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the top things to know in women’s health and wellness today:

  • A second woman in Georgia, Candi Miller, died from the state’s abortion ban. Miller had lupus and diabetes, and her doctors said her body couldn’t handle another pregnancy. When the mother of three unintentionally got pregnant, she ordered abortion pills online. When she was still bleeding days later, she was too scared to go to the hospital for help. She died in bed next to her three-year-old daughter.
     
  • A study finds that 3D mammograms do a better job finding cancer earlier — and they produce fewer false positives.
     
  • North Carolina GOP governor candidate Mark Robinson is the latest major figure in the party to be caught on tape opposing birth control for women: “You don’t lay down and act like you’re making a baby til you’re ready to have a baby.” 

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Fertility
Abortion Access
Menopause
Oncology

TOP STORIES TODAY: the most important reads we’ve found, and why they matter.

FERTILITY

Rapamycin Evidence Still Very Early

What: Rapamycin has gotten a lot of press as a potential drug to extend fertility by up to five years. But Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz writes that the evidence is mostly in mice, and human trials are very early and so far, pretty small.

Why it matters: “It is simply difficult to assess at this stage. If you’re into following the blow-by-blow process of how science works, perhaps hearing researchers get excited about their work is interesting. But if you’re an average woman contending with the effects of aging, it’s tough to see how this is useful. (At the very least, the research will take a while.)”

Source: Slate

BIRTH CONTROL

North Carolina GOP Gov. Candidate: Reserve Sex for Procreation

What: The latest from North Carolina GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson: “’You don’t lay down and act like you’re making a baby til you’re ready to have a baby,’ he declared in a video first published by HuffPost. He explicitly sneered at the idea of birth control. ‘You don’t have what you do to make a baby until you’re ready to have that baby.’ He followed up by insisting the only way to be ‘responsible with your body’ is to reserve sex for procreation.”

Why it matters: The future Donald Trump administration’s Project 2025 “contains radical schemes to drastically restrict — and eventually outright ban — female-controlled contraception methods. This is why Republicans in Congress continue to block efforts to enshrine contraception rights into law.” Robinson—a major candidate in the party—is saying out loud what many Trump officials seem to believe.

Source: Salon

ABORTION ACCESS

Second Georgia Mom Killed by Abortion Bans

What: ProPublica reports on a second woman in Georgia who died for lack of abortion care in her state. Candi Miller had lupus, diabetes, and hypertension, and doctors told her another baby could kill her. When she unintentionally got pregnant in 2022, the mother of three ordered abortion pills online. But the pills did not get all of the fetal tissue out, and she was afraid to go to the ER: “Her teenage son watched her suffer for days after she took the pills, bedridden and moaning. In the early hours of Nov. 12, 2022, her husband found her unresponsive in bed, her 3-year-old daughter at her side. An autopsy found unexpelled fetal tissue, confirming that the abortion had not fully completed.”

Why it matters: Miller also had painkillers including fentanyl in her system, but the state committee of experts in maternal health ruled it a preventable death: “’The fact that she felt that she had to make these decisions, that she didn’t have adequate choices here in Georgia, we felt that definitely influenced her case,’ one committee member told ProPublica. ‘She’s absolutely responding to this legislation.’ 
 There are almost certainly other deaths related to abortion access. Georgia’s committee, tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health, has only reviewed cases through fall 2022. Such a lag is common in these committees, which are set up in each state; most others have not even gotten that far.”

Source: ProPublica

VP Kamala Harris Will Give Speech About Women Killed By Abortion Bans

What: VP Kamala Harris will give a speech in Atlanta Friday “focused on the stories of two Georgia mothers whose deaths …show the consequences of the strict abortion bans passed by Republicans after Roe v. Wade was overturned.”

Why it matters: When a nominee for president speaks about an issue, people listen. (Just look at the consequences in Springfield, Ohio, after Donald Trump and JD Vance lied about immigrants eating cats.) VP Kamala Harris focusing on these two women, killed by abortion bans, will make their names known to the entire nation.

Source: New York Times

ONCOLOGY

3D Mammograms More Effective Than Traditional in Large Study

What: A study from Yale School of Medicine shows 3D mammography found cancer at higher rates than traditional mammography—and the screenings were less likely to return false positives, too. The 3D mammography, officially known as digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) takes X-rays from multiple angles to create a 3D image, versus just one or two angles used in traditional mammography. The study analyzed more than 270,000 screenings over 13 years.

Why it matters: “It confirms some of what we knew from earlier … and shows the sustainability of these benefits,” [lead co-author Dr. Liane] Philpotts told ABC News. “But the big take-home point is that the advanced cancer rate was less [with 3D mammography]. That is the most significant finding from this.”

Source: ABC News