Quick Hit: Our Bodies, Our Blog

When I was a kid, I remember flipping through my mom’s copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves, an amazing and groundbreaking work published in 1970 that made people aware of issues of women’s health and fought discrimination within the fields of medicine and public health policy.
I just found the Our Bodies, Ourselves of the blogosphere, titled [...]

Birth Control or Food?

I am on the Planned Parenthood email listserv, and received a message from them entitled “Pills or dinner?”
According to PP,

A legislative error made the price of birth control skyrocket for low-income and college-age women. It was a devastating, unintended mistake, and Planned Parenthood started working immediately to help Congress restore affordable birth control.

Please [...]

Eating Healthy –> Baby Boys ???

Once again, I am subjecting you to two of my pet peeves: 1) Crappy cnn.com article and 2) Inane and insulting commentary on a scientific study.
According to this article (nicely titled “Study shows bananas make baby boys”), women who eat more potassium- and calcium-enriched foods and have cereal for breakfast are more likely to have [...]

Removal of Abortion from Med School Curricula

This shocking account of a med student witnessing the subtle eradication of education on abortions in medical school is frightening. Medicine, as Pyle says, should be a place on which politics should not intrude. If doctors are afraid to speak up, what kind of health care can we expect?
Pyle writes:
Medicine today is “evidence-based.” Treatments must [...]

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Dental Dams (aka, Thank You Anthony Rapp)!

This evening, I had the pleasure of hearing Anthony Rapp, star of the poignant and rousing Rent, speak about his experience with the show to kick off Aids Awareness Week.  He is well-spoken and smart, and was patient (more patient than I was) with some of the foolish questions people asked, such as, “Have you [...]

Pregnancy Discrimination

Women who choose to work and have a child are often discriminated against–accused both of being poor mothers for working, and of being poor workers for mothering. The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that incidents of pregnancy discrimination keep rising, which is a disturbing trend.
I wonder if this might be a product [...]

Wisconsin, you rock! (for now)

Some great news to follow up from an earlier post.  From The Capital Times:
Flanked by two survivors of sexual assault, one with tears welling in her eyes, Gov. Jim Doyle signed a long awaited bill Thursday that requires hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims. 
“This is one bill I’ve been working to get on my desk [...]

Guest Post: STI Study

The following is a guest post from our loyal contributor Caitlin.  (Thanks Caitlin!)
A study released this week by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 1 in 4 teen girls (aged 14 to 19) has a sexually transmitted infection.  This is one of the first studies to examine STI rates among adolescents [...]

Unnecessary Hysterectomies?

According to this CNN article, 2/3 of hysterectomies might be unnecessary.  There might be other, less invasive procedures that can get rid of the same symptoms (back pain, extremely heavy periods, etc.) and require a shorter recovery time.
Now, this reminds me of a Grey’s Anatomy episode.  (Yes, I used to watch that show–please don’t be [...]

That’s Right. I said Period.

I remember talking with a male friend of mine once, and he said, “You know what? I think it’s so gross that you . . . you know . . . do that.” “Do what?” I replied. “You know. . . every month . . .” He was not talking [...]