Who does Michelle Obama think should be “Mother of the Decade”? That’s up to you!

Click here to enter the name of a favorite family member or friend, and it will appear in a customizable video. Your mom will make headlines in a faux news story and be featured on a movie marquee. America Ferrara and Hillary Clinton are among the celebrities waiting to offer their congratulations.

*Brought to you by MomsRising, which has been working since 2006 to build a more family friendly America by focusing on issues such as healthcare, paid family leave and fair pay.

Entrant: Meghan Ward
Nominee: Kathleen Ward, Nurse, Mother, Friend

“God couldn’t be everywhere, therefore He created mothers.” – Yiddish Proverb

Recently, I lost my grandmother after a period of failing health. She passed away in hospice care, in the hospital surrounded by family and friends. I have always believed that it is in times such as those that people’s true character is seen, and it was during this time that I came to know my own mother as a health hero in every sense of the word.

As my grandmother lay in her bed — sick, confused, and not knowing who was with her or what was going on — the one thing that remained constant was my mother’s presence. My mother was the one who sat with my grandmother in the middle of the night, just to hold her hand, making sure that she was comfortable and calm. It was my mother who sacrificed night after night of sleep to be with her in the hospital. It was my mother who recognized if she was in any pain, advocating for her and ensuring her that she was not alone. It was my mother who was with her when she took her last breath.

As my grandmother became sicker, the responsibilities of caring for an elderly relative weighed heavily on my family. However, it was my mother who was there, constantly. It was my mother who visited her in the middle of the night, during snowstorms and times of health crises. It was my mother who brought her dinner and made sure she ate, and it was my mother who was there during times of great sadness and loneliness. It was my mother who took her to the hospital time after time, before her final days. It was my mother who bathed and cleaned her when she could no longer do it herself, and it was my mother who held her when she died.

My grandmother who passed away was my mom’s mother-in-law; however, I believe my mother was more like a daughter than a daughter-in-law to her. Being married to her son, my mother was welcomed into the family by my grandmother, who herself was widowed with five children to raise on her own during the 1960s. Both women — strong, resilient and kind — exemplify the kind of woman I strive to be every day. I am incredibly proud of both my grandmother and my mother, and I feel this nomination as a women’s health hero does not begin to adequately thank my mother for all she done, for me and for my family. I am truly honored to be her daughter.

My mother is many things. She is a nurse, she is a daughter, she is a sister, she is a grandmother, she is a friend, she is a caretaker, and most importantly, she is my hero. She is someone who cares for others whenever they are alone and in need. She is the kind of woman who will simply sit with someone as they die, so they are not alone. She is kind, comforting, caring, selfless, and incredibly strong. She is the kind of woman deserving of the title of health hero, for herself and on behalf of mothers everywhere.

She explains:

African Americans have 2.3 times the infant mortality rate as non-Hispanic whites, according to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control, or the CDC. In 2000, the United States had a national average of 6.9 deaths per 1,000 live births, but the rate among blacks was 14.1 deaths. Compared to non-Hispanic white infants, black babies are four times as likely to die as infants due to complications related to low birth weight, the CDC also said.

Compounding this problem, she writes, is “what isn’t known about black maternal health” including ob/gyns “who aren’t aware that their black patients are at a greater risk during pregnancy, regardless of their socioeconomic status,” and “a woeful lack of research on the racial and ethnic differences affecting certain diseases and their treatment.”

The entire essay is well worth a read.

In addition to the moral or social justice argument for eliminating health disparities, a recent report on the economic burden of these disparities makes a money-saving argument for eliminating them, estimating that doing so “would have reduced direct medical care expenditures by $229.4 billion,” money that some suggest could be used to pay for health reform. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reportedly responded to the findings: “There is no question that reducing the health disparities can save incredible amounts of money. But more importantly it saves lives and it makes us a healthier and more prosperous nation.”

The agency released it’s own brief report on health disparities earlier this year, “Health Disparities: A Case for Closing the Gap.“

An Abortion Battle, Fought to the Death: The New York Times takes an in-depth look at the life and work of Dr. George Tiller, and the longstanding battle against him and his abortion clinic that ended with Tiller’s murder in May.

David Barstow writes about Tiller’s committed stance — quoting the doctor as having said: “If a stake has to be driven through the heart of the anti-abortion movement,” he said, “I want to have my hand on the hammer” — and what his death has meant to the abortion debate:

Scott Roeder, an abortion foe with the e-mail name “ServantofMessiah,” awaits trial in the murder. In a jailhouse interview, Mr. Roeder did not admit guilt but told a reporter that if he is convicted, his motive was to protect the unborn, a goal seemingly advanced when the Tiller family closed the clinic. But in the weeks since the killing, supporters and opponents of Dr. Tiller have been measuring the larger ramifications. Implacably divided for so long, they now agree on a fundamental point: Dr. Tiller’s death represents an enormous loss for each side.

Plus: IAmDrTiller.com is still collecting stories. Visit the site or follow on Twitter.

Also, here’s another New York Times story, “The Deadly Toll of Abortion by Amateurs,” which presents these startling statistics:

Worldwide, there are 19 million unsafe abortions a year, and they kill 70,000 women (accounting for 13 percent of maternal deaths), mostly in poor countries like Tanzania where abortion is illegal, according to the World Health Organization. More than two million women a year suffer serious complications. According to Unicef, unsafe abortions cause 4 percent of deaths among pregnant women in Africa, 6 percent in Asia and 12 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Born Too Soon: Vicki Forman, author of “This Lovely Life: A Memoir of Premature Motherhood,” writes in her new book: “My husband and I had tried for two long years to conceive these twins, had lived through miscarriages and fertility treatments to bear them. When I learned they were coming so early and so fragile, I had only one wish: to let them go.”

Salon interviews Forman about her reaction to delivering twins at 23 weeks, how her wishes conflicted with hospital policy, and the joy and heartache that resulted. Read her story.

Surrogate Pregnancies, the Update: “Much has changed in surrogacy in the two decades since the high-profile Baby M case, in which the surrogate was the baby’s biological mother and unsuccessfully sought custody after the birth,” writes Jane Brody in The New York Times.

“The legal proceedings in that case markedly changed the conversation about the validity of surrogacy contracts. Some states have laws that protect the commissioning parents in surrogate pregnancies. And in a vast majority of surrogate pregnancies today, the surrogate has no genetic link to the baby.”

A Victory, of Sorts: National Advocates for Pregnant Women reports on a New Jersey case involving a question of consent for pregnant women:

Last week, a mid-level court of appeals in NJ avoided deciding the question of whether or not a pregnant woman’s decision-making during labor and childbirth may be the basis for a finding, under state civil child welfare laws, of abuse and neglect. While the decision is a victory of sorts, it nevertheless reveals how extraordinarily unsettled and contested pregnant women’s rights are.

In this case, called New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services v. V.M. and B.G., In the Matter of J.M.G., (view a pdf of the decision) a woman’s refusal to sign a consent form for cesarean surgery led to hospital interventions and a report of abuse to child welfare authorities. This resulted in a child welfare investigation, the state’s decision to remove the child from her parent’s custody at birth, and a court finding that both parents had committed medical neglect. Ms. M., by the way, would have consented to cesarean surgery when and if it became necessary, never in fact needed cesarean surgery and delivered a health baby, vaginally.

Repeat C-Section, or Vaginal Birth?: Amie Newman reports on the safety and costs of having a vaginal birth after a previous c-section, instead of having a repeat c-section.

“What we know is that, making allowances for the overuse of medical interventions during childbirth, vaginal birth in the United States carries inherently less risk to the mother than c-sections do and can lay the foundation for more choices for future childbirth options as well,” writes Newman. “Now, with this new study, the evidence also suggests that babies born via c-section have poorer health outcomes than do newborns born vaginally.”

Protect Pregnant Prisoners: In May, the New York State Legislature passed an anti-shackling measure prohibiting correctional authorities from using restraints on a pregnant inmate who is in labor and is being transported to the hospital. It’s time for Gov. David Patterson to sign the bill into law.

Here’s one woman’s story, as reported in The New York Times earlier this month:

One day last November, the first shudders of childbirth woke Venita Pinckney before dawn. She was well into her ninth month of pregnancy. She was also incarcerated at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a state prison.

Before she left for the hospital, Ms. Pinckney said, a corrections officer wrapped a chain twice around her waist and handcuffed her to it. Then he covered the handcuffs with a locked black box to further limit her range of motion. Finally, her ankles were shackled.

“You can’t walk like a normal human being,” said Ms. Pinckney, 37. “When you’re pregnant, you have a hard time keeping your balance to begin with.”

At least once a week, somewhere in one of New York’s prisons or jails, a pregnant women goes into labor. Nearly all of them, including Ms. Pinckney, are behind bars for drug offenses. Even so, they are often as severely restrained in the final hours of pregnancy as the most nimble and dangerous of criminals. While their bodies heave toward childbirth, they become walking, clanking jail cells.

Continue reading …

Later in Life: This Detroit Free Press story about fertility problems and increased health risks for children born to older mothers and fathers quotes Dr. Kristen Wuckert, an ob-gyn at Mission Obstetrics and Gynecology in Warren, Mich., who has seen an increase in the number of older mothers over the years:

“It makes sense that women are waiting longer to start families — college, careers, not meeting the right person earlier in life [...] Another reason women wait is because they can. We have a lot more options, albeit expensive ones, to help in getting pregnant. It has also become more the norm than the exception.

“We see celebrities in their 40s and older doing it — why not us?” she adds.

Why not, indeed — the story presents a sidebar feature on at least seven celebrity “mature mommas.”

Previously published anthologies by Demeter Press include “Mothering and Blogging: The Radical Act of the MommyBlog,” and “Mother Knows Best: Talking Back to the “Experts.”

Additional upcoming titles focus on intersections of mothering and disability, adoption and identifying as Latina/Chicana. One collection due out in 2010 that I definitely won’t miss: “The Palin Factor: Political Mothers and Public Motherhood in the 21st Century.”

Here’s the call for papers for the new book on mothering and hip hop. Contact information is at the bottom:

Motherhood is an experience that has been ever‑present yet invisible in the global music genre of Hip-Hop. Yet this aspect of women’s experiences within the movement has garnered little or no interest from journalists, writers and scholars of Hip-Hop culture. Nor do we have any understanding of how mothers who remain Hip-Hop enthusiasts negotiate their relationship to the culture of Hip‑Hop and its music with their children.

What are the spaces that motherhood occupies in Hip-Hop? Are there ways of understanding mothering in Hip-Hop along a historical continuum? What are some of the ways that motherhood complicates the very masculinist discourses around hip hop? How can we create an empowered and feminist Hip-Hop mothering, what would it look like and how would it challenge the status quo? How are mothers engaging with Hip-Hop, both locally and globally?

The aim of this collection is to give motherhood within Hip-Hop culture an intellectual point of entry into an existing field of academic debates. Themes that submitted proposals engage may include:

* Hip-Hop histories
* Masculinity
* Misogyny and violence
* Consumerism and capitalism
* The globalization and/or transnationality of Hip-Hop
* Cultural appropriation
* Political subversion
* Cultural diversity
* Feminist mothering
* Heterosexualities
* Queer identities and sexuality
* Aesthetic continuity and change
* Representation and the marketing of identities
* Other themes not mentioned here

We seek both creative and academic submissions that tackle the complex ways in which motherhood and Hip-Hop frame these and other discussions. Abstracts are welcome from a variety of academic disciplines and perspectives.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Abstracts: 250 words in length.
Deadline for Abstracts: August 1, 2009
Papers: 15-18 pages
Deadline for Papers: January 7, 2010

Please submit proposals to: Maki Motapanyane (maki AT yorku.ca) and Shana Calixte (scalixte AT laurentian.ca).

I watched some of episode one; Maci, the mom shown here with her boyfriend, Ryan, and their son, Bentley, is amazing. She basically gives up everything to take on this new responsibility, with little help from Ryan. I was a bit surprised, though, to read her update describing her life now in far more upbeat terms. I’m thrilled for her, of course, but I do wonder if some teenage viewers will be conflicted.

Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik highly recommends the series and praises the realism: “Parents who don’t go out of their way to see or record this six-week series of profiles of pregnant teenagers are making a big mistake. If you have no other involvement in your kids’ media lives, make them see this.”

Plus: When it comes to sex-ed, who’s the voice of reason?

Taking Medical Advice From Oprah: In a word, don’t.

Blogging the Common Ground: CNN’s “blogger bunch” discussion on abortion, following President Obama’s speech at Notre Dame, includes our fave Ann Friedman of Feministing and The American Prospect.

Supreme Court Rules 7-2 Against Women Workers: Women whose pension payments are reduced because they took pregnancy-related leave in the 1960s and 1970s, when pregnancy discrimination wasn’t illegal, aren’t entitled to full pension benefits now, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The women lost an appeal aimed at forcing AT&T to grant compensatory service credits to boost their pensions.

Motherhood, a Discussion: A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released this month found that the percentage of children born to unmarried women rose to nearly 40 percent of births in 2007, up from 34 percent in 2002. The New York Times invited five experts to weigh in: Silvia Henriquez, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health; Stephanie Coontz, Council on Contemporary Families; Corinne Maier, author; Mark Regnerus, sociology professor; and Libertad González Luna, economics professor.

FEMA’s Healthier Housing?: From NPR: The Federal Emergency Management Agency has unveiled new models of temporary housing designed to provide shelter for people displaced by natural disasters. A serious plus: They have been built with as little formaldehyde as possible, unlike the trailers FEMA provided to Hurricane Katrina victims.

New CDC Director: President Obama on Friday appointed New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Dr. Frieden, a 48-year-old infectious disease specialist, has cut a high and sometimes contentious profile in his seven years as New York’s top health official under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg,” reports The New York Times. “He led the crusade to ban smoking in restaurants and bars, pushed to make H.I.V. testing a routine part of medical exams, and defended a program that passes out more than 35 million condoms a year.”

Medicaid as a Platform for Heath Reform: Kaiser Family Foundation released a package of research papers last week that examine opportunities for expanding Medicaid to cover more low-income and high-need people in ways that would enable the program to serve as a platform for larger national health reform efforts. The papers were released at a public briefing on Medicaid as a Platform for Broader Health Reform. A webcast of the briefing is available.

Plus: Also from Kaiser — an expert panel examined the global health aspects of Obama’sFiscal Year 2010 budget, including allocations for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). The panel, part of KFF’s new “U.S. Global Health Policy: In Focus” live webcast series, also discussed what the next steps are for the budget with Congress. The webcast and podcast is available.

Max Baucus is for Health Care Reform: But Democrats aren’t entirely sure which side the Montana senator and Finance Committee chairman is on, reports Politico. “Baucus puts a premium on bipartisanship, and if he insists on winning more than a handful of Republican votes, the final product could look vastly different than a bill passed through the Senate with only a simple majority.”

Meanwhile, centrist Democrats have raised concerns with House leaders over a health reform bill that includes a public insurance plan that competes with the private insurance market … Hospitals and insurance companies want to reduce the growth of health care spending, but not like that … James Ridgeway wrote earlier in the week at Mother Jones that “the underlying purpose of this PR stunt is to slow or block any meaningful health care reforms, which could actually improve care while reducing the price tag by a lot more than 1.5 percent.” … The Washington Post deconstructs the White House email on health care reform … And Covering Health, the blog of the Association of Healthcare Journalists, asks: Have reporters written off single-payer system?

Single Payer Would Have Been Nice, But …: If the country were building a health care system from scratch, a single-payer system would be the way to go, Obama said in response to a question about single-payer health care at a town-hall style meeting in New Mexico last week. But at this point, with a tradition of employer-based health care already in place, the goal is simply to improve the current system. Here’s the discussion:

One, approved 247 to 171, would give workers more time to file lawsuits claiming job discrimination.

The bill would overturn a 2007 decision by the Supreme Court that enforced a strict 180-day deadline, thwarting a lawsuit by Lilly M. Ledbetter, a longtime supervisor at the Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Ala. Three Republicans voted for the bill.

The other bill — passed 256 to 163, with support from 10 Republicans — would make it easier for women to prove violations of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which generally requires equal pay for equal work.

President Bush threatened to veto both bills, saying they would “invite a surge of litigation” and “impose a tremendous burden on employers.”

The sentence that follows the Bush quote is the best: “Congress will not give him the opportunity.”

That’s because in less than two weeks there will be a new president in town who is enthusiastic about signing both bills.

Plus: Jill Miller Zimon has a good wrap-up and points to this NWLC page, from which you can contact your senator and urge support for these bills.

Health Issues at the Top of the List: Women’s eNews looks at the to-do list of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues. In addition to reintroducing a bill to address heart disease in women, the Caucus intends to focus on human trafficking, sexual and domestic violence against women, women in the military and the backlog of DNA evidence in rape cases.

Lesbian Health Day & Summit: Jan. 5 was Blog for Lesbian Health Day. In response, Jane, a community health nurse and nurse practitioner student who blogs at Fallacy Findings, wrote an excellent post that includes discussion of “lesbian neglect” — which “refers to the fact that many lesbians fail to get Pap smears, do not get them regularly, and/or do not think they need to get them” — and lesbian health as a much-needed topic in nursing and medical schools.

The blogging event was organized as a lead-up to the National Lesbian Health Summit 2009 taking place March 6-8. Organized by the Lesbian Health & Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco, among other groups, the summit “approaches health issues from the perspective of those who face disparities and discrimination and who also generate health and resilience everyday. We will engage in deep thinking and extended discussion to create new responses and innovative programming that reflect our lives.”

Should a TV Doctor be Surgeon General?: Well looks at what health and science blog are saying in response to the news that Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and CNN’s chief medical correspondent, is Obama’s pic for U.S. surgeon general. Rachel weighs in with some concerns. Here are more links from Shakesville.

The Easy-Bake Oven in My Vagina: Over at Womanist Musings, a reflection on motherhood, race and class includes this gem:

How many of you have run across the vagina equals Betty Crocker syndrome? If you have not, then you probably soon will.  The education system seems to think that this is still 1950 and that mothers are at home with tons of time on their hands to participate in bake sales.  This request is never gender neutral, even though Daddy has two perfectly good hands himself.  Why is this still the norm when most women work a double day?  Even if a woman is a stay at home mother how does a vagina translate into the ability to bake? Do I have an easy bake oven stashed somewhere in my vaginal opening that I was not aware of?

Pull Up a Chair: On my to-do list was to write about the blog The Kitchen Table, a dialog between Princeton University professors Melissa Harris-Lacewell and Yolanda Pierce. Miriam beat me to it and sums up why it’s an essential read.

In this post, Harris-Lacewell discusses violence against gays and lesbians, in the context of the movie “Milk” and the brutal gang rape of a woman who may have been targeted because she is openly lesbian. She writes:

As much as I appreciated Milk, the story has the unfortunate effect of reinscribing an image of gay identity as primarily white, male, urban, and childless. The American imagination of “gay people” as childless, white, men living in cities can render invisible lesbian mothers of color like the woman attacked in Richmond. [...]

Harvey Milk understood that “straight folks” needed to feel our interconnections with gay men and lesbians. We have to know that our destinies our intertwined. We cannot be a great and free country while we sanction violence against and degradation of our neighbors. I consider it a sacred and politically necessary task to speak out for the rights and equalities of others, because they are not truly other. We are all one.

Information on sending contributions or cards of sympathy and solidarity is also provided. Four suspects in the case were arrested last week.

Eye-Rolling Quote of the Week: Ann Coulter refers to single motherhood as “a recipe to create criminals, strippers, rapists, murderers.” Remind me again why she is considered a suitable interviewee?

The Deeper Truth: A new study that looked at the five most popular women’s magazines in Canada found that articles commonly portray cosmetic surgery as an empowering option that improves women’s emotional health, even though there’s no scientific consensus that it does anything of the sort. Here’s Reuters’ take, and the abstract:

Content analyses show the articles tend to present readers with detailed physical health risk information. However, 48% of articles discuss the impact that cosmetic surgery has on emotional health, most often linking cosmetic surgery with enhanced emotional well-being regardless of the patient’s pre-existing state of emotional health. The articles also tend to use accounts given by males to provide defining standards of female attractiveness.

Inside the Medicine Cabinet: Chicago Tribune health writer Julie Deardorff lists essential items to keep in your medicine cabinet (courtesy of the American College of Emergency Physicians) and chemicals found in personal care products that you might want to consider keeping out.

Look Your Best in the New Year: Writing in The New Yorker, Amy Ozol reveals her secrets to “a trim and attractive physique” in just nine easy steps. She spent years perfecting this system, as you can tell. A sampling:

Step 5: Surround yourself with thin people. This will naturally encourage you to emulate their healthy habits. Weigh your friends on a regular basis, then weigh yourself. Do you have a friend who weighs less than you? If so, consider gastric bypass surgery.

Feminist Lens on Adoption: More on reproductive rights and who has access to those rights … Katie Leo, who was adopted from Korea, writes in Minnesota Women’s Press that her personal story and research on adoption inform her perspective on international adoption: “Could I call myself a feminist and social justice advocate and still adopt? I realized that for me, the answer was no.”

What is Terror for Women?: The fall issue of On the Issues magazine is about violence against women in all its forms. Included are stories on how anti-immigrant fervor translates to terror for women; the violence and stigma that continue to drain abortion patients and providers; and the dangers of giving birth in Somaliland, where maternal mortality rates are high and access to safe care is limited.

There are some inspirational stories as well. Ariel Doughtery looks at how women are using media to tell their own stories and as a vehicle for finding peace and reconciliation.

“To counteract these war horrors, media women armed with video cameras and other media tools have taken up the struggle to bring the women’s stories to larger audiences. They serve as a means of healing, and also as witnesses to the crimes against women,” writes Doughtery.

Plus: Jessica E. Slavin has thoughts about violence against trafficked women, specifically the weaknesses in, and under-utilization of, the T visa program, which was created to provide protection for victims of human trafficking.

Woman Sues Radio Station After “Prize Date” Assaults Her: “A Lake County woman who won a date with a man a radio station called a ‘great’ catch is suing the station for promoting the man, who had a criminal history and allegedly sexually assaulted her on the date she won,” reports the Chicago Tribune. Here’s more from the Daily Herald.

According to the civil suit, Travis Harvey, 46, drugged and raped the 23-year-old woman. Harvey didn’t confess to the rape, but last week pleaded guilty to a criminal sexual abuse charge last week in connection with the assault. He received 24 months probation. According to the woman’s attorney, she didn’t seek medical attention right away so there was no physical evidence to pursue more serious charges.

It’s amazing that the radio station didn’t do a basic background check of Harvey, who had prior felony and misdemeanor convictions for violating domestic violence orders of protection, according to the civil suit. As one friend put it, it’s also amazing that Harvey initiated the contest himself by emailing the station for help getting a date. Hope no one else gets the idea.

A Closer Look at the Healthiest Cities: CDC survey results put Burlington, Vt., at the top of the list of healthiest cities, but a number of other cities are statistically tied for the honor. This L.A. Times story looks at the rankings, as well as the regions where pressure to be thin is tied to looking good (think California) and where there’s a culture of being active (think Boulder, Colo.).

Rate of New Cancer Cases Declines: The rate of new cancer cases is on the decline among Americans for the first time. Less smoking and an increased use of preventative measures is credited.

The findings come from the annual report on cancer produced by the American Cancer Society in conjunction with the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. Here’s an excerpt from NPR’s coverage:

Part of the decrease in cancer incidence is due to the fact that lung cancer rates among women have leveled off in recent years. Lung cancer incidence among men has been decreasing for several years.

“Everybody’s been waiting for the lung cancer incidence and death rates in women to begin to go down,” says Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society.

Experts see signs that this is beginning to take place. It might have happened earlier, Thun says, except for something that occurred more than three decades ago: the advent of cigarette brands targeted to young women.

“The big marketing of Virginia Slims that caught the people who were passing through adolescence in the ’60s really boosted smoking rates in that age group,” Thun says.

The decline in the number of  menopausal women taking hormone replacement therapy is partly responsible for the decline in the number of new breast cancer cases. A leveling off the number of mammograms may also be contributing to the decrease, said Thun.

Dr. Tim Byers, a cancer epidemiologist at the University of Colorado, tells NPR the “most striking thing about lung cancer in this report is the enormous variation between states in getting lung cancer and dying from it.”

“One of the questions that this observation raises in my mind is whether or not we should be thinking about the control of tobacco as more of a federal or national program,” said Byers. “Up to now we’ve left it to the states, which is why we’re seeing this enormous state-by-state disparity.”

In separate news, a study published Tuesday in The Archives of Internal Medicine found that breast cancer rates increased in four Norwegian countries after women began undergoing mammograms every two years instead of every six, suggesting that some cancers might have gone away on their own had they not been discovered and treated. Here’s the press release summarizing the study.

Not everyone is convinced by the results, reports The New York Times, but Robert M. Kaplan, chairman of the department of health services at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the implications are enormous:

If the results are replicated, he said, it could eventually be possible for some women to opt for so-called watchful waiting, monitoring a tumor in their breast to see whether it grows. “People have never thought that way about breast cancer,” he added.

Dr. Kaplan and his colleague, Dr. Franz Porzsolt, an oncologist at the University of Ulm, said in an editorial that accompanied the study, “If the spontaneous remission hypothesis is credible, it should cause a major re-evaluation in the approach to breast cancer research and treatment.”

Plastic Surgery Procedures Are Down: “Half of plastic surgeons report their practices were down last year,” writes Margaret Morganroth Gullette at Women’s eNews. ”That was before the worst of the recession, so it’s not just a matter of cost or insurers who only cover operations that fix ‘deformities’ or improve healthy functioning.”

From 2004 to 2005, liposuction was down 5 percent; eyelid surgery down 20 percent. Even less-invasive procedures such as microdermabrasion and chemical peels were down in that same time period, by 7 percent and 50 percent respectively, according to the American Society for American Plastic Surgery.

It’s also a matter of growing cultural aversion toward the results. “Scary” is emerging as an increasingly common adjective for the surgeons, procedures and — more frequently — the results.

Meet My New Hero: Milan Simone Tuttle. She plays basketball. She’s 5 years old. And she’s awesome. Milan appeared on the Ellen Degeneres Show on Thursday. Be sure to check out the video below (via Because I Played Sports).

Countdown to Conscience Clause Regulation: You’ve heard about the proposed Health & Human Services regulations that would allow federal health officials to withdraw funding from medical providers and services receiving HHS support that do not let employees opt out of providing basic health care — and information — they find objectionable. Now’s your time to act.

Rachel has written extensively about HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt confusing the public (and health experts) with his justification for the regulations — which would affect not only abortion and contraception, but a whole range of health care services — and she wrote a terrific analysis this week at RH Reality Check on the roadblocks Leavitt and HHS have imposed, making it difficult to get information about the rule and delaying the posting of comments for public viewing.

Sen. Hillary Clinton and Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, joined forces this week to write a great op-ed in The New York Times that asked: “The Bush administration argues that the rule is designed to protect a provider’s conscience. But where are the protections for patients?”

The public comment period ends Sept. 25. You can submit your comments directly (although as of this morning the site was done for “planned system maintenance,” scheduled to return at 1 p.m.). Planned Parenthood and the ACLU have both set up customizable comment forms.

And, while you’re at it, you might nominate HHS Secretary Leavitt for Ellen Goodman’s annual Equal Rites Awards.

It’s Not Just the Rape Kits: On the subject of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin approving billing sexual assault victims for the cost of forensic rape examinations when she was mayor of Wasilla, Amie Newman writes: “There is good reason to hunt down the facts about the rape kits.  But the larger issue — of rape, sexual assault and how we deal with violence against women in this country — has been overlooked.”

Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before: The September 2008 issue of Sexuality Research & Social Policy reviews federally funded abstinence-only programs and finds — surprise — that such programs don’t delay teens from having sex and their continued use is not warranted.

The articles in this special issue were selected from research presented at a January 2007 conference, “Human Rights, Cultural, and Scientific Aspects of Abstinence-Only Policies and Programs,” sponsored by the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University, with the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

From the introduction:

Taken as a whole, these articles build a strong scientific and human rights case against AOE. Together, they find that the very idea of an abstinence-only approach to sexuality education is scientifically and ethically flawed. Such programs reflect a religious and cultural belief system of socially conservative groups who have attained considerable political leverage at both state and federal levels. AOE programs not only fail the usual public-health standard of program efficacy but also actively restrict lifesaving information and promote misinformation about scientifically accepted public-health strategies such as condom use.

As the articles in this special issue show, science should drive public-health decision making — which, in turn, should inform public policy on health promotion and disease prevention (Koplan & McPheeters, 2004). In the case of AOE, politics and ideology have influenced public health policy and undermined scientific evidence about the best approaches to preventing unwanted outcomes regarding adolescents’ sexual behavior. Science, not ideology, should shape the future of public-health prevention policies for youth.

Plus: Kaiser Family Foundation has released a new fact sheet (the first update since 2006) on sexual health topics facing teens, including general sexual activity; sexual partners and relationships; sex, substance abuse and violence; pregnancy; contraception and protection; STDs; and access to health care services.

World Wide Web of Pesticides: The Center for Public Integrity’s latest investigation, “Wide Web of Pesticides Can Endanger Consumers,” looks at the practice of selling pesticides over the internet, which allows consumers to circumvent regulations meant to protect the public from harmful chemicals.

The dangers of online pesticide sales are many: little accountability on the extent of the practice; lack of training for those who purchase professional grade chemicals online; overexposure to dangerous chemicals and whether they are being properly used. For most states, the lack of resources prevents them from effectively monitoring online pesticide sales. While Colorado, New York, Michigan, Minnesota, California, and Nebraska are recognized as states working consistently to stem illegal Internet sales, many argue that the EPA should be doing more, highlighting the challenge regulators face of trying to control an online global marketplace where buyer and seller often never meet face to face.

This is the second article in the Center’s new series The Perils of the New Pesticides. The first, “A Checkered Past,” looks at the EPA’s flawed efforts to monitor poisonings by pesticides deemed safe. In addition to the excellent coverage, visitors can search pesticide incidents on file with the EPA by state and by year.

“The EPA’s pesticide incident-reporting system has not been public until now. Called one of the ‘Ten Most Wanted Government Documents‘ by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the database was released under the Freedom of Information Act to the Center for Public Integrity in early 2008,” according to the introduction.

Going Greener: “Innovations in designing green chemicals are emerging in nearly every U.S. industry, from plastics and pesticides to toys and nail polish. Some manufacturers of cosmetics, household cleaners and other consumer products are leading the charge, while others are lagging behind,” writes Marla Cone in the L.A. Times.

Part 2 of the series on a greener future looks at industries that remain dependent on hazardous substances.

The Price of Beauty: Having trouble getting a medical appointment with your dermatologist? Have you mentioned that you’re interested in Botox?

“Like airlines that offer first-class and coach sections, dermatology is fast becoming a two-tier business in which higher-paying customers often receive greater pampering. In some dermatologists’ offices, freer-spending cosmetic patients are given appointments more quickly than medical patients for whom health insurance pays fixed reimbursement fees,” writes Natasha Singer in The New York Times.

“In other offices, cosmetic patients spend more time with a doctor. And in still others, doctors employ a special receptionist, called a cosmetic concierge, for their beauty patients.”

Doctors Have Babies, Too: “For the growing number of women entering medicine, becoming a doctor increasingly includes a complication: pregnancy,” writes Liz Kowalczyk in the Boston Globe.

In the last 10 years, most teaching hospitals have adopted maternity leave policies for residents. Even so, new moms face a range of difficulties beyond exhaustion, from time limits placed on maternity leaves by boards that certify physicians in their specialties to resentment from fellow residents who must shoulder extra work while they’re gone. Academic medical centers also feel the pressure when a resident gets pregnant, because they depend on these physicians-in-training to provide most of the round-the-clock care to patients, especially in Massachusetts with its large number of teaching hospitals.

“As far as we’ve come, there still are significant barriers to parenting during residency,” said Dr. Debra Weinstein, vice president for graduate medical education for Partners HealthCare System, the parent organization of Mass. General and the Brigham.

Ain’t I a Mommy?: Great piece at Bitch by Deesha Philyaw, who wonders why with so many motherhood memoirs, so few of them are penned by women of color.

“The absence of black mommy memoirs mirrors the relative absence of black women’s voices in mainstream U.S. media discourse about motherhood in general,” writes Philyaw. “The abundance of ink and airtime devoted to a vocal minority of women promotes the idea that this minority’s experience is somehow universal. Low-income and working-class women, black women, and other women of color don’t see their mothering experiences and concerns reflected in the mommy media machine, and we get the cultural message loud and clear: Affluent white women are the only mothers who really matter.”

Motherhood, Activism and Politics: Writing at The American Prospect Online, Kara Jesella looks at maternalist politics, which have a long history in American culture.