Save the Date, Registration Now Open – Women’s Health Champion Seminar
CSO is delighted to share details of the below meeting organised by the Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Plan Team:
Scotland’s Women’s Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier, invites you to join a lunchtime seminar with Dr Chelsea Polis, Principal Research Scientist at the Guttmacher Institute.
🗓 Date: Thursday 26th February 2026
🕛 Time: 12:30 – 13:30
📍 Location: MS Teams webinar
Register here to join the webinar:
https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/4fab9c1b-21a7-44e6-a0f0-919497885335@0ef77447-1083-4dec-b89f-27c765076840
Dr Chelsea Polis – Addressing misleading information in scientific publications: case studies from sexual & reproductive health
In a time when misleading information poses unprecedented threats to public health and policy, scientific journals should be bastions of truth – yet they can sometimes become vectors for dangerous mis- or dis-information. This talk examines a critical but often overlooked challenge: what happens when flawed research gets published in peer-reviewed journals, and what does it take to correct the record? Drawing on hard-won experience from the sexual and reproductive health field, Dr. Polis will share two compelling case studies that illuminate gaps in our peer review, regulatory, and legal systems.
These stories reveal an uncomfortable truth: protecting scientific integrity is often unfunded, rarely rewarded, and sometimes legally dangerous – yet remains absolutely essential to protecting people’s health and reproductive autonomy.
Join us to learn about the real-world consequences of scientific misinformation, the barriers to correcting the record, and practical strategies for standing up to defend rigorous evidence or finding ways to support those who do.
Dr Chelsea Polis is an epidemiologist and Principal Research Scientist at the Guttmacher Institute. Her work focuses on improving global sexual and reproductive health, with a focus on issues including contraception, abortion, “FemTech” and other fertility-awareness based technologies, infertility, and STIs including HIV. She has held prior roles at the Population Council, USAID, and Ibis Reproductive Health. Since 2011, she has held an Associate appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2023, she was awarded a John Maddox Prize by Sense about Science and Nature—an award recognizing individuals who advance sound science in the public interest despite facing hostility or adversity.
The seminar is open to anyone interested in women’s health — whether you work in the health sector, third sector, research, policy or simply want to learn more.