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EVERYTHING
Bidens Host First White House Conference on Women’s Health In Final Days of Admin
What: President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden hosted the first White House Conference on Women’s Health on Wednesday, celebrating nearly $1 billion in federal funds to focus specifically on women’s health. It seems unlikely that the second Trump administration will continue the focus on women’s health, and a Trump spokesperson said the incoming president’s focus would be on “ALL Americans, including men.”
Key line: “The first lady told the researchers, advocates, and business and philanthropic leaders attending the conference that she will keep pressing the issue after she leaves her role. ‘My work doesn’t stop in January when Joe and I leave this house,’ she said. ‘I will keep building alliances, like the ones that brought us here today, and I will keep pushing for funding for innovative research.’
Source: Associated Press
BIRTH CONTROL
Majority of Women Aren’t Getting Contraception Services in US
What: A CDC report finds that in 2022 and 2023, only about a third of reproductive age-women in the US had gotten any family planning services in the past year. Just under 25% of women ages 15 to 49 said they had gotten a birth control prescription or other contraception.
Key line: “These visits are sometimes the only interaction women have with the health care system, and inadequate access can lead to poor health outcomes. Some research also suggests that family planning services help prevent more than 1.5 million unintended pregnancies in the US each year.”
Source: CNN
ABORTION ACCESS
Abortion Clinics Closing, Even in States Without Bans
What: The Guardian digs into the number of abortion clinics that have closed since the fall of Roe vs. Wade. Seventy-six clinics have closed since the Supreme Court allowed states to ban abortion, but those closures weren’t limited to the states that banned the procedure. Of the 11 clinic closures over the last year, eight were in states that allow abortion access.
Key line: “After Roe fell, millions of dollars in donations gushed into the coffers of abortion rights organizations. But in the years since, much of that money has dried up – especially funds going to independent clinics and abortion funds, which help patients pay for the procedure and logistical expenses that may surround it, such as travel and lodging.”
Source: The Guardian
PERIMENOPAUSE
The Perimenopause Productization Bonanza
What: The New York Times’ Jessica Bennett takes us on a laugh out loud journey through everything perimenopause, from the expensive (questionable) products to her trips to the doctor. She skewers the unfounded claims that many celebrities pushing products make (even though I review hundreds of articles on women’s health every week I had never heard of one celeb’s “$495 vaginal red-light tool — a warm, vibrating wand”), but also explains how we got into this mess, and how little we know about perimenopause – when it begins, how to tell its started, how to treat it.
Key line: “Unfounded claims are of course the lifeblood of the multitrillion-dollar wellness industry. And yet there was something particularly sinister about this slice of the business. It was leveraging a significant void in public knowledge, ratcheting up classic feminine anxieties and further entangling them with real issues, all while claiming to pull women from silent shame and into sisterhood. …As for me and my quest, it was perhaps a lost cause. Separating the helpful from the utter bullshit seemed to require nothing short of a medical degree.”
Source: The Cut
ONCOLOGY
Study: Breast Cancer Spread Triggered by Gene
What: A study in the journal Cell says a specific gene could be causing the spread of cancer throughout the body in a certain type of breast cancer—not a mutation in the cancer tumor itself.
Key line: “’We believe that this is a very specific signal, so we can develop therapies to really strongly block such signals,’ Rockefeller University researcher and oncologist Sohail Tavazoie told Axios. ‘We think that we can have a less toxic and a more effective way to prevent death from cancer,’ said Tavazoie, a co-author of the paper.”
Source: Axios
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