SF gynecologist: Don't put oak galls for wasp larvae on your vagina

Galls on an Oaktree, Wasp Galls Galls on an Oaktree, Wasp Galls Photo: Otto Hahn/Getty Images Photo: Otto Hahn/Getty Images Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close SF gynecologist: Don't put oak galls for wasp larvae on your vagina 1 / 19 Back to Gallery

San Francisco gynecologist Dr. Jen Gunter, who has previously railed against Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop site for peddling what she calls "snake oil," is back on her popular blog to warn consumers not to consume or apply oak galls sold on Etsy.

Oak galls, as KQED outlined in 2014, are essentially growths from a tree's bark that occur when a wasp (or other organism) or its larvae bring particular chemicals into contact with a tree, causing the tree to develop a protrusion that can look a bit like a fruit growing from a branch. These growths don't serve as nests for the wasps per se, but they can and do function as a sort of "nursery" for wasp larvae. It's an ideal place for wasps to mature, KQED notes, because the soft tissue that develops inside these oak galls serves as a food source for the larvae to eat as they grow.

That's not even to mention the parasitic wasps — called inquilines, parasitoids and hyper-parasitoids — that attempt to take over the galls to steal the free grub from the larvae.

All that might seem like sufficiently enough to gross a person out and discourage them from touching or even getting close to these oak galls, but apparently, it's not. As Gunter writes, Etsy sellers are peddling these balls as a homeopathic remedy to be eaten or to be applied to vaginas of women who have recently delivered a baby.

As one seller writes, "The galls, which contain tannin and small amounts of gallic acid and ellagic acid have antimicrobial qualities and are used in South East Asia especially Malaysia and Indonesia by women after childbirth to restore the elasticity of the uterine wall."

They are also advertised as a "dental powder" useful in treating gingivitis and toothaches, as well as a topical method to "improve sex life" and "tighten vagina."

In a blog post, Gunter debunks such claims, saying that while medications derived organically from plants and tree bark can be useful, this is not one of those times.

"This product follows the same dangerous pathway of other 'traditional' vaginal practices, meaning tightening and drying the vagina which is both medically and sexually (for women anyway) undesirable," she writes. "This is a dangerous practice with real potential to harm. Here's a pro-tip, if something burns when you apply it to the vagina it is generally bad for the vagina."

She also cites a large study by multiple researchers at Switzerland's University of Bern, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the United States National Institutes of Health (among others) which suggests there may be a link between vaginal cleaning practices (like this one involving oak galls) and a higher susceptibility to HIV transmission.

Read Dr. Gunter's post in full here.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.

