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Abortion Issue Could Derail Health Reform
Nineteen Democrats have written House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promising not to vote for a health bill that includes funding for abortion, igniting a debate that has the potential to derail a health care overhaul, NPR reports.
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Blogs Comment On Women's Health Disparities, Sotomayor Nomination, Other Topics
The following summarizes selected women"s health-related blog entries. ~ "Report: Higher Rates of Unintended Pregnancy, Abortion Among Women of Color," Sharon Camp, RH Reality Check: A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation on health disparities between white women and women of color "provides further stronger evidence debunking claims" from antiabortion-rights advocates who "have long argued that high abortion rates among minorities are the result of supposed aggressive marketing by abortion providers to minority communities," Camp, president and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, writes. In addition to identifying disparities in conditions like heart disease and cancer, the report documents "widespread disparities in access to health insurance and health screenings" and explores growing evidence of the association between social factors and health behaviors, access and outcomes, according to Camp. She continues that research from Guttmacher has consistently demonstrated that "rates among racial and ethnic minorities -- especially blacks and Hispanics -- are directly linked to their higher rates of unintended pregnancy, which in turn reflect pervasive health disparities more generally." Camp writes that the "fundamental question policymakers should be asking is not why women of color have high abortion rates, but rather what can be done to help them have fewer unintended pregnancies and achieve better health outcomes more generally," such as improved access to affordable contraception. Women"s dissatisfaction with health care providers, quality of service and the contraceptive methods themselves also are factors in contraceptive use, as are "[u]nstable life situations," which can make consistent use a low priority for some women, according to Camp. She writes, "By continuing to label abortion providers as "racists" and refusing to support expanded access to contraceptive services, antiabortion-rights activists are by no means part of the solution -- to high rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion among racial and ethnic minorities or to persistent and tragic disparities in health care generally" (Camp, RH Reality Check, 6/15).~ "What"s Next for Women"s Legal Rights in the Supreme Court?" Amy Matsui, Womenstake: Matsui, senior counsel for the National Women"s Law Center, examines several women"s rights issues "that we see peeking around the corner" of the next Supreme Court session. Matsui writes that "increasingly draconian abortion restrictions have begun to work their way through state legislatures." These restrictions include giving personhood rights to fetuses, mandates on the information women are given prior to abortion procedures and "outright abortion bans," she writes. Challenges to laws that expand protections for providers who deny health care services also "are likely to come before the courts," Matsui writes. Challenges to health care reform proposals also are likely, "specifically, the interaction of the federal statute that governs employee health care and pension plans ... and any new requirements for employers to provide health care coverage," according to Matsui. The Supreme Court has "obviously considered the underlying legal doctrines in these cases (the constitutional right to privacy, federal anti-discrimination statutes, Equal Protection guarantees and federal benefits statutes) in the past; some might say that there is a clear roadmap of where the Court should go in some of these cases," Matsui writes, concluding, "But when every vote counts on the Supreme Court, women should be watching what cases come next" (Matsui, Womenstake, 6/12).~ "Antiabortion Groups" Case Against Sotomayor," Dan Gilgoff, U.S. News & World Report"s "God and Country": "With no clear evidence for a pro-abortion-rights position in her judicial decisions, antiabortion groups" case against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor can be summed up in eight words: the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund," Gilgoff writes. From 1980 to 1992, Sotomayor sat on the l
News of the day
What Is Pulmonary Embolism? What Causes Pulmonary Embolism?
An embolism - from the Greek çİmbolos meaning "stopper" or "plug" - is the term that describes a condition where an object called an embolus is created in one part of the body, circulates throughout the body, and then blocks blood flowing through a vessel in another part of the body. Emboli (plural of embolus) are not to be confused with thrombi (plural of thrombus), which are clots that are formed and remain in one area of the body without being carried throughout the bloodstream.
Public Health

Meeting To Examine Human Behavior And The Threat Of Disease

As swine flu spread from Mexico to Texas and then fanned out farther in the United States, Americans began to alter their behavior. Families kept children home from school, postponed trips to the mall, and stayed home instead of eating out. In so doing, the American population may have inadvertently altered the behavior of the pathogen itself. How human behavior changes the spread of emerging infectious diseases, and how the spread of disease simultaneously changes human behavior, will be among the topics discussed by scientists at a meeting at the National Institute for Biological and Mathematical Synthesis (NIMBioS) on the University of Tennessee campus, June 7-9. Ecologists, epidemiologists, economists, and mathematicians will comprise a NIMBioS Working Group to tackle the topic, Synthesizing and Predicting Infectious Disease While Accounting for Endogenous Risk or SPIDER. Accounting for endogenous risk means jointly considering how human behavior influences disease and how disease influences human behavior, explained Eli Fenichel, workshop co-organizer and assistant professor at Arizona State University. "When people perceive risks, they alter their behavior, which in turn, alters the risk. It"s a feedback loop between people, the pathogen, and the risk." Most current attempts to model the risks of emerging infectious diseases look at the disease itself and human behavior. The SPIDER Working Group aims to build on that classic view by also considering the economic impact of human decisions about risk. "Epidemiological science has gotten good at modeling and projecting risk. The next major frontier is how do we manage risk in a cost effective way," Fenichel said. "It"s a way of thinking about how res get allocated to address emerging pathogens like the flu now. For example, if we believe that people will behave in a certain way given certain information sets, we might be able to find better ways to distribute medicine." Another avenue for investigation is how the global food trade system would be affected if it becomes the of a pathogen, Fenichel said. "One of the questions is how do we set up inspections in a cost effective way if we cannot reasonably inspect everything. We need to look at how to best balance the risks and the costs." The group aims to develop predictive models to forecast the risks associated with emerging infectious diseases in humans, livestock, wildlife, and plants, and to collaborate in developing risk management strategies. NIMBioS Working Groups are comprised of 10-15 invited participants and focus on specific questions related to mathematical biology. Each group typically meets two to three times over the course of two years at the Institute. The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) brings together researchers from around the world to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries to investigate solutions to basic and applied problems in the life sciences. NIMBioS is funded by the National Science Foundation in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Jay Mayfield University of Tennessee at Knoxville


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