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7/1/2009
Generic Emergency Contraception Now Available*
By Norah Hazelton
* only to women 17 and younger with a prescription.
At least, that's the case for now. The FDA has approved a generic "morning after" pill made by Watson Pharmaceuticals, but it's availability is limited until the patent held by Duramed (the makers of Plan B) expires on Aug. 24. Watson hopes to make their emergency contraceptive pill available over-the-counter to women 18 and over after that point, but they still need additional FDA approval.
While many women have been able to get emergency contraception at reduced cost, the price (up to $50) for Plan B has proven to be a barrier, especially for young and low-income women. The presence of a generic option will greatly expand access to the populations with the greatest need for affordable contraception. It will not only be more affordable for individuals, but health centers that provide emergency contraception to women at low or no cost will save money as well, hopefully leaving more money to be used for other services.
Posted on Wed, 01 Jul 2009, 02:47:20 PM
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emergency contraception , contraception , FDA approval
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7/1/2009
Updated state policy info available from Guttmacher
By Norah Hazelton
The Guttmacher Institute, one of the most prominent and trusted sources of sexual health research and policy analysis, has updated the State Policies in Brief section of their website. State Policies in Brief is a one-stop-shop for information about state policies regarding sexual health, such as abortion restrictions, State Medicaid Family Planning Eligibility Expansions, pregnancy statistics, comprehensive sex education, and minors' access to a variety of health services.
If you haven't read any of the fact sheets before, go take a look around. There's bound to be something to learn for everyone interested reproductive health.
Posted on Wed, 01 Jul 2009, 11:45:45 AM
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Guttmacher , reproductive health , statistics , state policies
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6/23/2009
Health Reform Markups Continue
By Sloane Rosenthal, Director of Public Policy
The formal debate around health care reform got off to a somewhat slower-than-expected start last week. Despite a few setbacks, however, Congressional leaders have sought to assure constituents, stakeholders and the media that the process is still on schedule, and that leaders on both sides of the Capitol still plan to meet the President's proposed deadline of clearing a reform package through each chamber prior to the August recess.
On the House side, leaders from the Committees on Ways and Means, Education and Labor, and Energy and Commerce released a discussion draft of their health care reform bill on Friday. The bill includes a strong public health insurance plan option and an independent benefits advisory commission to make decisions about specific services that participating health insurance exchange plans will be required to cover. In addition, the bill contains the Medicaid family planning state option language, as well as language requiring health plans in the exchange to contract with essential community providers. The Committees' inclusion of this language in the discussion draft is encouraging as it will help essential community providers to be part of the solution in health care reform. Hearings on the bill are scheduled to begin this week, with markups scheduled for after the July 4 recess.
In the Senate, markups continue in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, led by acting Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.). Committee leaders had high hopes of completing the markup before the upcoming recess, but it now appears likely that debate on some of the most contentious pieces may wait until after the break since nearly 400 amendments were filed on the quality, prevention and workforce titles of the bill. The Senate Finance Committee, led by Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), is also delaying their markup until after the break, while Baucus and a "coalition of the willing," including Sens. Grassley (R-Iowa), Hatch (R-Utah), Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Snowe (R-Maine), attempt to reach a compromise on some of the most contentious aspects of the bill, including a public plan option and financing of the overall package.
Posted on Tue, 23 Jun 2009, 04:02:54 PM
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Health Reform Watch
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6/19/2009
Fewer Teens Using Contraceptives Than A Few Years Ago
By Norah Hazelton
Recent rises in teen pregnancy and birth rates can be explained not by an increase in sexual activity, a new study says, but by a decrease in the use of contraception.
Changing Behavioral Risk for Pregnancy among High School Students in the United States, 1991-2007 by John Santelli et al. finds that while teens are engaging in about the same amount of sexual activity now as they were in the 1990s and early 2000s, when we saw a decrease in teen birth rates, they are using condoms less often. Santelli and the other authors of study suggest that this could be the result of a number of factors, including the emphasis on abstinence-only programs which focus only on the failure rates of contraception rather than the benefits. HIV awareness and prevention efforts aimed at teens have also declined, perhaps leading teens to be less concerned about the risk.
The report suggests an increased emphasis on promoting contraception use among teens in public policy. The authors highlight the importance of a national consensus on how to promote sexual health. From the report:
The U.S. might redirect its energy from persistently divisiveness political debates around sexuality education and abortion to support reinvigorated efforts to prevention of unplanned pregnancy by promoting the importance of consistent and effective contraception and protection against STIs.
Posted on Fri, 19 Jun 2009, 11:14:56 AM
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abstinence-only , STIs , YRBS , contraception , sex ed
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6/17/2009
Senate HELP Committee Markup -- Day 1
By Sloane Rosenthal, Director of Public Policy
After many months of debate in the media and in the public sphere, Congressional debate on health care reform began in earnest today, when the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, chaired by Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) began marking up their portion of the draft health reform package Senate leaders hope to clear through the chamber before the August break.
Markup in the HELP Committee is scheduled to last through the end of next week, and all reports indicate it will take at least that long. Today's proceedings only included the opening statements given by each Committee member; action has not yet been taken on the nearly 400 amendments that had been filed as of this morning. Of these nearly 400 amendments, more than 100 were filed by Senator Tom Coburn (D-OK).
Throughout the day, many Republicans on the Committee, including Ranking Member Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), expressed concern about the accelerated schedule for consideration of the bill, while Democrats, including Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who chaired today's proceedings in Senator Kennedy's absence, stressed the need for urgent action.
Elsewhere in the Senate, the ambitious schedule for consideration of the reform package suffered a setback, when Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) confirmed that his panel will wait until after the July 4th recess to consider a bill. Despite this delay in the Finance panel, both the HELP Committee and the committees of jurisdiction on the House side plan to continue their work as scheduled.
Posted on Wed, 17 Jun 2009, 09:59:04 PM
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6/17/2009
Reproductive Health is Men's Health
By Norah Hazelton
It's Men's Health Week! Time to make an appointment for every guy's favorite "turn your head and cough" check-up. After that, a simple blood test for STIs or even a spit swab test for HIV is nothing, right?
Preventing unintended pregnancies and cervical cancer seem to be dominating the national discourse on reproductive health these days, but there are plenty of reasons for men to pay attention. Here are three things men can do to get involved in family planning and stay healthy:
1. Get tested! It's quick and easy, and a recent article from the Guttmacher Institute points out that diagnosing and treating an STI early can prevent serious health consequences and is almost as important as preventing transmission in the first place.
2. Talk to your partners about contraception and STI prevention before you get naked together. If you sleep with women, take a few minutes to learn about the different contraceptives for women, like the Pill, the ring, the shot and IUDs. It's always a good idea to be on the same page about what protection you want to use and why. Talking about your options before you're in the throes of passion shows your partner that you really care, and I think that earns you a few karmic sex points.
3. Talk to your male friends about reproductive health. One of my friends just told me about showing up late to watch a game with his friends because he was getting tested. When his friends found out where he'd been there was a bit of joking about symptoms from graphic slides in sex ed classes, but he told them he was fine, just wanted to make sure he was clean. After some more jokes, they went back to watching the game and when everyone was leaving, one of his friends came up and asked for the number of the testing center. You might not get a chance like that, but you're creative. My guess is that any discomfort you feel talking about this with your friends is nothing compared to a burning sensation when you pee.
Posted on Wed, 17 Jun 2009, 02:56:57 PM
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STI testing , contraception , National Health Week , men's health
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6/15/2009
Health Reform Markups Get Start Date
By David Castillo
Jonathan Cohn at The Treatment just posted information about Sen. Kennedy's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
"It's official: The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will begin marking up its health reform legislation 10 a.m on Wednesday. Hearings will take place daily until Friday, June 26."
Check out the bill on the HELP Committee web site for more information on Kennedy's plan.
We'll be bringing you more as the markups start.
Posted on Mon, 15 Jun 2009, 04:25:22 PM
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6/15/2009
Jill Stanek's Bizarre Source
By Norah Hazelton
On Friday, Jill Stanek posted some points from a piece by Dr. Philip Ney, a fundamentalist Christian psychiatrist, about how sex education, in any form, is unnecessary and even harmful.
A few gems from the assessment:
The more sex education, the more sexual self consciousness...
...Condom use creates the false impression of safety, thus encouraging sex, when the is a 13% (at least) chance of dying as a result...
...Sex education tends to result in mental images that interfere with the appreciation of nature and art...
...No sex education teaches the beauty and hazards of pair bonding. To my knowledge there is no sex education progarm[sic] that informs kids about inadvertant[sic] pair bonding. ref. www.messengers2.com Humans are made one flesh thru[sic] sex. Thus many kinds of sexual behaviour that create life long pair bonds. These interfere with the intimacy and durability of a later committed marriage."
Do I even need to say he doesn't cite any sources other than his own writing on "pair bonding?"
When I first saw the post, I felt compelled to write something about the benefits comprehensive sex education, citing lots of reputable sources and debunking myths linking knowledge of contraception with promiscuity, but I got distracted when I went to check out Ney's website.
I was curious to find out what exactly this "pair bonding" thing was, so I opened up the article The Christian Doctor and Sex. It starts out absurd, and harmless, but it moves quickly into deeply offensive and disturbing territory:
One destructive misunderstanding between men and women that often occurs is a woman's failure to understand that the testes and the prostate are both endocrine and exocrine glands. Once production has begun, only under unusual circumstances will it stop and those secretions need to be released. That intense male drive to ejaculate in a vagina is often both misunderstood and resented by women. Generally speaking, in Western culture men are more ready to give than women are to receive. Among the Chinese, the women are more ready to receive then men are to give. Women can best understand male urgency by picturing the effect of a child intermittently stopping and starting breast feeding. As the breast becomes engorged the mother feels very uncomfortable and inadvertently begins looking around for some other child who will appreciate her milk production. So it is with sexually frustrated males.
Hear that, ladies? If you don't give it up to your husband regularly, it's only natural for him to look for someone else to be a receptacle for his seed, because that's all you're good for. Chinese people have it all backwards, but I'm thinking it's not okay for a woman to go "inadvertently" looking for another man. The breastfeeding analogy may be apt, but only insofar as a woman can relieve herself of excess breast milk just as a man can relieve himself of his "secretions." Again, though, I'm guessing that's not acceptable to Ney.
If blatant racism with a dash of rape apologist logic isn't offensive enough for you, there's more:
I suggest a possible partial explanation for promiscuity and transsexuality. People who are abortion survivors, i.e. grow up in families where a sibling has been aborted, may subconsciously try to find and be close to the aborted sibling. This may result in promiscuity. Those who have an aborted twin may try to live their life both as their sex and the sex of their twin. This may result in transsexual behaviour.
Ms. Stanek, if you happen to be reading this, I honestly hope that you reconsider your choice to quote and support this sexist, racist, transphobic lunatic. His "assessments" are not based in facts or statistics and his statements are appalling.
Debates about sex education and reproductive health get distorted enough as it is. I think everyone on all sides can agree that articles like Ney's bring nothing positive to the discussion. If the past couple of weeks have taught us anything, it's that we should not stand by silently as people spout prejudiced rhetoric. We are all capable of civil discussion and we should insist that everyone participating commit to honoring human dignity.
Posted on Mon, 15 Jun 2009, 04:58:54 PM
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sex ed , comprehensive sex ed , civil discourse
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