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EVERYTHING
People Can Send Emergency Room Complaints Directly to Feds
What: The federal government can now directly receive complaints about hospitals that don’t properly treat patients in the emergency room. As Dan Diamond explains in the Washington Post: “For years, those patients’ complaints have been routed to state health agencies, which conducted investigations and helped determine whether a hospital broke the law. But federal officials and some advocacy groups have increasingly scrutinized the often opaque EMTALA process, questioning how the procedure of filing a complaint can vary state to state, whether it involves too many steps and why some complaints have been rejected.”
Why it matters: The administration hopes this will not only let patients know that they can file complaints–especially women who need emergency abortions–but will also let federal officials know when that does occur. Right now, “they often are unaware of denied abortions and other sensitive procedures until they receive media coverage, sometimes months later.”
Source: Washington Post
PREGNANCY + POSTPARTUM
Scam Pregnancy Clinics Get Florida Website, Paid for with State Money
What: Florida, which just had a six-week abortion ban take effect, is spending nearly $500,000 of taxpayer dollars to create a website that purports to direct expecting parents to state resources. The problem? It won’t provide any information on abortion access and will instead drive people to fake health clinics that often lie to women about abortion procedures and pressure them into having children.
Why it matters: It’s just another way tax money is being spent on lying to women and entrapping them in pregnancies they don’t want.
Source: Florida Phoenix
BIRTH CONTROL
Trump Backs Restricting Contraception, Promises a ‘Policy on That’
What: Donald Trump told KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh that his campaign was “going to have a policy on that very shortly” when asked if he supported restricting access to contraception. “We’re looking at that,” Trump said. You can watch the clip here.
Why it matters: A few hours later, Trump completely reversed himself, sending out an all-caps tweet saying he did *not* support restricting access to contraception. So, what’s the truth? Just look at Trump’s support of Project 2025 to know what could really happen if he returns to the White House. (Spoiler alert: Project 2025 wants to restrict contraception access.)
Source: NBC
ONCOLOGY
Study Finally Starts Identifying Genetic Variants of Breast Cancer in Black Patients
What: A study of about 40,000 people of African descent is the start of identifying genetic variants that can increase someone’s risk of breast cancer. As Stat reports, past studies identifying those variants “largely involved people with European ancestry and thus give a less accurate picture of breast cancer risk for people who are not white.”
Why it matters: “’Finally, we have enough data to drill down to estrogen negative and triple negative breast cancer, which are twice as common in the African American population as any other population,’ said Julie Palmer, an author of the study and a cancer researcher at Boston University.”
Source: Stat
ENDOMETRIOSIS
From Six Collapsed Lungs to a Diagnosis
What: An essay from Britt Julious, who suffered two hospitalizations and her lung collapsing six times to finally get a diagnosis of thoracic endometriosis, a rare version of the disease that ends up affecting the “lung, pleura (lining of the chest) or the diaphragm.”
Why it matters: Julious had a rarer condition, but her story of falling through the cracks—especially when her symptoms worsened around her period—is all too common.
Source: Today
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