Television newcomer Rachel Maddow is the best thing to happen to cable television this year. Campbell Brown, veteran political reporter, is a close second.

During the campaign, Brown took on sexist treatment of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Before that, she held the line during an interview with Tucker Bounds, spokesman for the McCain campaign, about Palin’s lack of foreign policy experience. That interview made me an eternal fan.

On “No Bias, No Bull,” a daily show on politics, Brown calls it like she sees it. And more often than anyone else on television, she’s sees the sexist comments and attitudes that seem to escape most political reporters and pundits (not surprising, since most of them are men and some have been known to tilt sexist themselves).

Brown latest commentary addresses assumptions about women and work, prompted by some not-so-smart comments Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell made about the selection of Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s to lead Homeland Security. Here’s what Rendell said during a casual conversation held next to an open microphone:

Janet’s perfect for that job. Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19-20 hours a day to it.

Which prompted Brown to respond:

Wow. Now, I’m sure Gov. Napolitano has many qualifications for the job beyond having no family, and therefore the ability to devote 20 hours a day to the job.

But it is fascinating to me that that is the quality being highlighted here as so perfect. C’mon. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is married with two grown children. His predecessor, Tom Ridge, had a family. Anybody remember a debate about whether they would have trouble balancing the demands of work and family?

While Rendell got his lesson in mic etiquette, Brown also made sure the governor and anyone else who assumes women with families aren’t capable of taking on demanding jobs, and women without families have no life, understand how those assumptions hurt everyone. Watch the video (if you’re an IE user; can’t get it to work in Firefox, though you can view it at CNN) — another excerpt from the transcript is below.

Question one: If a man had been Obama’s choice for the job, would having a family or not having a family ever even have been an issue? Would it have ever prompted a comment? Probably not. We all know the assumption tends to be that with a man, there is almost always a wife in the wings managing those family concerns.

Question two: As a woman, hearing this, it is hard not to wonder if we are counted out for certain jobs, certain opportunities, because we do have a family or because we are in our child-bearing years. Are we? It is a fair question.

Three: If you are a childless, single woman with suspicions that you get stuck working holidays, weekends and the more burdensome shifts more often than your colleagues with families, are those suspicions well-founded? Probably so. Is there an assumption that if you’re family free then you have no life? By some, yes.

Again Gov. Rendell, I don’t mean to rake you over the coals. I know what you meant to say. But your comments do perpetuate stereotypes that put us in boxes, both mothers and single women. In government and beyond, men have been given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to striking the right work-life balance. Women are owed the same consideration.

The New York Times recently published a special series to help individuals advocate for their own health. The series included information on reliable health information websites, patients’ use of the Internet for self-education about their symptoms and diagnoses, how to understand a medical research report, what FDA approval really means, and several other topics.

Importantly, the Times pieces represented a largely positive take on patients becoming informed and active in their own healthcare, recommending that people seek second opinions when needed and become informed about what constitutes reliable medical evidence by gaining a basic knowledge of good study design. One physician interviewed, with regards to the tendency to go online for additional information, said:

“We have to acknowledge that patients do this research. It’s important that instead of fighting against it, that we join them and become their coaches in the process.”

The pieces make a stark contrast to the historical (and sometimes current) experiences of many women, who may have experienced hostility and condescension from physicians who took a more paternalistic approach. Taken as a whole, the Times pieces encourage individuals to learn and understand, rather than leaving everything to the doctors.

In touching on the estrogen problem as well as the reliability of research, the pieces also remind us that women have too often been on the receiving end of medical practices and traditions that have not been well-supported by the evidence. From individual practices such as previously routine episiotomies and hormone replacement to broader policies such as those that discourage hospitals from allowing vaginal births after a cesarean, individual women may receive care in environments that don’t support the reliance on evidence, questioning and self-education the Times pieces recommend.

For further details, visit any of the following articles from the Times (or this section page):

• You’re Sick. Now What? Knowledge Is Power.
• Searching for Clarity: A Primer on Medical Studies
• What’s Behind an F.D.A. Stamp?
• You Can Find Dr. Right, With Some Effort
• Applying Science to Alternative Medicine

Of course, OBOS has been recommending that women become informed about and advocate for better healthcare for quite a long time – see our content on Navigating the Health Care System for examples, as well as any of the full OBOS books.

Combine girls, vaccines, and sex, and you apparently get a recipe for sensationalism and poor reporting. CNN yesterday featured a piece, “Should parents worry about HPV vaccine?” which notes that “Gardasil has been the subject of 7,802 ‘adverse event’ reports from the time the Food and Drug Administration approved its use two years ago.”

What the article doesn’t explain is how the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) system works. Reports to VAERS can be submitted by anyone, and are not verified or definitively linked to the vaccine without further investigation. This understanding was not demonstrated by the piece, which simply conceded,

“The company said in a statement that an adverse event report ‘does not mean that a causal relationship between an event and vaccination has been established — just that the event occurred after vaccination.’”

This phrasing makes it seem as though it’s just the company (that stands to make money) that believes that reports don’t indicate a causal relationship – it seems designed to make the average reader believe that this characterization is just the vaccine maker protecting its financial interests. While OBOS often points out ways in which pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies prioritize their own financial interests above people’s health, in this instance the company is simply explaining how the reporting system works.

The piece also doesn’t address how this figure compares to anticipated adverse events estimated from the original studies, how it compares to the rates of adverse events for other vaccines, or that, due to the current system, there are always more/different side effects reported after a drug is approved (in the “post-marketing” period) due to the numbers of individuals involved. For example, if a drug causes death in 1 in 500,000 people, and was tested in 2,000, the possibility of the drug causing death is not likely to be realized until it is on the market and prescribed to a large population.

On the other hand (and unmentioned in the CNN article), many adverse events may occur that are not reported. “Post-marketing surveillance” – including analysis of reports from those who have received the drug or vaccine after it has been approved – is a crucial aspect of safeguarding the public from dangerous drugs. Because individuals and physicians may not associate an outcome with the vaccine, and many individuals may not realize that they are allowed to submit reports directly, underreporting of effects is both possible and likely. The FDA uses this surveillance system to make changes to labels, educate physicians about risks, and re-evaluate their approval of a drug or vaccine, so it remains important that adverse outcomes are reported, despite the cautions about making judgments based on raw numbers of reports and difficulties in later determining which of those outcomes were directly linked to a specific drug, vaccine, or other product.

Habladora at Feministe has an excellent summary of how CNN’s piece omitted crucial information in favor of drumming up parental anxiety, touching on many of these same issues. She notes:

“Finally, CNN presents us with the terrifying story of a teenager who developed pancreatitis not long after taking the vaccine. While I am not insensible to how horrifying such a serious illness would be for a young girl and her family, it should be CNN’s responsibility to verify whether or not her fear that it was related to the vaccine could be founded – by researching how many of those incident reports dealt with pancreatitis, for example, or other autoimmune diseases. This type of reporting is important, after all, since it could impact women’s decisions and, consequently, their health.”

This approach is not limited to CNN – Judicial Watch is currently featuring the large, bolded headline, “Judicial Watch Uncovers New FDA Records Detailing Ten New Deaths & 140 ‘Serious’ Adverse Events Related to Gardasil.” However, the CDC has reported that of the 10 deaths they have analyzed, they could not establish a causal relationship between the vaccine and the deaths, and notes that “While Gardasil was being tested in the U.S. before it was licensed, 10 people in the group that received the HPV vaccine and 7 people in the placebo group died during the trials. None of the deaths was considered vaccine-related.”

In their report, Judicial Watch also suggests that Gardasil wasn’t adequately tested for adverse effects because the comparison placebo vaccine contained an aluminum “reactive, potentially harmful substance.” Without reading the original studies, this probably makes the comparison more valid instead of less, because the real vaccine also contains an aluminum compound (as do many other vaccines), and omitting it from the placebo vaccine would have skewed the comparison by confusing adverse effects of the aluminum with adverse effects of the actual vaccine substance.

I have to wonder if we’d be seeing the same level of fear-mongering if this were another vaccine, if opponents hadn’t suggested that it would cause young girls to become sexually active and that girls from “good homes” don’t get HPV. Yes, of course we should keep watch when a new drug, vaccine or product is approved and is targeted to women. Of course we should attempt to tease out real and serious side effects that didn’t appear in the smaller trials, and be wary of the financial motives companies have to put the best light on their product. Of course we should be aware of mandates for vaccination and ensure that adequate information and opt-out provisions are available. It may still turn out that there are serious issues with Gardasil that warrant a different assessment of the risks and benefits. However, incomplete and inaccurate reporting and misrepresentation of the science does nothing to assist women and families in making decisions about vaccination and safety.

For further discussion, see Gardasil: What you need to know about the HPV vaccine and this previous OBOS blog post.

Planned Parenthood Expands its Reach: “Flush with cash, Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide are aggressively expanding their reach, seeking to woo more affluent patients with a network of suburban clinics and huge new health centers that project a decidedly upscale image,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

Unfortunately the full story is available to subscribers only, but the WSJ health blog has a summary that includes these remarks:

Despite some critiques to the contrary, Planned Parenthood insists it’s not compromising is long-held focus on serving the poor with birth control, sexual-health care and abortions. Officials there say they take a loss of nearly $1 on each packet of birth-control pills distributed to poor women under a federal program that funds reproductive care. But they make a profit of nearly $22 on each month of pills sold to an adult who can afford to pay full price. That money helps subsidize other operations, including care for the poor as well as pursuing Planned Parenthood’s political agenda.

“It is high time we follow the population,” said Sarah Stoesz, who heads Planned Parenthood operations in three Midwest states. She recently opened three express centers in wealthy Minnesota suburbs, “in shopping centers and malls, places where women are already doing their grocery shopping, picking up their Starbucks, living their daily lives,” she said.

Pregnant in Gloucester: Concerning the 18 high school students pregnant in Gloucester, Mass, that have received national news coverage for supposedly choosing to get pregnant and raise their children together, Kelly McBride, who covers media ethics for Poynter Institute, has an excellent piece on pack journalism in search of a “pact..” Meanwhile, the high school principal who first said their was evidence of a pact defends his comments and his memory.

Plus: Courtney Macavinta of Respect RX discusses her own sex “pact” at age 15 and the cycle of disrespect that leads girls who don’t value themselves to make choices “in which the fine print (that life is about to get even harder) is written in invisible ink.”

Teen Pregnancies at 30-Year Low: Writing in the Chicago Tribune, Lisa Anderson reports on the latest pregnancy statistics released by the Guttmacher Institute.

Pregnancies — whether they end in birth, miscarriage or abortion — among women age 15 to 19 dropped to 72.2 per 1,000 women in 2004, down from a peak of 117 per 1,000 women in 1990 [...]

While some 700,000 women age 15 to 19 become pregnant every year, the rate has declined 36 percent since it peaked in 1990. The rate of abortions among teens also plummeted, to 19.8 per 1,000 women in 2004 from a high of 43.5 per 1,000 in 1988.

But researchers are keeping a close eye on the numbers, as there are some signs that the drop may be reversing:

Despite decades of improvement and for reasons yet unknown, there is statistical evidence that the drop in pregnancy rates, the age of first sexual activity and contraceptive use among teens stalled after 2001.

The exception may be in the teen birthrate. After a 14-year decline, the birthrate, meaning the number of live births, among women age 15 to 19 rose 3 percent in 2006 to 41.9 per 1,000 women from 40.5 per 1,000 women in 2005, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Until more data are compiled, it is unclear whether the 2006 uptick in births was an isolated blip or the harbinger of a more significant and negative change on the teen reproductive landscape, according to David Landry, a senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute.

Mandating Insurance Coverage for Psychiatric Ailments: Illinois will become the 17th state to mandate insurance coverage for treatment of anorexia and bulimia, assuming the governor signs a bill recently approved by the state Legislature.

Bonnie Miller Rubin and Ashley Wiehle of the Chicago Tribune write:

The measure is part of a larger national debate about addressing inequities in insurance coverage between psychiatric and physical ailments.

More than 12 million Americans, mostly young women, have eating disorders in their lifetime, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. The organization ranked risk of death as higher with anorexia than with any other mental illness. Among patients with anorexia, almost half of all deaths are suicides, according to ANAD. Yet many insurers balk at covering the tab, which can run as high as $2,500 a day.

“I’ve met so many parents who have had to refinance their homes,” said Rep. Fred Crespo (D-Hoffman Estates), one of the bill’s sponsors.

But others cite the financial cost of such a law. Richard Cauchi, health program director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Illinois has taken “an unusual action” for 2008, when the trend is to move away from mandates on business and governments.

“There’s more pressure now to repeal and restrict mandates than to enact new ones,” he said..

“Neglected Infections of Poverty”: “Despite plummeting mortality rates for most infectious diseases over the last century, a group of largely overlooked bacterial, viral and parasitic infections is still plaguing the nation’s poor, according to a report released this week,” writes Wendy Hansen in the L.A. Times.

“Many of the diseases are typically associated with tropical developing countries but are surprisingly common in poor regions of the United States, according to the analysis, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.”

The study’s author, Dr. Peter Hotez, chairman of George Washington University’s department of microbiology, immunology and tropical disease, says there are 24 diseases affecting at least 300,000 Americans, and possibly millions. Poverty-stricken regions, including Appalachia, inner cities, the Mississippi Delta and the border with Mexico, are the areas most severely affected.

Will Women Give Hormone Maker a Second Chance?: “Can Wyeth win back the 40 million Premarin and Prempro users it’s lost since 2002 — along with $1 billion a year in profits — with a new menopause drug? Or will the once-bitten women who have filed more than 5,000 lawsuits claiming the hormones gave them cancer feel fooled twice?” asks Martha Rosenberg at AlterNet.org, in this look at Wyeth’s hope of marketing Pristiq as the first nonhormonal treatment for menopause symptoms.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Affects Women More: “The Army and Air Force discharged a disproportionate number of women in 2007 under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibits openly gay people from serving in the military, according to Pentagon statistics gathered by an advocacy group,” reports The New York Times.

While women make up 14 percent of Army personnel, 46 percent of those discharged under the policy last year were women. And while 20 percent of Air Force personnel are women, 49 percent of its discharges under the policy last year were women. By comparison for 2006, about 35 percent of the Army’s discharges and 36 percent of the Air Force’s were women, according to the statistics.

The information was gathered under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a policy advocacy organization.

Gardasil Not Approved for Older Women: “U.S. regulators have told Merck & Co they cannot yet approve Merck’s application to expand marketing of its cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil to an older group of women, the drugmaker said on Wednesday,” reports Reuters.

“Merck had applied for the use of Gardasil in women ages 27 through 45. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a letter regarding the application that it has completed its review and there are ‘issues’ that preclude approval within the expected review time frame, Merck said.”

Exercise as a Tonic for Aging: The New York Times reports on an updated series of physical activity recommendations for older adults from the American Heart Association and the American College of Sports Medicine, which are expected to match new federal activity guidelines due in October from the United States Health and Human Services Department.

“Contrary to what many active adults seem to believe, physical fitness does not end with aerobics,” writes Jane Brody. “Strength training has long been advocated by the National Institute on Aging, and the heart association has finally recognized the added value of muscle strength to reduce stress on joints, bones and soft tissues; enhance stability and reduce the risk of falls; and increase the ability to meet the demands of daily life, like rising from a chair, climbing stairs and opening jars.”

Life Expectancy Hits Record High: “Americans’ life expectancy reached a record high of 78.1 years in 2006, with disparities among ethnic groups and between the sexes generally narrowing, according to government data,” reports the Washington Post.

The overall U.S. life expectancy of 78.1 years was up 0.3 years from 2005. Life expectancy for women was 80.7 years, and for men, 75.4 years. The disparity between the sexes — 5.3 years — has been declining since it peaked at about eight years in 1979.

White women had the longest life expectancy, at 81 years, followed by black women (76.9 years), white men (76 years) and black men (70 years). The gap between men and women is markedly greater in blacks (6.9 years) than in whites (five years).

Plus: Read our previous look at declining life expectancy rates for women in some regions of the United States.

Women Scientists Contribute to New Book on Motherhood: “Motherhood, The Elephant in the Laboratory: Women Scientists Speak Out,” is a newly published collection of essays about science and motherhood, written by 34 women scientists. There’s also a related blog, designed to serve as an ongoing forum for discussion, organization and hopefully change. Via Women’s Bioethics Blog.

This is What We Have to Look Forward to: An on-screen description during a Fox News segment on conservative attacks on Michelle Obama read: “Outraged Liberals: Stop Picking on Obama’s Baby Mama.” In the Understatement of the Month, Fox News conceded that a producer “exercised poor judgment.” See Pam’s House Blend for great commentary and more links.

Plus: The women behind What About Our Daughters have launched Michelle Obama Watch to keep track of the media coverage.

Strawberry Shortcake’s Slimming Makeover: Because even cartoon characters can never be too thin or too young …

Prevalence of Hysterectomies Questioned: “One in three women has a hysterectomy before her 60th birthday. Yet treatment for life-threatening illnesses — uterine and ovarian cancers — accounts for only 10% of the procedures,” writes Anna Clark at RH Reality Check, in this look at the frequency of hysterectomies and the health implications.

Shooting Holes in Protective Gun Bans: From Women’s eNews: Landmark laws passed in the 1990s aimed at keeping guns from abusers have fallen short of their mark, say law enforcement personnel and advocates. Marie Tessier’s story on protective gun bans is the latest in the WeN series on “Dangerous Trends, Innovative Responses.”

“It seems like a great idea, to take guns away from batterers,” says Merril Cousin, executive director of the King County Coalition Against Domestic Violence in Seattle. “It’s more complicated than it sounds, because it depends on finding out that a firearm is involved, it often requires a court order, and then you have to get the order enforced.”

Guns are used to kill most victims of intimate partner homicides, though the proportion has been falling, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

In recent years, about 1,200 women have died annually in intimate partner homicides, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. About a third of female homicide victims in the United States are killed by a partner or former partner. Women ages 25 to 49 are at higher risk, as are African American women and Native American women.

Help Write the History of the Pill: Feminist historian Elaine May is seeking men and women who would be willing to talk about their experiences with the PIll, as well as people who work in fields that relate to its use and availability.

“The Pill is often considered one of the most important innovations of the twentieth century. As I investigate this claim for a new book set for release on the 50th anniversary of the Pill’s FDA approval (Basic Books, 2010) I’m looking to include the voices and stories of real people. I hope yours will be one of them. I’m eager to hear from men as well as women, of all ages and backgrounds,” writes May in her author’s query, published at Feministing.

Speaking of Birth Control …: The question of the day is, “How well do you know John McCain’s views on women’s health?” It’s time get out the facts. Planned Parenthood is launching house parties next week (June 14 – June 20) to help spread the word about McCain’s record not only against abortion, but also against funding for family planning, comprehensive sex education and prescription coverage for birth control. Check out this video from Planned Parenthood:

Daily news stories about new health treatments, tests, products and procedures may be harmful to your health.

That’s the conclusion of a new study published in PLoS Medicine.

An analysis conducted by Health News Review of 500 stories by major U.S. print and broadcast outlets found that between 62 and 77 percent of stories published during a 22-month period “failed to adequately address costs, harms, benefits, the quality of the evidence, and the existence of other options when covering health care products and procedures.”

Here’s a handy table that shows the failures and a few semi-successes.

On the plus side, 70 percent of stories avoided “disease mongering” and 70 percent discussed availability of the new approach.

The study includes examples of stories that scored poorly and offers a prescription to do better: “Time (to research stories), space (in publications and broadcasts), and training of journalists can provide solutions to many of the journalistic shortcomings identified by the project.”

The study’s lead author is Gary Schwitzer, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota School who publishes Health News Review. The Review monitors health coverage by the top 50 U.S. newspapers (by circulation); the Associated Press; TIME, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report; and morning and evening newscasts of ABC, CBS and NBC.

For more reading, see a related blog post at the Wall Street Journal and this story from Minnesota Public Radio.

Plus: A related PLoS editorial looks at the origins of unbalanced reporting and the role of medical journals. The editorial concludes:

Schwitzer’s alarming report card of the trouble with medical news stories is thus a wake-up call for all of us involved in disseminating health research — researchers, academic institutions, journal editors, reporters, and media organizations — to work collaboratively to improve the standards of health reporting. The good news is that there are signs of change.

Two years ago, Ray Moynihan and David Henry guest-edited a special PLoS Medicine theme issue on disease mongering, the corporate creation of new diseases in order to sell treatments. As they report in this month’s issue, over the last two years there has been a growing number of high-profile articles on disease mongering, suggesting that “scepticism is building within the mainstream media.” The Wall Street Journal, for example, recently ran a story on a new drug for restless legs syndrome under the headline “How Glaxo Marketed a Malady to Sell a Drug.”

Read the essay, “Disease Mongering Is Now Part of the Global Health Debate.”

A Cleveland Plain Dealer series on teen dating violence, told through the story of a high school student raped and shot by her ex-boyfriend, and a NPR report on the epidemic of rape on Native American reservations are winners of the 2008 Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma.

Established in 1995, the annual Dart Awards, presented by the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the University of Washington, recognize “outstanding reporting that portrays traumatic events with accuracy, insight and sensitivity while illustrating the effects of trauma on victims’ lives and the process of recovery from emotional trauma.” From the release announcing this year’s winners:

The Cleveland Plain Dealer received the Dart Award for “Johanna: Facing Forward” (Rachel Dissell, reporter; Gus Chan, photographer). This remarkable nine-day series traced events leading to the 2007 shooting of 18-year-old Johanna Orozco by her 17-year-old boyfriend. Exploring the roots of relationship violence through Johanna’s eyes, the series – reported and photographed over six months – particularly struck a chord in Cleveland’s Latino community and led to the creation of abuse-awareness programs for teens. [...]

National Public Radio received the Dart Award for “Sexual Abuse of Native American Women” (Laura Sullivan, correspondent; Amy Walters, producer; Maria Godoy, Digital Media Producer), a startling two-part investigative series that opened a new window onto a national disgrace. The series exposed both the fate of women assaulted on reservations, and the web of impunity protecting their assailants.

I was very moved by the NPR report and wrote about it last year when it first aired.

When I find the time, I’m going to read the full Cleveland Plain Dealer series. The paper’s website offers online extras, including story updates, podcasts and resources. Last month, Joanna wrote a letter describing her recovery one year after the assault and her plans for the future.

All too often we’re appalled by insensitive or incomplete coverage. The excellent reporting reflected here deserves widespread attention. More Dart Award radio and newspaper finalists can be found here.

The New York Times has recently published several items that may be of interest to OBOS readers:

Fat Bias Worse for Women – The Well Blog points to a study in the International Journal of Obesity in which researchers surveyed adults about their experience of discrimination based on weight and height, gender, race, and other factors. Perhaps not surprisingly (yet still disappointingly), women reported more height/weight-based discrimination than did men.

The Murky Politics of Mind-Body – This piece reviews a bill passed in the House to make insurers provide equivalent coverage for mental health as for physical health, and the resulting debate over what should be covered and why.

Students of Virginity – This lengthy piece in Sunday’s Magazine profiles a Harvard student advocating abstinence on campus.

Study Finds Many Patients Dissatisfied With Hospitals – You can read the piece for an introduction, and then compare measures at your own local hospitals using http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/.

When women’s health writer and activist Barbara Seaman died Feb. 27 of lung cancer, her death sent shockwaves through feminist and women’s health communities.

Also shocking was The New York Times story on Seaman’s death, which many OBOS readers said they found insulting and mean-spirited.

The first half or so provides a fair, if limited, overview of Seaman’s work and the impact she had on the women’s health movement, which included co-founding the National Women’s Health Network in 1975. But it s surprising that there are no comments from any of Seaman’s colleagues or those familiar with her work.

And once Seaman’s books and the surviving family members are listed, the story takes a turn for the worse. The only quote included is a book reviewer’s critique, in which Seaman is called “a conspiracy theorist by temperament and training.” Attention is then turned to this 20-year-old episode:

In the 1990s, Ms. Seaman also began to speak out publicly against domestic violence, from which she said she had suffered during her marriage to Mr. Forman. Though she did not identify Mr. Forman by name in the news media, court records show that in 1988 he was arrested and charged with assault after Ms. Seaman accused him of punching her in the face. The criminal case against Mr. Forman was later thrown out, Dudley Gaffin, his lawyer at the time, said in a telephone interview on Thursday.

Reached by telephone on Thursday, Mr. Forman denied having assaulted Ms. Seaman, calling the accusation of assault “a divorce tactic” on her part.

It’s amazing that the past is dredged up like this — and, after doing so, the last word is left to Seaman’s ex.

In a letter to The New York Times, Our Bodies Ourselves Executive Director Judy Norsigian wrote:

I was taken aback by the petty and gossipy nature of parts of the obituary for Barbara Seaman and hope that the Times will consider issuing an apology at least to her family. The comments of her ex-husband and his lawyer were particularly inappropriate (as one reporter noted to me, there are all sorts of reasons that a case is dropped – and they often have nothing to do with the culpability of the accused). Readers were left with a pretty clear sense that the NY Times thought that Barbara had made false accusations about Milt Forman’s behavior.

Mostly, I am getting emails about the poor taste exhibited on the part of the Times. Rather than include some of the more substantive criticisms and disagreements that she may have had with colleagues, the piece relied on a few rather general and unopposed character assaults.

As someone who has been close to other luminaries whose obituaries in the Times could easily have included far more damning commentary than was noted in this obituary (and with far better evidence for the character assault), I was left wondering if there was some mean-spirited motivation at play here. In any case, I was sorry to see what I consider a major journalistic lapse.

Naomi at A Little Red Hen offers a similar critique. Her post is also a personal remembrance of Seaman — both women were students at Oberlin in the 1950s and their paths had crossed several times since then.

After referencing “a respectful obit” in the Washington Post, Naomi writes:

How unregarded significant women like her continue to be is apparent in Saturday’s New York Times obituary. First, I’d have expected that it would have been written by someone who knew her work, not someone from the obit staff. Most of the week after Barbara’s death had been taken up in the Times with paens to the conservative writer, William Buckley who charmed many in the media. Barbara did not charm. Was this the reason the Times focused on details of her personal life rather than her continuing role as a muckraker, still writing about the dangers of estrogen all these years later.

For comparison, read the more thoughtful obit in the Washington Post — or this one from the L.A. Times. Both are representative of obituaries that a woman of Barbara Seaman’s insight and intellect deserves.

Plus: For an even more intimate view, read OBOS co-founder Norma Swenson’s passionate remembrance of Seaman that focuses on their involvement in the early women’s health movement.

“School Newspaper Drops a V-Bomb” reads the headline of this L.A. Times story about the confiscation of a high school student newspaper that featured a labeled diagram of a vagina on the front page of the Valentine’s Day issue.

The paper’s editor-in-chief, 15-year-old Richard Edmond, said he was trying to raise awareness of violence against women with a lead story about playwright Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues.”

“I didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal,” Edmond said. “But they are really upset.”

Edmond said administrators did not explain to his satisfaction why this copy of Le Sabre was unfit for distribution. He said he was told by administrators: “This is not in the taste of the school; this is a high school, not Hollywood Boulevard.”

That didn’t jive so well with the students. The next day, Edmond and others went to school wearing homemade white, black and pink T-shirts reading “My vagina is obscene.” School officials sent home Edmond and two other protesters who refused to change their clothes.

My favorite quote has to be what Edmond told the Student Press Law Center: “My deans said, ‘We understand there’s violence against women, but we have to send you home because that’s our job. I don’t think there should be a ‘but.’”

* * *
This Chicago Tribune headline, meanwhile, promises more bang than the story delivers: “Sex-Ed Fight Began with Condom and Banana.”

No mess here; rather, it’s about a New Jersey peer-to-peer sex-ed course that has drawn the ire of some parents. Indeed, the original headline to the Philadelphia Inquirer story was a more subdued “Sex Ed Led by Teens is Dividing Parents.”

The program involves faculty-supervised juniors and seniors who conduct a series of five seminars attended by freshmen. The New Jersey Teen Prevention Education Program (Teen PEP) is sponsored by the N.J. Department of Health and Senior Services, HiTOPS Inc. (Health-Interested Teens Own Program on Sexuality) and the Princeton Center for Leadership Training.

Favorite quote:

“Students listen to each other anyway,” said Alex Van Kooy, 16, a Clearview peer educator. They talk about sex “in the halls and at the bus stop, and we’re just trying to give the correct information instead of rumors and whispers.”

Echoing that point, columnist Michael Smerconish writes in a related piece that everything he needed to know about sex he learned playing street hockey.

“In those teenage years, sex came up just about everywhere,” writes Smerconish. “Playing sports. At the movies. Drinking a Frank’s soda. All over. Except home. And certainly not in any classroom.”

His column includes a number of great comments from Michael Porter, a high school English teacher who also serves as a Teen PEP adviser. Tongue in cheek, Porter says, “When I first started to hear some of the revolting things that were happening in Teen PEP workshops, I was ready to start protesting the group myself, until I remembered that I was in charge of it.”

All joking aside, Porter gets that talking about some subjects may be uncomfortable at first, but it’s far easier than dealing with a sexually transmitted disease or unplanned pregnancy.

“I am the father of a 15-year-old girl,” Porter said. “Believe me, I am terrified of the sexually saturated culture that she is surrounded by. I sincerely hope that she chooses to postpone sexual involvement for a long, long, long time. At the same time, as a second-best alternative, I want her to have the information to be safer, should she make a different choice.”

The New York Times last week published an incredibly dismissive page-one story about fibromyalgia, questioning whether it is a “real” disease.

The hook for the story are the advertisements for Lyrica, the first medicine approved to treat the pain condition:

In November, Pfizer began a television ad campaign for Lyrica that features a middle-aged woman who appears to be reading from her diary. “Today I struggled with my fibromyalgia; I had pain all over,” she says, before turning to the camera and adding, “Fibromyalgia is a real, widespread pain condition.”

Author Alex Berenson writes that doctors who specialize in treating fibromyalgia welcome Lyrica — and the other fibromyalgia drugs likely to receive FDA approval this year — because they will encourage doctors to address a disease that is undertreated and whose sufferers are not always believed.

“What’s going to happen with fibromyalgia is going to be the exact thing that happened to depression with Prozac,” said Dr. Dan Clauw, a professor of medicine at the University of Michigan who has consulted with Pfizer, Lilly and Forest. “These are legitimate problems that need treatments.”

While the point that this is a legitimate problem is appreciated, it’s disturbing that it’s left to a drug company to provide the validation. In fact, I wish that instead of questioning the existence of fibromyalgia, the story had focused mainly on questioning the drug’s safety and numerous side effects (which comes up in the last third of the story) — as well as the potential for exploiting the health concerns of people who don’t have fibromyalgia.

Instead, the author’s dubious tone mars what could have been a useful piece. As Paula Kamen, who writes about women’s health and chronic illness (most notably in her excellent book “All in My Head“), notes:

A red flag is that, as the article described early on, fibromyalgia primarily affects women — and even worse, “middle-aged women.” Combined with the fact that pain is invisible, and it is a primarily female disease (like most pain and fatigue disorders), the burden of proof the article demands for fibromyalgia patients is unduly heavy, laden with double standards that other patients do not face.

Kamen continues to hit on why this story fails on multiple levels — including its lack of medical context:

Another immediate red flag was that Berenson immediately added that these patients are likely to suffer from “other similarly nebulous conditions, like irritable bowel syndrome.” First of all, Berenson has used the world “nebulous” to show his own bias; this was not a quote from a source. Meanwhile, Berenson fails to consider the basic medical concept of co-morbidity, or of one brain chemistry imbalance underlying one disorder as likely to cause others. This follows the old “logic” that to discredit a woman’s pain, a doctor would show that she complained about “too many ailments” and had “somatization disorder.”

Despite the controversy reported in the Times, the American College of Rheumatology, the Food and Drug Administration and insurers all recognize fibromyalgia as a diagnosable disease.

So, apparently does The New York Times: It has established a permanent health guide for the disease complete with potential causes and symptoms.

Too bad this story took a page from the past.

The Times published more than half a dozen letters from patients and doctors taking issue with the coverage, including one from Benjamin H. Natelson, M.D., a professor of neurosciences and director of the Pain and Fatigue Study Center at U.M.D.N.J.-New Jersey Medical School, who wrote:

“Your article will make doctors, relatives and friends of millions with fibromyalgia conclude that their symptoms are just a ‘physical response to stress, depression, and economic and social anxiety.’ This is an opinion ignoring published medical literature showing brain abnormalities in fibromyalgia and drugs that clearly improve patient health.”

“What’s needed,” Natelson concudes, “is less talk and more federally financed, peer-reviewed research.”

Exactly. While there are many illnesses and ailments that we don’t understand and can’t quantify, those without a clear cause are often blamed on that all-too-available catchall: “stress.” As noted in Our Bodies Ourselves, “Women are particularly vulnerable to having our ailments dismissed as the results of stress. For example, before the cause of multiple sclerosis — an illness that disproportionately affects women — was known, women who experienced its symptoms were often considered to have a mental impairment and diagnosed with ‘hysteria.’”

Whether or not people with fibromyalgia are suffering from a clearly defined illness or a constellation of similar symptoms, their suffering, as one of my colleagues put it, is physical, real and often brutal. Doctors who believe that “diagnosing the condition actually worsens suffering by causing patients to obsess over aches that other people simply tolerate” deny patients the language to articulate their experiences.

And if there’s one thing that most definitely causes anxiety, it’s when a doctor says there’s nothing there to worry about when the pain says otherwise.

Plus: For more information, visit the Fibromyalgia Network and the National Fibromyalgia Association.

Sex Ed Battles: Via the Washington Post, in Montgomery County, Md., opponents of a new sex-education curriculum approved by the school board last year — the first in the district to address sexual orientation as a classroom topic — are challenging the part that describes homosexuality as innate, insisting it doesn’t meet the “factually accurate” standard set by Maryland state law.

Opponents also object to references made during the condom instruction to anal and oral sex. Their attorney said those passages violate a state prohibition against material that “portrays erotic techniques of sexual intercourse.” The case is being heard by Circuit Court Judge William Rowan III, who is expected to issue a written ruling. Here’s more background.

And in Park Ridge, Ill., there’s controversy over a freshman high school biology curriculum at Maine South High School (which happens to be where Hillary Clinton spent her senior year) that teaches about birth control. The lessons follow state code, said School Superintendent Joel Morris, but some parents are less than enthusiastic, especially about the part describing how to put on a condom.

Choice Stories: Courtney Martin reviews a new anthology, “Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion,” edited by Karen E. Bender and Nina de Gramont.

“In consistently original voices and beautifully crafted writing (not always such a hallmark of anthologies),” writes Martin, “these stories enfold you in a dark but deeply compelling fog and remind you of how totally powerful and pained we sometimes are.”

Birth Trends: The Washington Post looks at college-educated couples who have decided to have children while they’re still in their 20s, which strikes some as very young; according to demographic research, college-educated mothers are usually about 30 when they give birth to their first child.

“This is very significant data. It’s giving numbers to a trend people have been only inferring,” said Stephanie Coontz, director of research at the Council on Contemporary Families. The data, she said, show that “there is this increasing divergence of highly educated women and less-educated women.”

Politics and Misogyny: You probably already read Bob Herbert’s amazing column this week, but if somehow you missed it, go now for honest truths like this: “If there was ever a story that deserved more coverage by the news media, it’s the dark persistence of misogyny in America. Sexism in its myriad destructive forms permeates nearly every aspect of American life. For many men, it’s the true national pastime, much bigger than baseball or football.”

The Chris Matthews Fairy Tale: Echidne of the Snakes offers an all-inclusive take-down of Chris Matthews’ sexist comments about Hillary Clinton and other female politicians and authors. You might call Matthews’ apology a wee bit “incomplete.”

The Correct Clinton Stereotype: In an op-ed at the L.A. Times about gender stereotypes, author Susan Faludi describes a recent experience she had watching women skillfully and persistently handle their mothers’ medical needs and relates it to attitudes toward Hillary Clinton.

Global Population Under a Democratic President: “If a Democratic president enters the White House about a year from now, some experts in family planning anticipate a boon for mankind: a greater effort by the United States government to restrain world population growth,” writes Christian Science Monitor columnist David R. Francis in this piece on reversing the global gag rule.

Doctors Respond to Email: Ever see a health email take on a life of its own? Tara Parker-Pope at the New York Times reports on a controversial message that has circulated online for years urging women to request a special blood test (CA-125) to screen themselves for ovarian cancer. A group of doctors has responded with their own email that they hope will soon be communicated as far and wide.

Deep Freeze: As I write, it’s 2 degrees in Chicago — and it’s expected to plunge to -20 below with wind chill. According to The New York Times, I have no excuse not to stick to my running. (Damn.) Of course, anyone with a fireplace and a good winter brew can easily convince me otherwise … Hope you all are warm!

Writing at the Huffington Post, Gloria Feldt outlines the dismal statistics for women in media, both in terms of corporate ownership and the inclusion of women’s voices in the news.

But before you get too despaired, consider Feldt’s call to action:

Fortunately a number of organizations with bold visions and courageous agendas have emerged to rectify that situation. So, after a lifetime of leadership in issue advocacy organizations, I choose now to contribute my volunteer time and money to groups working to close one of the last gaps in women’s equality. I believe this work is absolutely essential to bringing forth simple justice for women, by bringing women’s faces, voices, stories, and influence to parity in our media saturated world.

In so doing, I am convinced also we are creating a media that strengthens democracy and enriches public discourse. A media that is powerful, not a media that merely serves the interests of the powerful.

Feldt lists five organizations that she currently writes for or supports in some capacity, including the Women’s Media Center, SheSource, Women in Media & News, Women’s eNews — and Our Bodies Ourselves. She writes:

One mother of women’s media endeavors is Our Bodies Ourselves (OBOS), also known as the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective (BWHBC), is a nonprofit, public interest women’s health education, advocacy, and consulting organization. Beginning in 1970 with the publication of the first edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves, OBOS literally fomented a global women’s health movement revolution through its groundbreaking book that is now available in multiple languages and on-line resources.

In media discussions, it’s easy to overlook the essential role OBOS and other women’s publications historically have played in bringing attention to women’s issues and reframing topics to include the voice and perspective of women. Kudos to Gloria Feldt for highlighting OBOS alongside the other terrific media organizations mentioned.

Plus: OBOS’s newest book, “Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth,” will be released in March 2008. It joins “Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause” as one of the specialty titles on women’s health and is the latest example of how OBOS is continuing to present a feminist perspective on health research and political and cultural issues. More details on the new book will follow soon!

I’ve been a big fan of RH Reality Check since it started way back in, oh, 2006.

Yes, that’s right. It’s only been around for a year. Yet in a very short amount of time, the UN Foundation-supported site has become a major player in online political discussions, bringing together journalists, activists and medical experts on domestic and global reproductive health issues.

It’s now getting the attention it deserves. Writing at Women’s eNews, Sheila Gibbons gives a great overview of how RH Reality Check smartly counters anti-choice rhetoric, noting the contributions from well-known bloggers and its role as a “reference hub for material coming out of reproductive and maternal health advocacy groups, think tanks, universities and health research organizations.”

“We began as a simple little blog to introduce the concept to the leadership of the major advocacy organizations in the reproductive health community. Then we began to put the pieces together to grow what is a thriving new media site” says Editor Scott Swenson, who describes more about what RH Reality Check has in the works here.

RH Reality Check is also interested in coalition building among reproductive health advocates.

“The advocacy community is very strong but a lot of conversations seem to have been behind closed doors,” Associate Editor Amie Newman tells Gibbons. “RH Reality Check has the potential to bring the dialogue out in public. It’s a little scary for the reproductive health communities to have this out in the open, but through the site we can host articles from major leaders and writers who can discuss political strategies and a whole range of issues.”

RH Reality Check makes it easy for readers to customize news preferences and engage in dialogue with writers and other readers. Learn more about submitting articles and other ways to get involved, including becoming a wiki editor. Very cool.

A small survey from 2004 suggests that more than 80 percent of women seek health information online.

Meanwhile, a Google search for “women’s health” returns almost 6 million results, the Department of Health and Human Services’s 4parents.gov (intended to help parents talk to teens about sex) has been criticized for inaccuracy both before and after revisions, and an alternative to Wikipedia is being created to combat a perceived lack of credibility and expertise from the online giant.

So how can you make sense of the millions of websites and find online health information that is reliable?

MedlinePlus, from the National Library of Medicine, is often a good starting point, and offers this list of quality criteria health websites should meet to be considered reliable, and this guide to healthy web surfing. The Medical Library Association and the National Cancer Institute offer similar guides.

However, you can’t always trust government websites and sources to tell the whole story, as evidenced by the 4parents.gov controversy (see this July post for background) and reports of agenda-based pressure on the former Surgeon General, Dr. Richard Carmona.

Likewise, non-profit organizations often receive funding from sources that may influence their web content (such as pharmaceutical companies), and individuals may not have a firm grasp on or honest interpretation of the material they present that is drawn from other sources. A site’s purpose may simply be to sell something (such as supplements or weight loss products), limiting the balance of the information presented.

Some basic questions to ask when evaluating the reliability of health information websites:

- Who is the author? What are the author’s credentials? Does the author have an agenda to promote?

- Who pays for the site? Is the site selling something that affects the information it provides?

- Is the information up to date? Information can change quickly, such as new safety data on prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Can you tell when the site was last updated?

- Can you verify the presented facts or opinions? Are there any references that point you to the source of the information? Can you tell what is presented as a fact vs. an opinion?

Sites displaying the HON Code accreditation have met a basic threshold of quality and trustworthiness. Additionally, remember that even when sites present references in support of an agenda, those references may not support their claims when scrutinized.

These basic guidelines should give you a good start, as long as you keep a healthy dose of skepticism while looking for health information online.

Of course, you could always just start with the OBOS Health Resource Center – OBOS provides its own guide to navigating healthcare information, and is part of a coalition that rejects pharmaceutical-dominated approaches to disease in favor of prevention.

Need recommendations for good websites on specific health topics? Leave your questions in the comments!