Goop founder Gwenyth Paltrow is defending her company for selling "Yoni eggs," ping-pong ball-sized spheres made of jade or rose quartz that are meant to be inserted into the vagina.
In an interview with the New York Times, reporter Valeriya Safronova asked Paltrow why customers should trust Goop after criticism about the "dubious wellness claims" behind the products it sells.
In 2018, Goop paid $145,000 in civil penalties over false claims about the benefits of the $66 vaginal eggs. At the time, Goop said the eggs could prevent a person's uterus from sagging, make their periods more regular, balance hormone levels, and stop incontinence.
In the new Times interview, Paltrow said the lawsuit settlement was the result of Goop being "a little company curating and buying third-party brands that were making claims around their products" at the time.
"We've come a really long way from being that small start-up. Even with the Yoni eggs. That was really around claims, but it didn't involve the product. That egg is not dangerous. We still sell it," Paltrow told Safronova.
In the years since Goop's Yoni-egg lawsuit, gynecologists have continued to call out Paltrow for peddling non-scientific wellness modalities, including vaginal steaming and body stickers to ease anxiety and pain.
When Goop began selling the jade egg on its website in 2017, gynecologist Dr. Jen Gunter wrote a blog post about the potentially dangerous pseudoscientific trend. Gunter said using a jade egg could lead to toxic shock syndrome, pelvic pain, or painful sex.
"Jade is porous, which could allow bacteria to get inside," Gunter wrote. She also said using one "could be a risk factor for bacterial vaginosis or even the potentially deadly toxic shock syndrome."
