|
FERTILITY
Alabama’s Major IVF Problem
What: Alabama’s state supreme court ruled that frozen embryos are people, and someone can be held liable for destroying them.
Why it matters: This could threaten IVF procedures, especially in the 11 states that have “broadly defined personhood as beginning at fertilization.” In other words, patients who undergo IVF in the future and health care professionals who help them could be penalized for choosing to destroy unused embryos.
Source: Washington Post
BIRTH CONTROL
Why Doesn’t This Method of Birth Control Count?
What: A feature-length piece looking at the pull-out method and asking why it is not considered “real” birth control method by the medical community.
Why it matters: A study cited in the article found that withdrawal method had a nearly identical rate of unplanned pregnancy as condom use—around 18 percent. Despite often being dismissed as a legitimate form of birth control, one Guttmacher researcher put it this way: “Everyone uses it, but no one talks about it.”
Source: Slate
Yaz Birth Control Pills Go to Cost Plus Drugs
What: The first brand name birth control pill, Yaz from Bayer, will be offered on Mark Cuban’s online pharmacy, Cost Plus Drugs.
Why it matters: Cost Plus often offers drugs for far less than list price, even when including Cost Plus’ 15% markup.
Source: NPR
ABORTION ACCESS
What Would a 16 Week National Abortion Ban Do?
What: Donald Trump wants a federal abortion ban at 16 weeks. The New York Times breaks down the details on how that would play out—noting that only 4% of abortions take place at 16 weeks or more.
Why it matters: The women seeking abortions at that point aren’t doing it out of convenience. As one doctor put it: “The people seeking abortions at 16 weeks, while it’s a small number of women, are the people at greatest risk for maternal mortality and morbidity.” And as we have seen in Texas, exceptions are so vague they can be meaningless.
Source: New York Times
ONCOLOGY
The Doctor Who Changed Breast Cancer Treatment
What: A Q+A with Dennis Slamon, the oncologist who developed a breast cancer drug to treat HER2-positive women. It has saved millions of lives over the past 25 years.
Why it matters: The history is interesting, but Slamon also gives credit to the first women who signed up for the clinical trial in 1998: “These are women who had other options. They could go on to other kinds of therapies or they could go into other clinical trials…They were partners in the clinical trial. And I believe that they deserve as much credit as any of us who were involved in the research work, because they were very much a part of this research.”
Source: UCLA Health
FEMTECH
Three Femtech Founders Working Towards Racial Health Equity
What: Essence profiles three Black founders of companies that aim to tackle women’s health issues, from maternal mortality to the surviving and thriving postpartum to having the right healthcare professionals on staff.
Why it matters: Black women “face disproportionate risks of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, lupus, and multiple cancers. Compared to white women, they are twice as likely to develop diabetes after age 55 or have uncontrolled blood pressure.” On top of that, they often have to deal with dismissive care. These companies are working to change that.
Source: Essence
|