David Hundeyin Is Wrong on Contraceptives, and African Women Could Pay the Price — Faithful Daniel

A recent video by journalist David Hundeyin has gone viral, claiming a proposed intervention will use injectable contraceptives like Depo-Provera as part of a sister plan to sterilise African women. He warns that African women will simply get “jabbed” by a health work and sent away that “all is well.”

This narrative is false, misleading, and dangerous. It is a conflation and distortion of facts for sensationalism.

Family planning in Africa, as anywhere else, does not run on a one-size-fits-all basis. Contraceptive care involves consultation, full disclosure of options, benefits, side effects and risks, and respect for a patient’s preference and relevant medical history considered.

Options include short-acting methods like daily pills or three-monthly injectables, and long-acting methods like implants or intrauterine devices (IUDs). Relevant history like smoking, breast cancer risk, drug interactions are reviewed before any method is offered.

Hundeyin leans on the ‘black box’ warning for Depo-Provera about bone mineral density to imply “cavalier use in Africa.” In reality, clinicians routinely discuss, document in consent forms, and such interactions form routine assessments for undergraduate medical training.

Guidance from the World Health Organization and the U.S. FDA notes that while Depo-Provera can affect bone mineral density, it should not, on its own, prevent women from using it if it is the most suitable method for them. Bone density typically recovers after discontinuation.

In addition, women are offered medication like biphosphonates, recommended consuming calcium and vitamin D in diet, sun light, or supplements. To suggest that African women are being blindly injected is an insult on professionals who provide this care and the women who make informed choices about their own health.

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Distinct drugs, different formulations

It is also important to correct a basic scientific error. Hundeyin conflated Depo-Provera and the products under development or scale-up through Gates Foundation–supported research. Both belong to the family of progestins, but they have different active ingredients from different chemical lineages.

Depo-Provera has medroxyprogesterone acetate, a progesterone-derived progestin. Levonorgestrel systems, including hormonal IUDs and other delivery forms under development, use levonorgestrel, a testosterone-derived progestin.

They have different doses, delivery routes and safety profiles. Depo-Provera is not what is being “introduced to sterilise African women.” Presenting them as the same product is a fundamental misrepresentation.

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The sterilisation myth

Perhaps the most dangerous part of Hundeyin’s video is his claim that the contraceptive was used to “sterilise women.” There is no evidence for this.

Return to fertility after stopping Depo-Provera or any hormonal contraception is the norm. Classic cohort studies report normal conception rates after discontinuation. A 2023 cross-sectional Ethiopia study reported that over 75% of women who discontinued contraceptives, including Depo-Provera, IUDs and oral pills, became pregnant within one year.

While cross-sectional studies have limitations (lacking non-biased recruitment of participants, randomisation, control group to establish counterfactual evidence, or history of regular sexual intercourse and other potential confounders for delayed pregnancy not being sufficiently explored), these findings directly contradict Hundeyin’s claims.

One separate and grave issue he raises was about Ethiopian women in Israel and alleged use of Depo-Provera without proper informed consent. If any medication is given without informed consent, it is unethical, regardless of whether it is a contraceptive, an antibiotic or antimalarial.

That concern is about informed consent and practice, and to twist it into a blanket claim that contraceptives cause infertility is not only inaccurate but reckless.

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Why then is Africa a focus for expanding contraceptive access?

The answer is straightforward. The continent carries the highest burden of maternal mortality, teenage pregnancy in the world. Unsafe abortion remains a leading killer of young women because it is illegal in most countries.

Providing women with safe, reliable, reversible contraceptive choices saves lives, prevents unsafe abortions, enables girls to stay in school, and reduces cycles of poverty and child labour.

When Hundeyin reduces this to a simplistic comparison on population density between Kenya and the Netherlands, he ignores the vast differences in maternal health outcomes and healthcare infrastructure between these settings.

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Proven methods, not experiments

The contraceptive methods now being scaled in Africa are not ‘experimental’, and Africa only has a quarter of over 30 countries slated for this intervention.

The “new” contraceptive he mentions is a levonorgestrel IUD routinely used in Europe for about 30 years and effectively prevents pregnancy for up to eight years. This is not experimental or untested. It is a long-established, reversible method that is removed whenever a woman chooses.

Yet access in Africa remains limited. Awareness, affordability, and infrastructure are major barriers. The irony is that while conspiracy theories portray contraceptives as being “pushed” on African women, in reality many women still struggle to access them.

Options include implants that last 3–5 years, three-monthly injectables, daily oral pills, and now development of six-monthly hormonal patches. All are reversible once stopped.

A 2021 study among Nigerian and Zambian women show high satisfaction levels, with over 70% reporting they were pleased with their chosen method and no evidence of long-term harm.

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The bigger picture in women’s health

Finally, there is a broader context that matters. Hundeyin’s narrative erases the long history of neglect in women’s health research. Women were only formally included in U.S. publicly funded clinical research starting in 1993.

Even today, only about 1% of global healthcare research funding is focused on female-centred conditions, despite women making up half the world’s population.

Expanding contraceptive options is not a sinister plot but an attempt to correct decades of underinvestment in women’s health.

Contraception is also only one part of broader global health research focus. Trials are ongoing on interventions to reduce anaemia in pregnancy, including in women with sickle-cell disease, and on the use of antibiotics like azithromycin to prevent life-threatening infections after childbirth. These are precisely the kinds of efforts that can reduce the leading causes of maternal death in Africa.

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The real danger: misinformation

People should question science, interrogate intent and demand transparency. What we cannot accept is a pattern of mixing half-truths stripped out of contexts, and falsehoods in ways that scare women away from safe, reversible options that have been used worldwide for decades.

That kind of misinformation breeds mistrust and harms the very women we should be protecting.

African women deserve accurate information, safe choices, and access to the same healthcare options that women elsewhere in the world have safely used for 30 years.

What they do not deserve is to be misled by deliberate disinformation disguised as bold investigative journalism.

David Hundeyin’s misinformation is not just bad journalism, it is a public health risk.

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Faithful Miebaka Daniel is a Nigerian medical doctor writing from London, UK. He is not affiliated or funded by the Gates Foundation.