Stephen Colbert has it in for “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”

During an interview with Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America” this week to promote his upcoming TV special, “A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!” (Sunday, Nov. 23, 10 p.m. EST), the talk-show host announced he was burning our flagship book, often considered the bible of the women’s health movement.

“Is it true what I’ve heard, that you have a yule log with some books you’re burning?” Sawyer asked.

“Well, I had some books laying around,” replied Colbert, “and on the DVD we have an 18-minute video yule log of burning ‘Our Bodies Ourselves’ — you know, kindling.”

Despite the image of pages going up in flames in the cozy hearth, my heart still swoons.

Maybe it’s because Colbert’s medical analysis is so spot-on. Take his recent “Cheating Death with Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA.” Naturally we appreciate the skeleton clutching “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” but we also admire Colbert’s incisive analysis of pharmaceutical industry’s push to prescribe drugs to people who don’t need them.

The “Cheating Death” segment was inspired by the well-publicized JUPITER trial, which suggested that the cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor could prevent heart attacks in people with normal cholesterol levels who exhibit high levels of C-reactive protein. (Scientific American has a concise summary of the New England Journal of Medicine article, and the accompanying editorial by Mark Hlatky, a Stanford University health-policy professor who criticizes the scope of the study and questions the cost of expanding the use of statins.)

Colbert identifies the study’s most notable success: “This is a great breakthrough in the battle to find things to prescribe to people who don’t need them.”

That and other comments led Ivan Oransky to make a few suggestions concerning Colbert’s future that we here at OBOS enthusiastically support:

This is the kind of intellectual rigor that is — and I’ve removed my tongue from my cheek only somewhat — too frequently missing from news reporting on medical studies.

So I’d like to suggest that Colbert launch The Colbert Journal of Medicine. We might have some disagreements about the kind of scientists who would be his peers, to make the journal peer-reviewed. (We hear he has a bit of an ego.)

Dr. Colbert would have to disclose his own conflicts of interest. We’d need to know more, for example, about his relationship with Prescott Pharmaceuticals, which sponsors “Cheating Death.” After all, Prescott makes VaxaCrest, which increases cholesterol until “your heart is pumping liquid nacho cheese,” as Colbert informed us last night. But at least he’s comfortable disclosing potential side effects of his sponsor’s fare — in this case “fallopian tapeworm.”

He did have some trouble pronouncing “hormones” at one point. It came out “homones” (Ho-mones). So he may need some help presenting at meetings.

Or maybe we should just put his name forward for U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner.

If Colbert somehow gets the appointment, perhaps he’ll put his vendetta against my employer aside long enough to allow Judy Norsigian, OBOS co-founder and executive director, to take over the Office of Women’s Health.

Heck, we’d settle for the opportunity to go head-to-head with Colbert on “The Colbert Report.” There are plenty of topics concerning women’s health and politics Norsigian could discuss. And maybe she’d stop him from throwing more feminist titles on the yule log this season …

Click to watch Stephen Colbert discuss book burning on "Good Morning America"

“President-Elect Obama’s healthcare reform proposals have focused intensely on two key questions: How much would reform cost and how many people would be covered? He also must address the critical issue of why the United States has such poor health outcomes despite all the money we spend,” write Judy Norsigian, OBOS executive director, and Eugene Declercq, a professor of maternal and child health at Boston University School of Public Health, in this Boston Globe editorial.

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention documents a slight decline in the national infant mortality rate (the number of deaths to babies under 1 year of age) in 2006, but the rate has essentially remained flat since 2000, leaving the United States 29th among industrialized countries.

Advocates of health reform who focus exclusively on access presume that the United States provides effective but expensive healthcare, and that the only real problem is lack of access to this care. The reality is more complex when we examine those mortality figures. The low US ranking is misleading since many of the countries rated ahead (e.g., Singapore, Hong Kong, Norway) have fewer births than an average US state. So, what if we do a fair test - only comparing the United States with other wealthy countries that have at least 100,000 annual births?

There are 16 such countries. Among them, the United States ranks last in infant mortality, third to last in perinatal mortality (deaths in the first seven days and fetal deaths), and last in maternal mortality.

It gets even more interesting — in response to the argument that the problem is not our healthcare system itself, but rather a lack of access and social supports across the board, as well as inappropriate health behaviors, the authors turn the lens on births to white, non-Hispanic, U.S.-born mothers who begin prenatal care in the first trimester. Wondering how high we rank then? Continue reading here.

Individuals using Google to find information on abortion will now see paid advertisements from anti-abortion religious groups.

Google last week revised its policy as part of an out-of-court settlement with the Christian Institute, a British organization that wanted to advertise on Google in March as the House of Commons was considering a bill on abortion.

Google had rejected the ad, which read in part, “UK abortion law: Key news and views on abortion law from The Christian Institute,” because it did not accept abortion ads from religious organizations.

The group sued Google in April, claiming the company was violating the Equality Act 2006 by discriminating against Christian groups. As The New York Times noted this week, Our Bodies Ourselves has used the keyword “abortion,” as have other resource organizations, doctors offering abortions, and secular groups.

The NYT’s Stephanie Clifford writes:

Google’s policies are based on a number of factors. “We build out our policies based upon local customs and business practices and, as any sensible business would do, review them from time to time to make sure they are up to date and current,” said Ben Novick, a London-based Google spokesman.

Google reviewed its policy, and announced last Wednesday it had reached a settlement with the Christian Institute. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Google immediately began allowing ads linked to abortion from religious groups as long as they were determined to be factual, and not graphic or emotional ads. Google uses a combination of automated and manual processes to detect advertising violations. The change in policy applies worldwide.

Mike Judge of the Christian Institute told the Times (UK) that the Institute is not “a group of headbangers, and would set out its position in a pretty factual, pretty sensible way.”

Which prompted this response from Jossip: “Well, at least as sensible as one can be while telling a woman she needs to become an incubator for 18 years and nine months because she made a mistake.”

The publication of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” made Health magazine’s list of best and worst moments in women’s health — as one of the best moments, of course.

Here’s what Stephanie Dolgoff wrote:

Women finally get straight talk about their bodies
If you need to know something about your body, what do you do? Look it up, of course. But before 1970 there weren’t any good resources. That year a group of Boston women published a stapled-together booklet — the precursor to Our Bodies, Ourselves — and fueled the burgeoning idea that women should be full participants in their medical care. Three years later, the radical publication (which discussed such issues as sexuality and birth control) was beefed up and released by Simon & Schuster. It’s now in its eighth edition.

Very cool.

Other standouts: After realizing that what works for white men doesn’t necessarily work for the rest of us, the National Institutes of Health in 1993 started including more women and minorities in clinical trials. And tubal litigation is now a real option. Dolgoff describes when it wasn’t:

Until 1969, a woman couldn’t elect to have her tubes tied unless she fit a formula — her age multiplied by the number of children she’d delivered had to equal 120 or more. (What that means: If you were 30 years old, you would have to have had four kids before a doctor would have agreed that you’d done your share of “women’s work” and sterilized you, unless another pregnancy would have posed a health risk.)

Though the list is supposed to cover “highs and lows in the last 20 years of female wellness,” a number of “best moments” are from older decades — in the case of the tampon’s development in 1929, much older. And some might be remembered more as milestones in popular culture that led to a greater acceptance of women’s health issues: Judy Blume novels (swoon); Edith Bunker going through menopause on “All in the Family” in 1972 — or to a greater respect for women’s physical abilities: U.S. women winning the World Cup in soccer in 1999 and Billie Jean King defeating Bobby Riggs in “The Battle of the Sexes.”

On the more medical side, there are a couple of items that deserve a closer look — such as the FDA in 1960 declaring birth control pills safe for women. It’s great that we have the pill, but it took the work of health activists like Barbara Seaman to improve their safety.

The FDA’s approval of Gardasil, the first vaccine introduced to prevent cervical cancer, also deserves an asterisk. While Gardasil’s approval was met with great fanfare, the distribution and cost has come under scrutiny, and researchers have raised doubts, most notably in the New England Journal of Medicine, about whether Gardasil and another vaccine, Cervarix, will ultimately reduce rates of cervical cancer (read the articles here and here).

Dolgoff nailed the “seven lows in women’s health.” The list includes the refusal of pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception (Plan B), forced sterilization of women of color, and the Virginia Slims campaign — “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” — that co-opted feminism in the name of promoting lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases.

My only question is: Why only seven? Many other “worst” moments come to mind, including misinformation about hormone replacement therapy and the Global Gag Rule.

So readers, what other best or worst moments would you add to the list?

We now have a nifty calendar on the blog that will feature Our Bodies Ourselves and women’s health-related events around the country, including conferences, workshops and fundraisers. We’d also like to include relevant book readings and film screenings, such as for a documentary like “The Business of Being Born.”

So, if you’re with an organization looking to promote an event, or you know of something taking place that Our Bodies Our Blog readers should know about, drop me a line. Thanks!

Since we switched to a new blog platform (WordPress, we love you!), we’ve learned that some readers are having trouble getting an updated feed of Our Bodies Our Blog:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/ourbodiesourblog/fhgf

We’ve tested it out, and re-inputting the link seems to do the trick! If you’re still having trouble, leave a comment or contact me directly.

Remember, you can also sign up to receive an email each afternoon with links to the most recently posted blog entries. Just enter your email address in the subscribe field on the site, or simply click here.

Finally, a presidential candidate I wouldn’t mind having as an older brother …. Check out this story from the Tampa Tribune:

Barack Obama is a dedicated feminist who “lives surrounded by women,” his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, told a mostly female crowd at a Women For Obama event in downtown Tampa on Thursday. [...]

Her older brother “really was the man in our lives” after their parents divorced, when the two were growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia, she said.

She said he taught her to ride a bicycle, made her practice harder math problems and start an exercise program, took her on college visits and even gave her her first women’s health book - “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” a 1973 guide that came out of the women’s movement and focused on female sexuality, health and hygiene.

Love it.

So, any siblings out there need a copy?

Know someone looking for a dream job in the field of women’s health?

Our Bodies Ourselves is looking for an associate director. It’s a brand-new position, and it will be a core feature of new leadership development within OBOS during the next few years. This person will work closely with the current executive director, other senior staff and selected board members to assume key responsibilities as the organization approaches its 40th year.

We’ve got the full job description posted at OBOS: http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/about/assoc_dir.asp, including a detailed list of responsibilities and required skills. Please feel free to circulate the description to anyone who might be interested, especially individuals excited by an organization long wed to a collaborative model of management.

To apply, please submit a resume and cover letter to: office@bwhbc.org. The deadline for applications is Aug. 20.

As some of you have experienced, we’ve been having technical trouble posting comments (and blog entries, too), which often results in a delay before comments appear on the site. Our apologies!

The good news is we’ll have a new WordPress platform in place soon, at which point we’ll introduce some new features. And, yes, comments will post immediately. We hope to have it rolling in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!

It’s thrilling any time Our Bodies Ourselves receives a positive mention. But we admit to total giddiness over the beginning of Linda Gordon’s article in The Nation:

“The progressive social movements of the last half-century produced millions of pages of print, from manifestos to journalism to novels, but nothing as influential as Our Bodies, Ourselves. The feminist women’s health manual is the American left’s most valuable written contribution to the world. This claim is meant to be provocative, of course, but it’s true. The publication of an excellent book about the book, Kathy Davis’s The Making of Our Bodies, Ourselves: How Feminism Travels Across Borders, makes this a good time to examine its impact.”

Gordon, an author and professor of history at New York University, does a terrific job of summarizing Davis’ book, which features the stories of women’s groups throughout the world that have adapted “Our Bodies, Ourselves” and highlights the work of OBOS’s Global Translation/Adaptation Program:

If Our Bodies, Ourselves had retained its original authorship, the homogeneity of the original Boston-based CR group — in class, race and nationality — would have limited its appeal. The group’s concern with women’s concrete experience led them to gather many personal reports, so the book’s sources grew increasingly varied. As activists in other countries discovered the book, they asked for versions in their own languages. As Davis recounts in her history of the book’s global expansion, the original authors soon came to understand how saturated their book was with the perspective of educated, middle-class, white American women.

In fact, the group’s initial chutzpah in challenging medical authority was partly a product of these women’s privilege. As their global sophistication increased, the Boston group came to a new understanding of what “translation” requires: Words, sentences, images and anecdotes have different meanings in different contexts. What was oppositional and radical for the Boston authors, such as challenging mainstream medicine, made no sense to women who lacked access to medical care.

The authors realized that you could not just hire a translator, or allow publishers in other countries to hire translators. The non-English versions of Our Bodies, Ourselves were adaptations, and they could emerge only from protracted discussion. The authors work closely with “translators,” discussing how to present controversial material and providing help with publishing arrangements, information resources, graphics, fundraising and connections with activists worldwide.

And Gordon’s conclusion, which follows an important discussion of women’s health in poor and developing countries, is as inspiring as the intro:

As the feminist slogan goes, “Women deliver.” In other words, when women control resources, the social gain is greater than when men control resources. Improving health for the poor is as likely to produce progressive change as any other strategy, because health activism these days requires challenging the world’s most powerful and destructive forces. Matters of the body are politically fundamental. If Our Bodies, Ourselves contributed even in a small way to activating women globally, American feminists can feel proud.

Please read the full article, available online and in the June 16 issue of The Nation. You can also read the final chapter of Davis’s book, “Transnational Knowledges, Transnational Politics” (PDF), at our website.

Our Global Translation and Adaptation program is currently facilitating adaptations in Turkey, Nepal, Israel, Nigeria and Bangladesh, among other countries. To find out more, or to read excerpts or contribute to these projects, visit the program homepage.

The D.C. Abortion Fund and Our Bodies Ourselves is sponsoring a book signing and discussion in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, May 28. It all takes place at the Hawk n’ Dove, starting at 6:30 p.m.

The discussion will focus on “Intentional Motherhood: Connecting Abortion, Pregnancy and Birth.” Speakers include OBOS Executive Director Judy Norsigian, who will sign copies of “Our Bodies Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth“; Alexis Zepeda, board member, D.C. Abortion Fund; and Jill Morrison, senior counsel, National Women’s Law Center.

Here are the details (PDF) or learn more at Feministing — Miriam helped to organize the event (lucky her — I so miss this bar!). Wish her a happy birthday if you go!

Feministing.com this weekend interviewed Our Bodies Ourselves Executive Director Judy Norsigian about the new OBOS book, “Pregnancy and Birth” — perfect timing for Mother’s Day!

The interview covers the rate of cesarean sections in the United States; how other countries compare when it comes to care during pregnancy and delivery; what OBOS is up to these days; and lots more. Here’s an excerpt:

You’ve been doing this kind of work for so many decades. How do you keep your spirit and your energy up?
Seeing the effects of our work is tremendously rewarding and energizing. Also, working with younger women who are now assuming leadership roles in the women’s health movement is inspiring. I love to learn in an inter-generational setting.

Is their a presidential candidate you feel has a strong handle on the health care needs of the U.S., especially women’s health, and why?
Both Clinton and Obama have pretty good understandings of women’s health care issues, but I am disappointed that neither is so far willing to challenge the pharmaceutical or insurance industries in ways that I believe to be essential. Hopefully, that will change.

Read the rest here. Thanks, Feministing!

OBOS’s own Judy Norsigian was featured yesterday on Philadelphia’s 10! show (a production of the local NBC affiliate) in an excellent segment on the new book, Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth.

You can view the six minute video here. In the segment, Judy discusses the origins of the book and topics including prenatal testing, fetal monitoring, and pain relief in labor. A transcript is also provided. Kudos to Judy and thanks to NBC 10 for bringing the book to the attention of their audience.

If you’d like to hear more about the book and OBOS in person, don’t forget to check out our calendar of events! Judy will be in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and LA soon at a variety of book events and panel discussions, with several other cities to follow.

Our Bodies Ourselves Executive Director Judy Norsigian talked about women’s health this week on “Your Call,” a popular San Francisco public radio program that airs on KALW.

“Your Call” has a blog with more info on the interview and a link to listen online. From the overview:

Women make up the largest segment of health workers, health consumers, and health decision-makers for their families and communities. So how have women’s health care issues been transformed in the past four decades? How much attention is being paid to women’s health issues today? And what should women do today to sustain good health for themselves and their communities?

Last-Minute Reminder: Judy Norsigian, executive director of Our Bodies Ourselves, will be at Women & Children First bookstore in Chicago Sunday, April 6, at 4:30 p.m. to discuss OBOS’ new book, “Pregnancy and Birth.”

Get event details here. Oh, and I’ll be there, too!

Judy has two events in Chicago on Monday — both of which are free and open to the public. Then it’s on to Austin, Texas. Check the OBOS events calendar for more cities and dates on the OBOS book tour.

Single Mothers in China Forge a Difficult Path: The New York Times reports on the plight of single mothers in China, some of whom lie about their marital status or enter into marriages solely to obtain basic identifications for their children to attend school or to receive other social services. Howard French writes:

In a society where until quite recently premarital sex was often punished, the issue of single motherhood has been slow to enter the public arena. But now, a new awareness of the issue is raising questions about the status of women in China. And the debate is also stretching to other areas of citizens’ rights, including the most basic societal tenets like the hukou, or residency permit, a central tool of population control passed down from the Maoist era that restricts movement by linking people to the towns of their birth.

The Chinese government has long maintained that the Communist Party liberated women in 1949 along with the rest of the country. But in an era of rapid modernization, China has lacked anything like a broad current of thought about women’s rights.

“When we argue that a woman owns the uterus, and it’s her right to decide whether to deliver the baby or not, people won’t buy it,” said Yuan Xin, director of psychology at the Consulting Center of Nankai University. “If you are a woman, your personal choice is monitored and supervised by a lot of others, and they expect you to do what everyone else does.”

Bush AIDS Initiative Gets Bipartisan Renewal: “A bipartisan coalition in the House voted Wednesday to significantly expand a popular program aimed at combating HIV and AIDS around the world, renewing the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief by authorizing $50 billion — $20 billion more than the White House requested — over five years,” reports the L.A. Times. The story also notes the political compromises over PEPFAR:

Conservatives gave up a demand that abstinence be the centerpiece of efforts to fight AIDS; when the program began five years ago, the Republican majority then in control of Congress included language requiring that one-third of all funds spent on prevention go toward abstinence-related initiatives. The legislation approved Wednesday mandated “balanced funding” to support a so-called A-B-C strategy: abstain from sex until marriage; be faithful; and use condoms.

Liberals agreed to accept some restrictions on activities by family planning organizations. Under the bill, funding may go to family planning clinics to pay for HIV/AIDS testing and education but not abortions. Faith-based organizations will also continue to receive funding.

Read more on PEPFAR at RH Reality Check, including this post by Kelly Castagnaro on PEPFAR as political sport.

Health Database Was Set Up to Ignore “Abortion”: The New York Times today caught up with the controversy over the restrictions on the word “abortion” in the world’s largest database on reproductive health. Known as POPLINE, the database is managed by Johns Hopkins University and receives funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Rachel has an excellent report on how it all went down — including tons of links to more coverage — and how it turned out. Kudos to medical librarians and all activists who protested the restrictions and got the word out quickly and effectively.

Global Health Summit: The 2nd Annual GlobeMed Global Health Summit took place this week at Northwestern University. It’s mission: to mobilize and unite university students “to think critically about global health issues, develop personal and professional skills for building a sustained commitment to social justice, and share ideas about the role of students in catalyzing a movement to improve global health.”

I learned about the summit listening to a Worldview radio interview on Thursday with Catherine Quinn, coordinator of field program operations at Concern America, an international development and refugee organization. Quinn discussed maternal health and public health training in Latin America.

Public Masturbation as Teachable Moment: Courtney Martin raises a good question: What do you call it when a man publicly masturbates in your presence? “When I brought up this experience to friends, just about every one of them had a similar story, but we all realized there’s no real name for this kind of violation,” writes Martin. More than 100 readers weigh in.

Birth Control Options: “Birth control options are growing for women 40 and older — a group that once viewed its choices as pretty much limited to tube-tying surgery and condoms,” reports the AP. The story covers a safer birth control pill, the IUD and a nonsurgical method of tube-tying.

“Exile” Turns 15: This isn’t really health related — unless you think of feminist music as necessary for mental health — but Kate Harding has a great post at Broadsheet titled “The Album That Made Me a Feminist.” Take a guess what it is … OK, I’ll spill: Liz Phair’s “Exile in Guyville,” which Harding notes will be re-released on June 24, marking the album’s 15th anniversary.

The only thing I’d add to Harding’s post is that Phair’s third album, “Whitechocolatespaceegg,” is every bit as good. Really.