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Illustration by Marta Pucci

Reading time: 4 min

What's this? Bayer Sponsored Content

What does “Content created by Clue with financial support from Bayer” mean?

Bayer approached Clue with a proposal to sponsor content in the form of an educational grant. We’ve spent considerable time discussing whether to accept money from a pharmaceutical company (or any other company) to cover the costs of creating educational content.

We have decided to accept this grant to produce educational content on two general topics: hormones and contraception. Clue will not be promoting the brands or products of our content sponsors, and they will not influence the quality or content of our educational material.

Why is Clue accepting this sponsorship?

The educational grant will enable us to create additional content—more of the empathetic, scientific, and accessible content about menstrual and reproductive health that we are already known for. You’ll notice that some of our 2019 articles indicated our sponsorship with Bayer, and this year, they’ve extended that to support the second season of our podcast, Hormonal. 

Part of Clue’s mission is to create and distribute accessible, scientific, and actionable health information for women and people with cycles around the world so that they can better understand their bodies and live full lives.

We already write about topics of hormones and birth control. Having extra resources to produce even more of this information—without expectation from a partner to promote a certain product or brand—is an opportunity we think is worthwhile to pursue.

For more on how and why we create content, read our Editorial Policy.

Who is Bayer, and why are they funding Clue content?

Bayer is an international pharmaceutical company in the field of research, development, and marketing of pharmaceutical products and diagnostic products, including in women’s health and contraception.

Bayer’s stated intention for this sponsorship is “to educate women on contraceptive options to make an informed choice on what meets their individual needs best.”

Clue does not have an interest in promoting hormonal birth control and recognizes that more research and better contraceptive options are needed. We are invested in giving women and people with cycles the best possible information about their current contraceptive options.

How much say does Bayer have over Clue’s content?

None at all. There are no approvals or stipulations about what we cover, beyond the agreed-upon topics of hormones and contraception.

What processes does Clue have in place to make sure its coverage of Bayer and its products will remain objective?

To the best of our abilities, we have separated the production of editorial content and sponsored content, in the same way, that many journalistic outlets now have sponsored content teams and editorial teams that operate independently. But Clue is smaller than most newspapers and magazines, so to get this project started, some of our editorial writers will contribute writing and research to sponsored articles.

All contributors to the sponsored content campaign have been trained by Clue staff on our values, ethics, and standards, along with our principles of scientific accuracy.

Is Clue sharing any of the data I logged into the Clue app with Bayer?

No. Bayer’s educational grant is being used exclusively to fund the production of content. The app, and its data, are not involved in any way. Clue is committed to protecting the privacy of our users.

We will share general data with Bayer about web traffic to the sponsored articles on helloclue.com, but no specific information that could be linked back to any individual.

For more, read our Privacy Policy and our founder Ida Tin’s article about the journey of a single data point.

Is the partnership with Bayer exclusive? Who else does Clue accept money from?

Clue has and will continue to partner with organizations that help us advance our mission. This includes both financial and non-financial collaborations with brands and organizations like OURA and Purpose/The Gates Foundation. Learn more about our monetization principles here.

We also collaborate with academic researchers to improve the state of scientific research about menstrual and reproductive health. Learn more about our research collaborations here.

Is Clue advertising Bayer’s products? Does this mean you’re now promoting hormonal birth control?

In general, we do not and will not advocate one contraceptive method over another. We believe in giving people the most accurate information available so that they can make choices that suit them best. This is tricky, though, because the current system that researches, develops, and markets hormonal birth control is not adequate. We’ve explained our approach to birth control here.   

Where can I learn more about Clue and what is produced by Clue?

This article was originally published May 9, 2019.

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