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Nicki Minaj’s Covid-19 vaccine ‘swollen testicle’ claim is false, says Trinidad and Tobago’s health minister

Nicki Minaj (Jennifer Graylock/PA) (PA Archive)
Nicki Minaj (Jennifer Graylock/PA) (PA Archive)

Trinidad and Tobago’s health minister has dismissed Nicki Minaj’s claim that someone on the Caribbean island suffered swollen testicles after being vaccinated for Covid-19 as “false”.

The Trinidad-born singer sparked an international furore when she alleged on Twitter that her cousin refuses to get vaccinated because his 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, who has 22.6 million Twitter followers, said on Monday.

Watch: Nicki Minaj believes vaccine side effects have been downplayed

The comments triggered an international backlash with Professor Chris Whitty saying the Anaconda rapper should be “ashamed” of the tweet and Sajid Javid blasting the claim as “ridiculous”.

Trinidad and Tobago Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh has now also denounced the statement by the Grammy-nominated artist.

“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 said.

When asked about Minaj’s tweets, Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, said 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.”

Minaj said in a separate tweet that she had not been able to complete enough research of her own on the Covid-19 vaccines to get one in time for the Met Gala, a star-studded fundraiser for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Later, Minaj admitted that she will get vaccinated to be able to tour and praised right-wing firebrand Tucker Carson’s claim that the vaccine should be a choice as a “free human being”.

Meanwhile, the White House claims it offered Nicki Minaj a phone call with medical experts, not a visit, after the Grammy-nominated rapper she was “invited” to the White House.

But a White House official later clarified only a call was “offered” to Minaj to discuss questions about “the safety and effectiveness” of the Covid vaccine.

“As we have with others, we offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of our doctors to answer questions she has about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine,” the White House official said.

Watch: Do coronavirus vaccines affect fertility?

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