Dr Chelsea Polis: ‘The scientific world recognises when you stick your neck out and do the right thing’

The US reproductive health expert on being sued for $1m, and winning a top prize for her fight for free speech in the public interest

Dr Chelsea Polis is a reproductive health scientist based in New York City. She was sued for $1m by a medical device company after speaking out about misleading marketing claims it had made about the use of its digital fertility tracker as a contraceptive method. After a two-year battle, the case was thrown out of court. Last month in London she won the 2023 John Maddox prize early career award, which champions those who stand up for evidence-based science in the face of hostility. She is a senior scientist for epidemiology at the Population Council's Center for Biomedical Research.

In May 2020, you were sued for $1m for defamation by Valley Electronics of Zurich, Switzerland, the manufacturer of the Daysy fertility tracker and the DaysyView app, for voicing your concerns about the device being marketed as a contraceptive. How did it feel as an individual to be sued for $1m?
Shocking. Terrifying. Completely bewildering because what I was being sued for was something where my concerns had been validated, not only by a scientific journal, but also by a US federal agency - the US Food and Drug Administration [FDA], which had taken my concerns seriously and launched an investigation, after which the company changed their marketing language.