Ready for this one? The American Life League, a Catholic anti-abortion organization, is protesting Krispy Kreme for offering Americans their “choice” of a free doughnut on Inauguration Day.
Here’s the innocuous press release from Krispy Kreme that caused the uproar:
“Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. (NYSE: KKD) is honoring American’s sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day, Jan. 20. By doing so, participating Krispy Kreme stores nationwide are making an oath to tasty goodies — just another reminder of how oh-so-sweet ‘free’ can be.”
And The American Life League’s response:
“The unfortunate reality of a post Roe v. Wade America is that ‘choice’ is synonymous with abortion access, and celebration of ‘freedom of choice’ is a tacit endorsement of abortion rights on demand. [...]
We challenge Krispy Kreme doughnuts to reaffirm their commitment to true freedom – to the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — and to separate themselves and their doughnuts from our great American shame.”
Read the full response at Miami New Times. I’ll be in D.C., looking for powdered strawberry!
Dear readers, I am home, taking a bit of a vacation with a stack of library books. I have also been watching an unseemly amount of television. As a result, I’ve noticed that post-holiday weight-loss advertising is in full swing, primarily featuring and targeting women with commercials for “improving” your abs, mail-order diet food, and other products you don’t need.
This is the usual follow-up to the pre-holiday news about avoiding overeating — now they assume you ignored all of that annual advice, something is wrong with you, and buying stuff will fix that. Harumph.
Yesterday morning, a more specific warning against this post-holiday marketing came in the form of a post from The F-Word that alerts us to an FDA warning about a number of “weight loss” pills.
According to the agency:
An FDA analysis found that the undeclared active pharmaceutical ingredients in some of these products include sibutramine (a controlled substance), rimonabant (a drug not approved for marketing in the United States), phenytoin (an anti-seizure medication), and phenolphthalein (a solution used in chemical experiments and a suspected cancer causing agent). Some of the amounts of active pharmaceutical ingredients far exceeded the FDA-recommended levels, putting consumers’ health at risk.
The FDA alert includes a list of the products and additional details.
To remind yourself that you’re not alone in rejecting the advertising onslaught, you may also want to check out our content on body image and media, and bookmark some blogs such as The F-Word and Shapely Prose.
The National Women’s Health Network recently released a health alert, “Don’t be Fooled by Ovasure,” critical of the product OvaSure, a blood test promoted for ovarian cancer detection and available from LabCorp since June. NWHN gives a brief summary of the problems related to OvaSure, including a lack of data indicating that it could detect early disease and the problem of false positive tests that could lead to unnecessary procedures.
Following the initial release of the test earlier this year, the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance issued a press release on the test, expressing similar reservations until further data becomes available:
“We look forward to the publication of Phase III trial data from the study later this year validating the test. This may, indeed, be a breakthrough in the detection of ovarian cancer,” said Dr. Karen Orloff Kaplan, Sc.D., Executive Director. She added that “we must wait for the data to come in before we rely on this test.”
A New York Times piece from August also highlights the data problem, explaining that “The Society of Gynecologic Oncologists almost immediately issued a statement saying it did not believe the test had been validated enough for routine use.” One gynecologic oncologist interviewed for the story called it “[the] industry trying to capitalize on fear.”
The National Women’s Health Network also notes that LabCorp has been informed by the FDA that it has not met the appropriate approval requirements for the OvaSure product. On August 7, the FDA issued a letter advising the company that:
“Based on the available information, we do not believe the scientific community would consider the reported study sufficient to establish performance characteristics of a test in ‘high risk women who might have ovarian cancer’, i.e., in a clinical setting, as claimed in your intended use and promotional materials.”
The FDA concluded: “we believe you are offering a high risk test that has not received adequate clinical validation, and may harm the public health.” An additional warning letter sent September 29 notes that the Agency had reviewed materials sent to them on the test, finding that the product is a device requiring marketing approval from the FDA prior to sale, and as such, “According to our records, no such determination has been made for OvaSure™. Because you do not have marketing clearance or approval from the FDA, marketing OvaSure™ is in violation of the law.”
Although LabCorp expressed disagreement with the FDA’s findings, the company halted sale of the product at the end of last month.
Gay Marriage Legal in California, Massachusetts and now Connecticut: The Connecticut Supreme Court on Friday struck down the state’s civil union law with a 4-3 ruling that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. From The New York Times:
The ruling, which cannot be appealed and is to take effect on Oct. 28, held that a state law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples, and a civil union law intended to provide all the rights and privileges of marriage to same-sex couples, violated the constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law.
Striking at the heart of discriminatory traditions in America, the court — in language that often rose above the legal landscape into realms of social justice for a new century — recalled that laws in the not-so-distant past barred interracial marriages, excluded women from occupations and official duties, and relegated blacks to separate but supposedly equal public facilities.
View the full ruling here (PDF). Opponents spoke of steps to enact a constitional ban on same-sex marriage, but on Friday night the plaintiffs in the original court case filed four years ago and their supporters were jubilant.
Garret Stack, 59, introduced his partner, John Anderson, 63, and said: “For 28 years we have been engaged. We can now register at Home Depot and prepare for marriage.”
Group Sues Over Required Ultrasound: The Center for Reproductive Rights has filed a challenge to an Oklahoma law that mandates a woman must have an ultrasound and listen to the doctor describe what her fetus looks like before she have an abortion. And that’s not all:
At the same time, the law prevents a woman from suing her doctor if he or she intentionally withholds other information about the fetus, such as a severe developmental defect. The statute also requires doctors to use a specific regimen for administering the medical abortion pill, despite that regimen being less effective and more costly than the one strongly recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Oklahoma County District Court, says the requirement intrudes on a woman’s privacy, endangers her health and assaults her dignity.
Set to go into effect on Nov. 1, the law would make Oklahoma the fourth state to require the viewing of ultrasounds before an abortion. The other states are Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.
South Dakota Abortion Ban 2.0: Lynn Harris of Broadsheeet offers a full, and funny, assessment:
The ban’s primary liability, according to polls, was that it contained virtually no exceptions. But as ringleader Leslee Unruh of Vote Yes for Life said at the time, like Jason popping up out of Crystal Lake, “We started something here in South Dakota.” And now, as you may have heard, abortion opponents there are aiming to get the job done. Which means: The ban is back (PDF), in sheep’s clothing. It now makes convoluted exceptions for rape, incest and, when there is a full moon and Mount Rushmore spouts Strawberry Quik, the health or life of the woman.
Unruh (who says that over 90 percent of women seeking abortion are using it as “birth control”) calls Abortion Ban 2.0 “more moderate, more reasonable, more of a middle ground.” Yeah … no.
Birth Control Watch: While some voters think access to birth control is not a political issue, those of us who follow the activities of the Bush administration and legislatures around the country know better. Birth Control Watch has a great section on federal and state proposals that will limit our individual decision making and access — it’s called extreme schemes.
An excellent resource to pass along, it includes information on Colorado Proposition 48, a constitutional amendment that seeks to establish legal personhood from the moment of fertilization (which even self-described “pro-life” Catholic Gov. Bill Ritter opposes), and the proposed HHS regulations that would limit patients’ access to information and services.
The two-minute activist gives a concise run-down of actions you can take, and the press room tracks related stories.
Speaking of the HHS regulations, more than 150 Congressional Democrats stated their opposition in letters to HHS. The Senate letter concludes that the proposed rule is “damaging to the health care needs of women, their families and all Americans and will only serve to cause havoc, not clarity, among employers and employees in the health care field.”
Courts Failing Domestic Violence Victims: “For every man convicted in a Cook County court of beating his wife or girlfriend, five men brought in on similar charges walk away legally unscathed. And despite official promises to help women pursue abuse complaints, that conviction rate is only getting worse,” reports the Chicago Tribune.
The Trib also looks at a specialized unit of the Cook County state’s attorney office with a much higher conviction rate. The unit, Target Abuser Call, employs a more intensive investigatory approach for the most serious cases.
Plus: Programs for batterers are underfunded but should be supported to break the habit of abuse, say domestic violence experts. “No matter how many women you take in, it isn’t going to cure the problem,” said Toby Myers, vice chair of the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence.
Plus: A judge in Canada tells a woman not to bother calling police if she goes back to her partner. via Feministing
Nobel Prize Winners: The 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Harald zur Hausen of Germany, who discovered the human papilloma viruses that causes cervical cancer, and Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, French researchers who discovered HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Montagnier and Barre-Sinoussi later told President Nicolas Sarkozy that they fear the world financial crisis will affect funding to fight AIDS.
One-Year Distribution Update On Gardasil: “About a quarter of the nation’s teenage girls received the controversial cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil last year in its first full year of distribution, federal authorities said Thursday,” reports the L.A. Times.
The Realities of Addiction: Writing in the Washington Post, Jacqueline M. Duda shares the painful story of her daughter’s drug addiction and death — including the difficulty the family had finding adequate medical treatment for addiction.
“Surely, we thought, college-educated suburbanites like us could locate professional help: drug counselors, doctors, therapists specializing in addiction. Surely detoxification centers would treat desperate addicts and work out a payment plan. Surely we could check her into some kind of residential treatment program with a minimum of delay,” writes Duda. “We were wrong.”
PSA to Raise Awareness Around “That’s So Gay”: “For the first time since the Advertising Council was founded in 1942, the organization — which directs and coordinates public service campaigns on behalf of Madison Avenue and the media industry — is introducing ads meant to tackle a social issue of concern to gays and lesbians,” writes Stuart Elliot in The New York Times.
The campaign, created pro bono by the New York office of Arnold Worldwide, urges an end to using derogatory language, particularly labeling anything deemed negative or unpleasant as “so gay.” That is underlined by the theme of the campaign: “When you say, ‘That’s so gay,’ do you realize what you say? Knock it off.”
There will be television and radio commercials, print and outdoor ads and a special Web site devoted to the campaign (thinkb4youspeak.com). Some spots feature celebrities, the young actress Hilary Duff and the comedian Wanda Sykes, delivering the message.
Our Bodies Our Blog has invited the folks at Breast Cancer Action to write monthly guest posts on breast cancer and related issues.
by Pauli Ojea
Breast Cancer Awareness Month is nearly here. You can probably tell by all of the pink ribbon products you’re starting to see as October draws near. Lipstick, blenders, candy, cars — even toilet paper is being sold in the name of breast cancer awareness.
One pinked-out product you’ve probably noticed is Yoplait yogurt. Yoplait makes a 10-cent donation to a breast cancer organization for every pink lid consumers mail back to the company. Let’s put that in real terms: If you ate three yogurts a day for the four-month duration of the campaign (and sent in all your lids), your donation would equal $36. That’s a lot of yogurt — and not all that much money.
But what’s more troubling is what’s underneath the lid — the yogurt itself might not be that good for your health.
Yoplait yogurt is made with milk from cows that have been injected with a synthetic hormone called recombinant bovine growth hormone (referred to as rBGH or rBST). There are a number of health concerns surrounding the use of rBGH, and breast cancer is one of them.
Here’s a very simple explanation of the science: When rBGH is injected into a cow, that cow’s milk will contain higher amounts of another powerful hormone called insulin growth factor 1 (IGF-1). IGF-1 is natural and necessary, but too much of it may cause health problems. Studies have shown that elevated levels of IGF-1 in humans may increase the risk of breast cancer. More research is needed to better understand whether the elevated levels of IGF-1 in milk make their way into our bloodstream.
Although it hasn’t yet been proven that the use of rBGH will definitively lead to breast cancer, the current evidence is cause for concern — and for action.
Corporations like Wal-Mart and Starbucks do not use milk from rBGH-treated cows in their store brand products. If these companies can do it, Yoplait can too.
When a company puts a pink ribbon on its product’s package, that company is sending the message that it cares about women’s health. And if a company cares about women’s health, shouldn’t it be doing all it can to make sure that its products are not inadvertently contributing to the high number of breast cancer cases? We at Breast Cancer Action sure think so.
Every year we sponsor the annual Think Before You Pink campaign — which demands transparency and accountability on the part of companies that align themselves with breast cancer and urges companies to do all they can to ensure their products don’t contribute to the high rates of the disease. We use the term “pinkwashing” to describe companies — like Yoplait — that participate in breast cancer fundraising or “awareness” campaigns but manufacture products that may be linked to the disease.
This October, we’re asking General Mills — the maker of Yoplait — to do the right thing for women’s health: We’re urging them to go rBGH-free. You can help by sending an e-mail to General Mills telling them to put a lid on rBGH. After all, corporate conscience belongs in a company’s products, not just its marketing.
Pauli Ojea is the community organizer at Breast Cancer Action, where she mobilizes people to do something besides worry. Visit ThinkBeforeYouPink.org for more information and to take action.
Individuals using Google to find information on abortion will now see paid advertisements from anti-abortion religious groups.
Google last week revised its policy as part of an out-of-court settlement with the Christian Institute, a British organization that wanted to advertise on Google in March as the House of Commons was considering a bill on abortion.
Google had rejected the ad, which read in part, “UK abortion law: Key news and views on abortion law from The Christian Institute,” because it did not accept abortion ads from religious organizations.
The group sued Google in April, claiming the company was violating the Equality Act 2006 by discriminating against Christian groups. As The New York Times noted this week, Our Bodies Ourselves has used the keyword “abortion,” as have other resource organizations, doctors offering abortions, and secular groups.
The NYT’s Stephanie Clifford writes:
Google’s policies are based on a number of factors. “We build out our policies based upon local customs and business practices and, as any sensible business would do, review them from time to time to make sure they are up to date and current,” said Ben Novick, a London-based Google spokesman.
Google reviewed its policy, and announced last Wednesday it had reached a settlement with the Christian Institute. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Google immediately began allowing ads linked to abortion from religious groups as long as they were determined to be factual, and not graphic or emotional ads. Google uses a combination of automated and manual processes to detect advertising violations. The change in policy applies worldwide.
Mike Judge of the Christian Institute told the Times (UK) that the Institute is not “a group of headbangers, and would set out its position in a pretty factual, pretty sensible way.”
Which prompted this response from Jossip: “Well, at least as sensible as one can be while telling a woman she needs to become an incubator for 18 years and nine months because she made a mistake.”
Last week, some of us received PR materials for a “therapeutic vaginal cleansing system” (or douche) complete with a “just add tap water” headline. As we note in this piece on vaginal infections, routine douching isn’t recommended because it can upset the natural balance of your vagina. 4women.gov has additional information on why douching is a bad idea. Naturally, then, I approached this product, “WaterWorks,” skeptically.
The WaterWorks website is pretty much standard as far as selling products based on an idea that vaginas are somehow dirty. The site claims that “regular use of WaterWorks will safely and effectively reduce or eliminate vaginal odor,” and goes on to suggest that it may reduce the risk of infection, helping women to be “fresher” and “cleaner.” It also reinforces worries that vaginal odor is embarrassing and may affect women’s love, social and professional (?!) lives — along these lines, many of the testimonials report increased “confidence” with use of the product.
The company reports that the product is “FDA approved” and “clinically proven.” The device does have FDA approval, through the premarket notification system — this means that it was substantially similar to something already on the market and so the company is allowed to advertise and sell it. The description as “clinically proven” is apparently the result of one published study on the product — an open label, non-randomized case series, which means that there was no comparison group, and everybody knew what they were getting.
The study only included 10 patients who complained of strong vaginal odor, and they were instructed to use this tap water douche daily. At the end of the study (four weeks of using the product), there was no difference in vaginal pH or the level of healthy bacteria. Vaginal odor was measured according to the patients’ perceptions — whether they thought odor was reduced — and half the subjects thought their odor problem completely went away after using the product, but there were no objective measures to report.
In short, it’s a very small study with a fairly weak design, and yet is touted by the product website as having “astounding” results, with a pitch designed to play on women’s insecurities about their bodies.
What is it, though, really? WaterWorks is a stainless steel hose and nozzle that you hook up to your shower so you can squirt water into your vagina, and it looks like a dildo. No, really. When I did some online searching for this or similar products, I found that the majority of the hits were for online sex toy shops.
Perhaps, then, it’s approval as a “therapeutic” device through the FDA might allow this item to sneak past laws such as the one in Alabama, which forbids the sale of sex toys unless they have a “medical” purpose. It strikes me as rather along the lines of the “massagers” sold in department stores, and while the marketing is troublesome, the other possibilities of this device and others like it may be something else altogether!
The blogger at Body Impolitic also has a hilarious take on this product — check it out.
What’s the most empowering action you’ve taken recently? Did you ask for a raise? Stand up for a cause? Run for president?
If you answered “Got breast implants!” well, Allergan’s marketing is working.
Allergan is a global pharmaceutical company perhaps best known for producing Botox. In late 2005, Allergan merged with Inamed, maker of silicone breast implants — just before silicone breast implants received FDA approval.
Earlier this summer, Orange County Register columnist Colin Stewart, who is admittedly no fan of elective cosmetic surgery but who remains “dazzled by the ways Allergan makes the idea” of “injecting, slicing and rearranging body parts” seem appealing, devoted a column to Allergan’s marketing scheme, which is all about empowering you:
In its new breast-implant campaign, for example, Allergan’s marketers imply that implants are artful, like designer clothing. Even though implants are basically plastic bags filled with silicone or saline solution, Allergan portrays them as sources of power, freedom, individuality and self-confidence.
That’s a big change from last year, when Allergan bought Santa Barbara-based Inamed and its breast implants for $3.2 billion. Then, the implants were labeled “Style 68,” “Style 101,” etc.
The old labels were cold and clinical, so Allergan is giving them a new identity that sounds natural, feminine and artful. In a new marketing campaign, they’re the “Natrelle collection of breast implants.”
Breast implants can seem crudely sexual, but Allergan combats that impression too, ingeniously presenting them almost as a feminist issue. The company says it’s “empowering” women with information about their options.
The tag line for the Natrelle collection: “To each her own.”
Studies of breast-implant users reveal that women “aren’t getting them to attract men, but to feel greater confidence in their femininity,” says Robert Grant, president of the Allergan Medical division.
Presumably, women whose natural attributes have Natrelle enhancements will gain self-confidence from each masculine head that turns when they walk past.
“Nearly 400,000 women did something fabulous for themselves last year,” is Allergan’s message about Inamed’s breast implants. But to Grant that number isn’t fabulous enough.
“The $3.2 billion price for Inamed isn’t worth it for us” at that rate, Grant says. “We can grow (the rate of annual implants) to in excess of one million procedures.”
How else is Allergan making a show of empowering women? Let’s consider the research. Last November, a review of studies on the safety of breast implants appeared in the journal Annals of Plastic Surgery. The authors concluded that “the weight of the epidemiologic evidence does not support a causal association between breast implants and breast or any other type of cancer, definite or atypical connective tissue disease, adverse offspring effects, or neurologic disease. Women with breast implants do not present with more advanced stages of breast cancer or suffer impaired survival after breast cancer diagnosis.”
In fact, the only caution the authors registered concerned the observed higher incidence of suicide among with women with implants. On this point, they recommended future studies “to determine whether the consistently observed excess of suicide among women with implants reflects underlying psychiatric illness prior to breast augmentation surgery or other factors.”
But if that sounds, well, mostly reassuring, there’s more.
After the study was published, Diane Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women & Families notified health activists that the journal article’s four authors all have financial ties to the breast implant industry. The lead author, Joseph McLaughlin, has been a consultant to Inamed/Allergan.
“In fact, McLaughlin is an author of almost every study on breast implants of the last 10 years, all funded by Dow, all concluding that implants are safe,” wrote Zuckerman. “With a couple of exceptions, the only studies he hasn’t co-authored are ones by NCI and FDA, which found significant increases in several illnesses among women with implants.”
“This isn’t a new study, it’s a review of all the old studies that McLaughlin co-authored. So, he’s summarizing his own work (without admitting it is his) and once again concluding that implants are safe.”
Makes you want to replace the guards at the hen house, no?
Despite the increasing popularity of breast implants — breast augmentation was the most popular plastic surgery procedure in 2007, with close to 350,000 procedures done — the safety debate rarely breaks through the marketing noise.
But thoughtful and personal critiques are carried out each day in blogs like Beauty and the Breast, which covers the impact of breast implants, and in documentaries such as “Absolutely Safe,” which has a terrific website filled with resources, including a section on the data debate.
Another documentary, “America the Beautiful,” which opened (or will be opening) in some theaters this summer, looks at the obsession with plastic surgery in general — and how surgeries can go horribly wrong.
And who knows — perhaps “empowerment” will be reclaimed in the future to mean making choices and taking risks that truly improve, not harm, our well-being. Then again, the FDA could approve the lip implants …
Home-Made – Inside Baltimore’s Home Birth Underground: “Disenchanted with a medical system that treats birth as an emergency instead of an emergence, seeking an alternative to the tubes and wires and monitors of a high-tech birth, some women are stepping outside of the hospital to have their babies. And some say their numbers are growing,” writes Michele Gienow in the Baltimore City Paper.
While the headline makes it all seem very radical, the women interviewed consider themselves pretty mainstream. And Gienow does a terrific job of bringing in various viewpoints and plenty of medical statisitcs:
No studies exist for unattended births like Jimmy Gaffney’s, but there are dozens demonstrating that, in low-risk pregnancies, home births attended by a midwife are as safe for mother and baby as going to the hospital. The largest and most scientifically rigorous home-birth study to date, sponsored by the Canadian government, followed all 5,418 planned home births across the United States and Canada attended by Certified Practical Midwives in 2000. The authors concluded that babies are born as safely at home as they are in the hospital, and with vastly fewer interventions like cesarean section, the use of forceps, or episiotomy; other recent studies, including a 1995 study of 11,788 intentional home births under midwife care published in the Journal of Nurse Midwifery, have reached the same conclusion.
Despite evidence that it is safe, “I think some people shy away from home birth because of the responsibility,” Alana Gaffney says. “If you’re at home, attended or unattended, and something happens to the baby, it’s your fault for not seeking appropriate medical care. But if you go to the hospital and something happens, you’re guilt free. No one is going to say anything to you — it’s just one of those things that happens.”
The Week’s Best Feel-Good Story: New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof shares the story of recent Connecticut College graduate Beatrice Biira, who credits her academic journey to a goat named “Luck” that was donated to her family in Uganda through Heifer International.
Beat the Heat: I admit I turn into a slug in hot, humid weather (a slug with a margarita, that is); sticking with outdoor exercise is tough when the temperature soars. In this article on how to beat the heat, Gina Kolata asks — and answers — some important questions:
How long does it take to acclimate to the heat and humidity, and what is the best way to do it? How much does your performance time slow when it is sweltering and humid, and why? Does it help to douse your head with water? Should you go out in the morning, when it is cooler but the relative humidity is higher, or at night, when it tends to be hotter but less humid? The answers, some exercise physiologists say, are not always what you might expect.
Papayas Fill Gaps in Doctors’ Abortion Training: K. Aleisha Fetters writes at Women’s eNews:
With instruments in one hand, hundreds of medical students took papayas in the other. Inserting a speculum into the tapered end of the uterine-shaped pieces of fruit, they injected them with numbing medication and gently scraped away their seed-filled lining.
This, they learned at the 15th annual meeting of Medical Students for Choice, is how easy it is to perform an abortion, a procedure that many of their schools will never teach them.
Check out the rest of the story about the decline of abortion providers in the United States and the work of Medical Students for Choice.
Immigration in the News: The National Coalition for Immigrant Women’s Rights sent out a highly informative summer update with links to immigration stories in the news, as well as coalition and legislative updates. Unfortunately, it appears to be available only via email. Here’s an excerpt from the news round-up:
The Washington Post recently ran a four day series, Careless Detention: Medical Care in Immigrant Prisons. These stories provide an overview of the immigration issue, descriptions of the terrible medical ordeals immigrant detainees face, accounts of neglect for those immigrant detainees with mental illness, and reports of the U.S. government drugging detainees for deportation, to name a few.
A kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa was the site of the largest immigration raid in U.S. history in May, which involved nearly 400 workers, including 18 juveniles. 306 workers now face charges and some have already been deported. On-the-ground advocates, while looking into the raids, have also discovered that many of the female workers at the plant were sexually harassed and exploited. Many women were coerced into giving sexual favors in exchange for a promotion or a shift change, and those who refused were given more difficult tasks or unwanted shifts.
Uninsured Young Adults: Young adults, age 19-29, have the highest uninsured rate of any age group and account for 29 percent of the uninsured in the United States. The Kaiser Family Foundation has published a paper that examines health coverage for young adults, as well as their health status, access to care, and the financial burdens they encounter when paying for care. It also provides an overview of public and private approaches to expand health coverage for young adults.
On Your Feet: Ever wonder exactly how wearing high heels affects your body? This Washington Post graphic shows the effect on feet, ankles, knees and posture. Included are links to a number of related stories, such as this overview on how wearing the wrong shoes affects foot health, and advice on how to be kind to your feet.
They’re not the newest stories, but I just found out that excruciating pain I get when wearing heels (or even hiking downhill) is Morton’s neuroma, so I was kinda curious to learn more. This week I’m in Vermont, so it’s all comfy summer sandals here! … Happy 4th to everyone!
According to a new poll available at the Kaiser Family Foundation, four in 10 Americans — and half of those regularly taking at least one medication — report experiencing at least one of three cost-related concerns in their family:
16 percent say it is a “serious” problem to pay for prescription drugs; 29 percent say they have not filled a prescription in the past two years because of the cost; and 23 percent say they have cut pills in half or skipped doses in order to make a medication last longer. People are most likely to report one of these three issues if they lack drug coverage (52 percent), if they have low incomes (54 percent) or if they take four or more drugs regularly (59 percent).
The poll was conducted by USA Today and public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. In addition to the monetary concerns, the poll also looks at attitudes toward and experiences with prescription drugs and the pharmaceutical industry — including advertisements, safety issues, government regulation and medical research.
USA Today has a good package of survey-related stories and data, including this look at the side effects of drug ads, which notes that “Prescription-drug ads prompt nearly one-third of Americans to ask their doctors about an advertised medicine, and 82% of those who ask say their physicians recommended a prescription.”
“Our survey shows why the drug companies run all these ads: They work,” says Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Foundation. “Many people get drugs they otherwise wouldn’t. While there’s a debate about whether that’s a good thing for patients, it does cost the country more.”
Remarkably, $4.8 billion was spent on drug advertising in 2006, up from $2.6 billion in 2002. Holy “Possible-side- effects-may-include!”
Plus: I heard a great interview with former drug sales rep Shahram Ahari, who testified last week before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging about how the relationship between pharmaceutical companies and doctors compromises the health of patients.
Ahari was a guest on NPR’s “The Story” (excellent program), and he acknowledged that the manipulation he learned to employ with doctors — and got so good at — seeped into his personal life. Scary. Listen to it here.
You can also watch Ahari below show off his “safe cracker” skills — so named because he could talk his way into the offices of doctors who normally kept out drug reps — or read this article he co-authored.
Want to learn more? Check out PharmedOut.org for information on how pharmaceutical companies influence prescribing.
The Washington Post last week reported on an ad campaign protesting the FDA’s crackdown on pharmacies that manufacture and market biodentical hormones to treat symptoms of menopause. Sandra J. Boodman writes:
Last week the HOME (Hands Off My Estrogens!) Coalition, a group based in tiny Edinburg, Va., placed a full-page ad in five newspapers, including USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, accusing regulators of being hostile to “natural” hormonal medicines made according to a doctor’s prescription by a compounding pharmacy.
The ads urge women and their physicians to e-mail the White House and members of Congress asking them to protect patients’ access to medications they claim are “bio-identical” to those found in the body.
Hold the outrage. There is no scientific evidence that bioidentical hormones are safer than conventional hormone therapy drugs — and marketing claims that such drugs can restore youth and prevent or treat serious conditions such as cancer have long irked many in the medical community. As the Post story notes, “A key ingredient in these made-to-order drugs is estriol, a form of estrogen that the coalition claims is safe and protects against breast cancer — but that the FDA says is unapproved.”
Last month, the FDA sent letters to seven pharmacy operations that compound biodentical hormones, warning them that their claims about the safety and effectiveness of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy “are unsupported by medical evidence, and are considered false and misleading.”
While this upset the HOME Coalition, the National Women’s Health Network, along with physician groups such as the Endocrine Society, applauded the enforcement. The NWHN has long been concerned about the oversight of natural hormones — here’s a handy fact sheet on the subject — and two years ago the NWHN petitioned the FDA to stop companies from marketing estrogen-and-testosterone combination pills.
Marian Sadler of the NWHN critiques the Home ad over at Prescription Access Legislation. Sadler writes that the ad attempts to “make you feel that the HOME Coalition is looking out for women’s health and women’s rights, defending natural care from hostile attacks by drug companies and the FDA, and ’speaking the truth,’” but it’s basically just a sales pitch for natural hormones. She continues:
Like hormones that are synthesized in a lab and sold by drug companies, natural hormones are powerful chemicals that affect many parts of the body. It is very important to understand that products are not necessarily safe just because they’re natural. The same questions we ask about drugs need to be answered for alternative therapies too.
Just as pharmaceutical companies promote drugs, there is a large industry that produces and sells alternative health care products. Whether they are recommended by a doctor, a nurse practitioner, a naturopath or the cashier at the health food store, women should be skeptical of products that claim they will extend life, reverse aging, restore youth or prevent disease without causing any adverse effects.
“Our research with consumers has told us that women today are increasingly mindful of making choices that positively impact their lives.” — Katie Bayne, CMO of Coca-Cola North America, Atlanta
What’s a company to do when its product is not recommended as part of a healthy lifestyle? Simple: Put on a little red dress.
Diet Coke and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute are teaming up to promote “The Heart Truth” campaign, which aims to raise awareness of women’s risk of heart disease. In 2002, The Heart Truth campaign introduced a red dress as a national symbol for women’s heart disease. If you haven’t seen it yet, you will soon.
Starting Jan. 22, the red dress will appear on Diet Coke, Caffeine-Free Diet Coke and Diet Coke Plus products — 2.5 billion of them, AdWeek reported Monday. Look for print and online ads to begin in February, during American Heart Month.
And what says heart disease better than Fashion Week? According to AdWeek:
Diet Coke will be leveraging events as well, sponsoring the Heart Truth’s Red Dress Collection fashion show during Fashion Week 2008. From mid-February through April, Diet Coke will tour 10 cities with the Heart Truth Road Show. The exhibit will show six red dresses previously worn by celebrities and offer free health screenings.
How very chic.
What’s not so chic — and what Coca-Cola would prefer doesn’t get mentioned — is that consumption of both regular and diet soda is linked to a metabolic condition that can lead to heart disease. A study published last year in the American Heart Association journal Circulation found that people who drink one or more soft drinks per day have a more than 50 percent higher risk of developing the metabolic syndrome that has been linked to heart disease, stroke and diabetes than people who drink less than one soda per day.
“The point is that the risk is high no matter how many soft drinks one consumes and no matter what type of soft drink one consumes,” said Dr. Ramachandran S. Vasan, associate professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and one of the study authors. “This adds to what we already know about how soft drinks may be associated with weight gain and metabolic risk.”
The American Beverage Association took issue with the study (well, duh), and the American Heart Association responded with a statement: “It is important to note that the study does not show that soft drinks cause risk factors for heart disease. It does show that the people studied who drank soft drinks were more likely to develop risk factors for heart disease.”
Indeed, a number of nutrition experts quoted in this ABC News story doubt that diet soda, which doesn’t contain calories, would by itself increase risk factors. “There is no reason to think that soda — as much as I do not think it should be a part of a healthy diet — would cause heart disease,” said Dr. Darwin Deen, associate professor of clinical epidemiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “But it comes as no surprise that people who do drink soda do other heart-harming things, thus creating an association between soda drinking and [heart disease].”
Deen added that the sweetness of diet soda is on par with regular soda, and it could be acting as a trigger of sorts. “What this means is that soda drinkers are less likely to enjoy the taste of an apple or a fresh tomato and more likely to need stronger flavors (like salt) to make their food taste good. This may be part of the explanation.”
The Heart Truth campaign lists almost 30 corporate partners on its website. (So far, Coca-Cola is not mentioned.) At some point you have to wonder what the guidelines are for partnership — and whether association with an unhealthy beverage will alter the campaign’s taste.
Plus: Our Bodies Ourselves Executive Director Judy Norsigian discusses how campaigns to educate women about the risk of heart disease can potentially exploit women’s health concerns. And here’s coverage of racial bias in heart disease treatment.
Because Nothing Says Happy Holidays Like Concrete Shoes: Here’s a story from Lockport, N.Y. (via Feministing) that won’t bring much holiday cheer … From the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal:
Richfield Street-based American Concrete had a new billboard erected Monday on West Avenue. Over the image of a wrapped gift, the solicitous catchline, “Wife need new shoes?” is accompanied by the American Concrete logo and a greeting, “Happy Holidays.”
YWCA Executive Director Kathleen Granchelli and a representative of Big Brothers Big Sisters have spoken to the mayor about the billboard, but company owner Kevin McCabe defended the billboard, claiming that because his wife is OK with it, and his sister-in-law conceived of the ad, well, it must be funny.
Granchelli would like McCabe to think about the message it imparts to others, but he’s not budging.
“I think the mainstream understands it,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that some people are reading much more into it than they should.”
News Without Context: News reports have probed every angle in the Stacy Peterson disappearance and how her husband became the prime suspect. But when Anne Glauber tried to persuade media producers to interview a domestic violence advocate, there were no takers. Read Glauber’s story at Women’s eNews.
Affordable Family Planning: Noting the drastic increase in the cost of prescription contraceptives at college health centers, The New York Times advocates for legislation that would make university health centers and safety-net clinics eligible for the discount again. Rachel wrote about the legislation earlier this month.
Unilever Ditches Self Esteem as a Marketing Concept: Because there’s always good ol’ misogyny to promote instead. Lucinda Marshall plays the Unilever games so you don’t have to.
“Study: Feminists Are Better Mates”: You knew this already, but it’s still nice to see that headline in the Chicago Tribune. Judy Peres summarizes the study by Laurie Rudman of Rutgers University and graduate student Julie Phelan:
The results, appearing in the online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Sex Roles, show that for both women and men there was a benefit to having a feminist partner. Feminist women were also more likely than others to be in a romantic relationship.
“If you’re a woman paired with a male feminist,” said Rudman, “you have a healthier relationship across the board” — better in terms of relationship quality, equality, stability and sexual satisfaction.
“And men paired with female feminists have greater sexual satisfaction and greater relationship stability,” she said. “So, [there were] higher scores on two of the four dimensions, with no difference on the other two.”
Princess Power: Disney’s $4 billion Princess empire is expanding its line of products to appeal to middle-class women. “There’s actually an entire line of Princess wedding dresses (in case you’re more of a Cinderella) with matching jewelry and tiaras. Sleepwear and housewares are next,” reports Newsweek. “Disney is also updating some classic narratives to make the protagonists more empowered, which may appeal to women who have kissed a few frogs.”
From the Files of Offbeat News: For your sophisticated environmentally conscious amusement, there’s now a site that promotes CheatNeutral (thanks, Kiki!).
Preventing Salesmanship from Trumping Facts: “Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said Sunday that prescription drug companies should wait two years to begin advertising their new products to consumers,” reports the AP.
“I think two years makes sense. I think it gives enough time for a drug not just to have been tested in clinical trials but to be out among the public, to see what kind of adverse reactions there have been,” he told reporters afterward.
Edwards’ plan also includes increased penalties for companies that violate truth-in-advertising laws and would require companies to disclose more information about a drug’s side effects and effectiveness compared to placebos and less expensive alternative drugs.
How Much Does it Cost to Have a Baby?: According to the latest numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which falls under the Department of Health and Human Services, the cost of having a baby, from the first prenatal visit to delivery, averaged roughly $7,600 for an uncomplicated birth. (This calculation did not include the Bugaboo Cameleon stroller.)
All joking aside, as this article at AlterNet points out, “Despite the relative health of women in the United States, many women are not getting the uncomplicated births they might expect.”
Manda Aufochs Gillespie and Mariya Strauss take a close look at “Listening to Mothers,” the landmark report by Childbirth Connection that looks at women’s attitudes, beliefs, preferences and knowledge from the time before the pregnancy through the postpartum period.
The majority of women ended up attached to IVs, catheters and fetal monitors. They had their membranes artificially ruptured and were given epidurals. Most of these women had little understanding of the side effects of these interventions, including cesarean and medical inductions. The report also shows that though women understood that they had the right to refuse medical interventions, few did, and many received interventions, such as episiotomies, without their consent.
Just as troubling is what is not being done. A “very tiny minority” of women received all of the care practices that promote natural birth.
Griswold v. Connecticut Attorney Dies: “Catherine Roraback, a lawyer who pressed the Connecticut case that eventually led the United States Supreme Court to rule that laws banning the use of contraceptives were unconstitutional, a precursor to its Roe v. Wade decision on abortions, died on Wednesday in Salisbury, Conn. She was 87,” reports The New York Times.
What’s Your Comfort Level?: Right-wing favorite Sen. Sam Brownback, who dropped out of the presidential race this month due to low polling and poor fundraising, declared that he is “much more comfortable” with Rudy Giuliani’s position on abortion after the two met face-to-face last week. Which makes many of us much less comfortable.
“Justices are key,” said Brownback. “He’s stated publicly many times about his support for strict constructionists like, I believe he said Roberts. John Roberts is a personal friend.”
When Sex and National Politics Collide … Well, you know it can’t be good for women or women’s health. Gloria Feldt writes about the appointment of Susan Orr — the birth control opponent in charge of administering Title X, the family planning program for low-income women.
With Facts on Our Side: Following the release of the study conducted by the World Health Organization and the Guttmacher Institute that found the number of abortions is relatively unaffected by whether abortion legal, and that access to contraceptives is the best way to reduce abortion rates, Katha Pollitt interviewed antichoice leaders about the findings. The responses, while not completely surprising, are noteworthy for their stubborn refusal to work with facts instead of theology.
Girls Just Want to Have Fun: Sorry, couldn’t resist. The Feminist Press of the City University of New York sure knows how to throw a party … The 37th Anniversary Gala, honoring Cyndi Lauper and Eve Ensler, will take place Nov. 5 at Tavern on the Green. The event features a number of outstanding award recipients.
So Not Pretty in Pink: Cheers for U.S. Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA), for taking on women’s magazines for running Camel No. 9 cigarettes ads — the pink version of Joe Camel aimed at female smokers.
“In June, 40 of my congressional colleagues joined me in writing to the publishers of 11 leading women’s magazines: Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, InStyle, Interview Magazine, Lucky, Marie Claire, Soap Opera Digest, Us Weekly, Vogue and W. We asked them to stop accepting misleading advertisements for deadly cigarettes, particularly for Camel No. 9,” Capps writes in the Washington Post. “Not one of the magazines bothered to formally respond. We wrote again on Aug. 1. Seven of the 11 magazines responded, but none has committed to dropping the ads.”
Plus: The New York Times last week looked at the prejudices elder gays and lesbians face, particularly those living at long-term care facilities where little thought may have been given to sensitivity training. Also see the accompanying audio and photos of Fred and Emile, and there’s a good list of related reports and demographic information.
Pink That: Lucinda Marshall at Feminist Peace Network put together a list of some of “the most crass, opportunistic list of supposedly cure-supporting crap I’ve ever seen.” And there’s more where those came from.
Being Anita Hill: “Back then, she was either a charlatan or a heroine, depending which side you took in the epic, gut-wrenching showdown that was the Clarence Thomas confirmation battle,” writes the AP’s Jocelyn Noveck. “Sixteen years later, Anita Hill can be found on a tranquil New England college campus, sifting through thousands of documents to try to answer this question: Have things gotten any better in our nation’s workplaces?”
An Emphasis on Homework: Interested in perfecting your housekeeping skills and learning how to defer to your husband in all matters? Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, offers an academic homemaking program — open only to women — that includes “lectures on laundering stubborn stains and a lab in baking chocolate-chip cookies,” reports the L.A. Times.
Linking Stress to Disease: A commentary in the Oct. 10 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association explores whether psychological stress increases the risk of disease. “The evidence from studies of depression and heart disease is most convincing. The HIV/AIDS data are a little weaker. The evidence for stress playing a role in cancer isn’t all that good, even though there is supporting evidence from studies of animals,” said lead author Sheldon Cohen.
“Perfecting” Ann Coulter: Gloria Feldt, writing at Huffington Post, shares the inspiration for her new list: “Full disclosure: I am mentioned 10 times — more than even Jane Fonda or Betty Friedan — by the anti-feminist Kate O’Beirne in her book, Women Who Make the World Worse: and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports. From my perspective, this means I must be doing something right. With those credentials as well as being an aficionada of Keith Olberman’s nightly ‘Worst Person in the World’ shtick, I recently decided to start my own list of the Stupidest Women in America (SWIAA ™).”
Vaginal Cosmetic Surgery: Self magazine takes a close look at vaginal surgeries. One 21-year-old dipped into her student loan money to pay for a labiaplasty that cost $5,000 — and left her “deformed” and in unbearable pain. The reconstructive surgery cost an additional $8,700.
Are Annual Check-Ups a Thing of the Past? According to medical organizations like the the American College of Physicians and other professional groups, it’s no longer recommended. “That’s because there is scant scientific evidence showing that yearly checkups help prevent disease, death or disability for adults with no symptoms. Many tests and procedures performed during the visits have questionable value, experts say,” reports the Chicago Tribune.
According to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which does not endorse yearly physicals, “interventions that help patients change health-impairing habits or that spotlight emerging illnesses for which reliable and effective treatments exist” do make a real difference. Some examples, according to the Trib, are “Pap smears, mammograms, cholesterol tests, blood-pressure checks, and counseling to stop smoking, lose weight, get more exercise and eat a healthier diet.”
UK Promotes Water Births: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, a UK health watchdog group, issued guidelines stating that all expectant mothers should be offered water births. From The Guardian:
“There is a perception that water is just nice,” said Dr Julia Sanders, a consultant midwife and member of the group which drew up the guidance. “But it is the most effective form of pain relief barring an epidural in labour. I would like to see more women using water and fewer women using the types of pain relief that are less effective.”
Nice also said clinical intervention should not be offered or advised when labour was progressing normally and the woman and baby were well. Once a woman was in established labour, she should receive supportive one-to-one care.
The guidance is expected to mean longer labours for some but could also mean fewer medical interventions, which can result in more painful and complicated labours.
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