The Epidemic of COVID-19-Related Erectile Dysfunction that is published by the US NIH (an official US government body) using data from around the whole world. It states " The evidence that COVID-19 infection causes or impacts ED is compelling". It's easy to see that vascular damage can cause erectile dysfunction and I am astonished that this has not hit the media.

[evan_au]

Perhaps ED should have been part of the vaccination campaign - but staid officials from government departments don't want to be talking about reproductive health on national television.

On womens' health, the anti-vaxxers made a lot of noise about the risks of vaccines to pregnancy and period regularity, but they ignored:
- The considerable risks of COVID infection to pregnancy
- The normal variability of periods: I saw one study that used anonymized data from period tracking APP, which showed vaccination caused an average 1 day change in period - in the presence of a "normal" variability that was much larger (even after they excluded women with irregular and missing periods)

[Helen (OP)]

To be fair, I suppose by definition the stats in the report could only have been gathered after enough time had passed. When covid first appeared it was seen as a respiratory disease, but now it is clear that it is at least as much a vascular disease, with increases in strokes, heart attacks and so on being reported and more predicted - but never a mention of ED - can it really be just prudery in every single country? Anyway, I've said my piece and will be interested to see what happens.

[alancalverd]

The NHS website certainly lists ED as a persistent symptom. Interestingly, it is likely that Viagra can have a double benefit in improving vascular performance all over the body!

[evan_au]

the risks of vaccines to ...period regularity

Today's Naked Scientists podcast has a story about this (5 minutes).
- But these researchers used a Twitter survey for people to recall their experiences after vaccination.
- This does carry the risk of self-selection bias

https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/interviews/did-covid-19-vaccines-affect-womens-periods

[alancalverd]

A very strong bias, surely. If you turned up at the appointed time for a free vaccination, along with practically everyone else you know, went home and carried on your life without getting ill, would you really waste another moment telling the world that nothing interesting happened?

[Petrochemicals]

Probably for the same reason no specific long covid symptom is overly fussed over, it is just part of it. Plus there is an easy cure in viagra, unlike the perpetual fatigue people face.