The last few weeks have seen Tennessee on several “worst of” lists for women. The popular iVillage ranked us #40 among the “worst states for women” – for our lower rates of college degree completion, lower earnings, low levels of representation of women in state government, poor health, attacks on women’s rights, and other factors.

This week, Forbes named Knoxville, TN (home of Stacey Campfield) #3 in its list of Most Unfair Cities To Be A Working Woman because of disparities in pay between men and women.

And I missed this last month, but the blogger at Lavender and Cheese writes about another embarrassing finding that got basically no media attention here – Black women die more from breast cancer than white women, and that’s more true in Memphis, Tennessee than in any of the nation’s other largest cities. In Memphis, a Black woman is more than twice as likely to die as a white woman.

As that blogger explains:

We know what these numbers mean: black women are not getting the same access to cancer treatment that white women are. This is not a genetics problem; it’s a care problem, it’s an education problem, and it’s a socioeconomic problem.

And it’s exactly this kind of care inequality that the healthcare reform bill is supposed to alleviate.

The fact that this study has gone unreported and apparently unnoticed in Tennessee has to be a result of two things: laziness and cowardice.

I was born and raised in Tennessee. I chose to come back here after college. Like B, there are absolutely things I love about this state, from the big beauty of the landscape to smaller pleasures of local businesses and institutions and people. It’s not all about politics – but our politics are seriously messed up here right now.

We have Democrats in power who can’t bring themselves to denounce a State Rep when he publicly threatened to “stomp” any transgender woman he encounters. We have bills specifically trying to shame and intimidate women getting legal abortions and their providers, transformed into a bill to limit access in another dishonest way.

We have serious economic problems and disparities, a long list of problems that are getting us on other people’s “worst of” lists that we could tackle. Meanwhile, our state legislators are focused on saggy pants, making sure it’s okay for creationism to be discussed seriously in science classes, and pushing the racism and classism of trying to drug test all welfare recipients. And our Governor, Republican Bill Haslam, had the nerve to blame the media for covering this nonsense, instead of doing his job as a leader and taking on the state legislators for introducing and pushing said nonsense.

Welcome to Tennessee. Although we need you here, if you’re a woman, or poor, or not white and straight and cis and Christian, or you have a decent handle on science, you might want to pass on through, unless you have a lot of energy and patience for the fight. At least for now.

Filed under: Access, Rights, & Choice, Cancer, Ethics, Government, Laws, Legislation, & Courts

First, some recent posts at Our Bodies Our Blog:

Pink Ribbons, Inc. – A Closer Look at Breast Cancer Marketing – I’m really looking forward to seeing this film, especially after all the recent Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy. It’s going to show in several U.S. cities at various events this spring. Pink Ribbons, Inc. people, if you’re reading this, you totally want to hook me up with the showing at the Nashville Film Festival.

Christine also covered Komen and Planned Parenthood and stupid, sexist “barstool sports,” and Judy has something on Planned Parenthood and the Catholic bishops.

Finally, Good Vibrations selected Our Bodies Ourselves as one organization it’s supporting during February and March. If you buy something from their website or in stores, select OBOS during checkout to make a donation that goes entirely to the organization. Go on and buy yourself a Valentine’s present. Or, hey, buy me something, since I don’t otherwise have a tip jar.

Now, onto to other things:

Judy Stone has a great guest post at the Scientific American blogs, Molecules to Medicine: Plan B: The Tradition of Politics at the FDA. Stone ultimately looks at Kathleen Sebelius’s decision to override the FDA’s approval of over-the-counter access to Plan B, but also provides a review of past political decisions and appointees at the FDA, and U.S. government interference in sexual health care and information generally.

Soraya L. Chemaly has something at The Feminist Wire in response to that ridiculous recent piece in the New York Times about girls and “hysteria.”

Flanagan closes with the particularly ironic advice that what girls need is “protection from the most corrosive cultural forces that seek to exploit her when she is least able to resist.”…What girls really need is not to be characterized as inherently mad or inclined to the irrational.

Nick Baumann at Mother Jones writes about The Republican War on Contraception:

…in the past six months, social conservatives have widened their offensive, and their new target is clear: Not satisfied with making it harder to obtain legal abortions, they want to limit access to birth control, too.

I’m pretty sure a lot of women have seen this coming for a while.

I don’t agree with absolutely everything in Nicholas Kristoff’s NY Times piece, “Beyond Pelvic Politics,” but let me just highlight this:

A 2009 study looked at sexually active American women of modest means, ages 18 to 34, whose economic circumstances had deteriorated. Three-quarters said that they could not afford a baby then. Yet 30 percent had put off a gynecological or family-planning visit to save money. More horrifying, of those using the pill, one-quarter said that they economized by not taking it every day.

and this:

If we have to choose between bishops’ sensibilities and women’s health, our national priority must be the female half of our population.

Rachel Maddow has a piece on the birth control nonsense as well.

Nationally, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan has introduced a national forced ultrasound bill, which I think I’ll start calling a “forced vaginal insertion of an object” bill. We should require all members of Congress to participate in a simulation display of a transvaginal ultrasound, although I’d be kind of afraid of their reactions.

A national forced 24-hour waiting period for abortion has also been introduced, this one by South Carolina’s Jeff Duncan.

Neither of these things is based on medical evidence; both are purely for the purpose of making it more difficult for women to obtain safe, legal, timely abortions. Dr. Jen Gunter talks about what happens to women exposed to inexpert abortion attempts when safe and legal isn’t an option.

And in Tennessee, Planned Parenthood has sued the state, which previously awarded the organization grants for STI and HIV prevention, but in December yanked the funding without providing an explanation, or an alternative route for those services. One of the affected Memphis sites was reportedly the only place around to get HIV testing done after daytime work hours. Pressed on the issue, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam refused to provide any real explanation of the decision, saying, “The commissioner felt like there were other people who could provide that service just as well.” There was no explanation about why, if that were the case, those others didn’t get the grant during the competitive process last year, and as far as I know, none of those other “just as well” services have actually been awarded the funding.

Mary at Hoyden About Town has a cool post on soliciting research participants, with a lot of good points on what should be communicated to potential study participants and what researchers owe them for their participation.

And completely unrelated to anything, I cannot stop looking at these underwater dogs.

[note: I modified the title after I realized a possible mis-reading of it]

Filed under: Abortion, Access, Rights, & Choice, Cancer, Contraception, Drugs, Government, HIV/AIDS, Infectious Diseases, Laws, Legislation, & Courts, News Round-Ups, Sex & Sex Education

A few things that have caught my attention over the last couple of weeks:

Over at Nature, which is *supposed* to be a respectable publication, Ed Rybicki wrote some utter unfunny bullshit in Parallel Processing, in which men hunt, women gather, and HA HA, WOMEN are so good at SHOPPING because they can ACCESS A PARALLEL UNIVERSE. Because of how women and men are just so inherently different in a binary, unknowable-to-men way. LOLLERSKATES. Christie Wilcox over at Scientific American’s Science Sushi has the more mature response.

At another Scientific American blog, Kate Clancy talks about menstrual synchrony and why women might not really synchronize their cycles.

Rock Center has a segment on involuntary sterilization in North Carolina that disproportionately targeted women of color.

Health News Reviews takes a look at media coverage of a study on preventive mastectomy.

The draft research review for Closing the Quality Gap Series: Quality Improvement Interventions to Address Health Disparities is online (free) and open to public comment through Dec 15. (via BHIC)

eeshap at the Crunk Feminist Collective writes about diamonds and conflict, and why care in purchasing is not enough – we must make choices that devalue the diamond in society and therefore reduce diamond mining-related incentives to cruelty.

A clear photographic example of the way products for children reinforce gendered steretypes, in the form of magnetic words for boys and girls. Here, boys get the moon, a wizard, and a dragon, while girls get a diamond, perfume, and make-up. Oh, and bunnies.

Lena Chen has a guide to/review of some sex toys. The separate files for this article are totally unwieldy, but there is some good info therein.

I haven’t spent much time on the site yet, but here is the inevitable OccupyHealthcare. One thing they’re talking about is health information and responsibility for health literacy.

Jill Filipovic talks at the Guardian about the long game for personhood amendments.

The FDA revoked its approval of Avastin for metastatic breast cancer treatment.

Kotex has recalled a whole bunch of tampons.

Filed under: Access, Rights, & Choice, Cancer, Drugs, Miscellaneous, News Round-Ups, Sex & Sex Education

When I first met Patrick Dempsey last weekend, I’m not gonna lie, I was hoping for a Katie-Tom moment where my childhood celeb crush falls madly, hopelessly, jump-on-Oprah’s-couch in love with me. But the hunky, perfectly coiffed 45-year-old actor—and happily married father of three—had something else on his mind: Getting people to come out and break a sweat for a good cause.

Every October, the Grey’s Anatomy star returns to his native Maine from Malibu to host the Dempsey Challenge, a two-day walk, run, or cycle charity event designed to raise money for the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing at Central Maine Medical Center, which opened its doors in Lewiston in March of 2008. He and his sister, Mary, founded the center in response to their mother, Amanda’s, battle with ovarian cancer since 1998 (she’s winning!). The center gives people who have been affected by cancer, including caregivers and their families, a place to receive free support, education, outreach, and wellness services, such as massages, reiki, yoga, and Tai Chi.

Last weekend, 3,834 participants from 33 states and four countries gathered at the starting line of the 5K and 10K walk/run (Saturday) or the bike ride (Sunday) and brought with them more than $1 million—as they have each year since 2009—for the center. Dempsey and his personal pack of nine pro cyclists—including 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Levi Leipeheimer and top-ranked American rider at the 2011 Tour de France Tom Danielson—completed the 50-mile route of the ride. And I was behind them for most of the way.

But even better than the view from behind was watching Dempsey thank volunteers, hug survivors, and snap photos with spectators. He even stopped mid-ride to help some cyclists work through a mechanical issue on the side of the road. What a sweetheart.

If you wanna roll with McDreamy (he always rides the 50, but you can do the 10, 25, 70 or 100-miler), it’s not too early to sign up for next year’s fourth annual event on Oct 13th and 14th ($75 entry fee and $150 minimum fundraising requirement). If you register now at dempseychallenge.org, you can save $10. I already have!

Here are a few highlights from this year’s event:

Photos: Patrick McCarthy

read more

BeauSoleil

Last weekend, I attended the National Folk Festival in Nashville, TN, where it will be hosted for two additional years. I truly enjoyed the event, seeing and hearing music performed by old time, mariachi, Kurdish, Japanese, breakdance, cajun, New Orleans jazz, and other bands, along with the Fisk Jubilee Singers and Lloyd Arneach (a Cherokee storyteller). I heard good music, had good (festival) food, and had an excellent time.

That said, two health-related items came to my attention. First, I would like to suggest that first aid folks at outdoor events add extra sunscreen to their supplies. Overheating and dehydration is an obvious concern at an outdoor festival, but sunburn is another, if less acute, health hazard. I stopped by the first aid tent to see if they had any sunscreen after I’d been outside for a few hours and realized I needed more protection. I should have brought my own as well on that 100 degree sunny day, but I think making it available for people to reapply at day-long events is a good idea. The person I talked to at the tent seemed to think so, too.

Don Vappie & The Creole Jazz Serenaders

Second, while festival sponsors seemed to be mostly arts/culture organizations, local radio, lawyers, banks, and so on – the mix you’d expect – one tent in particular was sponsored by Altria, and visibly marked with numerous sponsorship signs listing Philip Morris, Smokeless Tobacco, et al. That tent was the Jefferson Street tent.

For those who don’t know Nashville, Jefferson Street is a historically Black part of town. It runs past Meharry Medical College and Fisk University, then TSU, all HCBUs. It’s home to an annual jazz and blues festival. This page from the Jefferson Street Merchants provides a brief history of the area, further emphasizing the close association between this part of Nashville and our city’s Black population. The Jefferson Street stage was the closest at the festival to Jefferson Street itself by a long shot.

Well, so what? Black and white Americans smoke about the same rate, but Black smokers are a greater risk of lung cancer and suffer disproportionately from smoking-related adverse health effects. Tobacco companies have also targeted their advertising to Black communities, attempting to recruit more of these smokers – one study found “2.6 times more tobacco advertisements per person in areas with an African American majority compared to white-majority areas.” As the American Lung Association explains:

African American communities have been bombarded with cigarette advertising. Since the signing of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) in 1998 through 2005, the average youth in the United States is annually exposed to 559 tobacco ads, every adult female 617 advertisements, and every African American adult 892 ads. Money spent on magazine advertising of mentholated cigarettes, popular with African Americans, increased from 13 percent of total ad expenditures in 1998 to 49 percent in 2005.

The former Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company (now part of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company) ran a campaign for Kool cigarettes aimed at black youths in 2006 that featured hip-hop DJ competitions, themed cigarette packs, and was billed as a “celebration” of hip-hop music and culture.

Long story short, having the “Jefferson Street” stage visibly sponsored by big tobacco was unseemly and gross, in the context of both the location and the deliberate targeting of Black communities to encourage smoking.

Filed under: Advertising/Marketing, Cancer, Ethics, Events & Observances, Miscellaneous

It is possible that cats may be spreading brain cancer to their owners.  Researchers have linked a parasite that breeds in cats’ stomachs with human brain tumors.

The parasite, known as Toxoplasma gondii, is carried by somewhere around a third of the world’s population.  The parasite can only breed inside cats, but it can root deep in the human brain, and it has been linked to personality changes.  It is known that pregnant women should not empty cat litter trays, as the parasite can be fatal to unborn babies.

According to the Daily Mail:

“… [S]cientists collected global data on brain cancers in men and women and compared it with figures on T. gondii infection rates.  This showed brain cancer rates to be highest in countries where the parasite was most prevalent — even when other factors such as income were taken into account.”

A new study has found that high doses of vitamin D can reduce joint and muscle pain for many breast cancer patients who are taking the estrogen-lowering drugs known as aromatase inhibitors.  The drugs are often prescribed to shrink breast tumors, but they can cause pain and stiffness in the hands, wrists, knees, hips, lower back, shoulders and feet.

Aromatase inhibitors can be prescribed to post-menopausal women for at least five years, and often longer, after a breast cancer diagnosis.

According to Med India:

“Patients in the study reported any pain they experienced through three different questionnaires … The results show that patients receiving high-dose vitamin D every week reported significantly less musculoskeletal pain and also were less likely to experience pain that interfered with daily living.”

Gravel roads in Dunn County, North Dakota contain such high levels of the mineral erionite that people who breathe the air there every day are at an increased risk of developing mesothelioma, a cancer of the membranes around the lungs.  Erionite is a natural mineral fiber that is similar in many ways to asbestos. When disturbed by human activity, the fibers can become airborne and lodge in people’s lungs.

At least 12 U.S. states have erionite-containing rock deposits. In Dunn County, North Dakota, rocks containing erionite have been used to produce gravel for the past 30 years, and more than 300 miles of roads are now paved with the gravel.

According to Science Daily:

“[A] new study … is the first to look at the potential hazards associated with erionite exposure in the U.S. … In addition to North Dakota, California, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada and other states have erionite deposit, but the possibility of human exposure elsewhere in the U.S. has not yet been investigated.  In contrast to asbestos, which causes mesothelioma at lower rates, there are no established health benchmarks in the U.S. on safe levels of erionite exposure”.

A recent study found that medically treated patients with mild or absent GERD symptoms have significantly higher odds of a form of cancer, esophageal adenocarcinoma, than medically treated patients who still suffer from severe GERD symptoms.

Testing of more than 750 patients with GERD revealed adenocarcinogenesis in 122. The researchers found that severe GERD symptoms correlated with decreased odds of adenocarcinogenesis.

According to the study, as reported by Green Med Info:

“Patients taking proton pump inhibitors were 61.3 percent and 81.5 percent more likely to have adenocarcinogenesis if they reported no severe typical or atypical GERD symptoms, respectively, compared with patients taking proton pump inhibitors, who reported that all symptoms were severe.”

Eggs are an excellent source of proteins, lipids, vitamins and minerals.  New research has shown they may have another benefit as well — they also contain antioxidant properties, which help prevent cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Researchers examined egg yolks produced by hens fed typical diets, and discovered that the yolks contained two amino acids, tryptophan and tyrosine, which have high antioxidant properties.  In fact, two egg yolks in their raw state have almost twice as many antioxidant properties as an apple.

According to Science Daily:

“However, when the eggs were fried or boiled, antioxidant properties were reduced by about half, and a little more than half if the eggs were cooked in a microwave.”

When Juliet Jacobs developed lung cancer, she decided to enter a promising research study.  Doctors would look for gene patterns in her tumor cells that would determine the best drugs to use on her particular cancer.

But the tests turned out to be worthless, and Jacobs died a few months after treatment.  The episode is emblematic of a serious problem in such gene-pattern research.  It has yet to yield reliable methods for diagnosis or treatment.  The research behind the study Jacobs entered has been discredited, and it turned out to be riddled with errors.

“The New York Times reports:

“Doctors say the heart of the problem is the intricacy of the analyses in this emerging field and the difficulty in finding errors … With such huge data sets and complicated analyses, researchers can no longer trust their hunches that a result does — or does not — make sense.”

Evidence suggests that CT scans to measure lung tumors can be unreliable.  This could potentially lead patients and doctors to believe the cancer is growing when it’s not.

A new study found that changes of up to 10 percent can happen simply as a result of the inherent variability of CT imaging.

According to Reuters:

“[The study] … is the first to test how reliable lung cancer scans are — work that’s long overdue, experts say, because CT scans have already become the gold standard for measuring cancer growth and treatment response.”

Researchers have discovered that a low dose of the opioid antagonist naltrexone (LDN) can have an extraordinarily potent antitumor effect on human ovarian cancer in tissue culture.

The discovery provides new insights into the pathogenesis and treatment of ovarian neoplasia, which is the 4th leading cause of cancer-related mortality among U.S. women.  The strategy of using LDN therapy to repress cancer was first reported over 30 years ago. Naltrexone causes an elevation in your body’s own opioids and opioid receptors.

Eurekalert reports:

“Blockade of opioid peptides from opioid receptors for a short time each day (4 to 6 hr) with LDN provides a sufficient window of time (18-20 hr) for the elevated levels of endogenous opioids and opioid receptors to interact and elicit a response: inhibition of cell proliferation. Thus, LDN acts as a decoy to upregulate native opioids and opioid receptors.”

Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide nanoparticles are increasingly being used in sunscreens. In larger particle form, these compounds reflect UV radiation. However, in nanoparticle form, they absorb UV radiation, which releases reactive oxygen species — chemicals known to alter DNA.

Some previous studies had suggested that the effect might not be significant, because the nanoparticles might not penetrate below the stratum corneum, the outermost layer of your skin. But recent research suggests that the danger is very real.

According to one analysis, reported by Green Med Info:

“However, some recent studies suggest that nanoparticles may, under certain circumstances, breach that barrier. The majority of those studies have used animal skin models rather than human skin.”

The website Green Med Info has assembled more than 60 articles and studies regarding what food substances can help kill cancers, including those that are resistant to treatment with drugs.

Curcumin (turmeric) was by far the #1 food, with 26 studies attesting to its efficacy.  Paprika came in at #2 with 6 studies.

Other food substances that were shown to have an effect include:

• Carotenoids

• Lycopene

• Sulforaphane

• Flavonoids

• Zeaxanthin

There has long been controversy about the low energy x-rays used for mammography breast screening. Recent studies have provided compelling evidence that such x-rays may be 400 percent more likely to cause mutational damage than higher energy x-rays.

A recent study compared the in vitro irradiation of a human cell line using a mammography x-ray source to a high energy source similar to the radiation observed in survivors from the Hiroshima atomic bomb (a commonly used means of estimating radiation risk.)  Analysis showed that the risk from the low energy x-ray was likely higher.

According to the study, as reported by Green Med Info:

“The risk/benefit analysis, however, implies the need for caution for women screened under the age of 50, and particularly for those with a family history (and therefore a likely genetic susceptibility) of breast cancer. In vitro radiobiological data are generally acquired at high doses, and there are different extrapolation mechanisms to the low doses seen clinically.”

Transportation Security Administration union representatives in Boston say that radiation from full-body scanners be responsible for a “cancer cluster” among airport security workers.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained documents from the Department of Homeland Security which they say provide evidence that the government failed to properly test the safety of full-body scanners. Many scientists have expressed skepticism about the safety testing of the devices, claiming that the TSA relies on tests performed by the manufacturers of the scanners themselves.

According to Time Magazine:

“Although TSA union reps at Boston’s Logan Airport asked that the agency allow its screeners to wear radiation-monitoring devices, the TSA has yet to provide the dosimeters, EPIC said. Meanwhile, another document obtained by EPIC shows that NIST recommends that TSA screeners avoid standing next to the scanners whenever possible, and a Johns Hopkins University study finds that radiation zones around body scanners could potentially exceed the ‘General Public Dose Limit.’”

The website Green Med Info has assembled a list of studies that found evidence of over 40 conditions that chlorella can help to prevent or ease.

The conditions include:

• Hypertension

• Anemia

• Diabetes

• Acute Stress

• Fibromyalgia

• Liver Cancer

According to one of the studies on the subject:

“Chlorella vulgaris (CV) has been reported to have antioxidant and anticancer properties … Our study shows that CV has definite chemopreventive effect by inducing apoptosis … in hepatocarcinogenesis [liver cancer] induced rats”.

The website Green Med Info has assembled a list of studies that found evidence of over 40 conditions that chlorella can help to prevent or ease.

The conditions include:

• Hypertension

• Anemia

• Diabetes

• Acute Stress

• Fibromyalgia

• Liver Cancer

According to one of the studies on the subject:

“Chlorella vulgaris (CV) has been reported to have antioxidant and anticancer properties … Our study shows that CV has definite chemopreventive effect by inducing apoptosis … in hepatocarcinogenesis [liver cancer] induced rats”.

A set of studies assembled on the website Green Med Info shows that acid blocking proton pump inhibitor drugs may play a role in a score of diseases, including stomach cancer. The conditions induced by these drugs may include:

• Hip fractures

• Clostridium difficile infection

• Acute gastroenteritis

• Diarrhea

• Pneumonia

According to one study collected by the site:

“The [drug] induced gastric neuroendocrine (carcinoid) ECL-cell tumor formation in 6/34 male and 8/37 female rats”.

Garlic has a truly astonishing number of health benefits.  The website Green Med Info has assembled studies that list more than 150 beneficial effects that garlic can have on your health.

The studies show that garlic:

• Inhibits cholesterol accumulation
• Reduces risk for heart attack and stroke
• May be effective against drug-resistant bacteria
• Lessens cadmium induced liver damage
• May have protective effects against cancer

According to one of the studies linked on the site:

“[A] uniquely large data set from southern European populations shows an inverse association between the frequency of use of allium vegetables and the risk of several common cancers. Allium vegetables are a favorable correlate of cancer risk in Europe.”

Garlic has a truly astonishing number of health benefits.  The website Green Med Info has assembled studies that list more than 150 beneficial effects that garlic can have on your health.

The studies show that garlic:

• Inhibits cholesterol accumulation
• Reduces risk for heart attack and stroke
• May be effective against drug-resistant bacteria
• Lessens cadmium induced liver damage
• May have protective effects against cancer

According to one of the studies linked on the site:

“[A] uniquely large data set from southern European populations shows an inverse association between the frequency of use of allium vegetables and the risk of several common cancers. Allium vegetables are a favorable correlate of cancer risk in Europe.”

Garlic has a truly astonishing number of health benefits.  The website Green Med Info has assembled studies that list more than 150 beneficial effects that garlic can have on your health.

The studies show that garlic:

• Inhibits cholesterol accumulation
• Reduces risk for heart attack and stroke
• May be effective against drug-resistant bacteria
• Lessens cadmium induced liver damage
• May have protective effects against cancer

According to one of the studies linked on the site:

“[A] uniquely large data set from southern European populations shows an inverse association between the frequency of use of allium vegetables and the risk of several common cancers. Allium vegetables are a favorable correlate of cancer risk in Europe.”

Cosmetics are an important source of contact with formaldehyde. A study was conducted to acquire data on the frequency of use of formaldehyde-releasers in cosmetics.

FDA data showed that were formaldehyde releasers in a quarter of 500 skin care products examined.

According to the study, as reported by Green Med Info:

“In 25 percent of 496 examined skin care products, releasers were present. In comparable FDA data categories, the percentage was 24.”

Cosmetics are an important source of contact with formaldehyde. A study was conducted to acquire data on the frequency of use of formaldehyde-releasers in cosmetics.

FDA data showed that were formaldehyde releasers in a quarter of 500 skin care products examined.

According to the study, as reported by Green Med Info:

“In 25 percent of 496 examined skin care products, releasers were present. In comparable FDA data categories, the percentage was 24.”

Not the Governor who pushed for the move, apparently.

Earlier this month, I wrote about how Republican-led efforts to defund Planned Parenthood in Tennessee will affect women in Nashville – one of two TN cities where the state usually gives federal family planning and cancer prevention money to Planned Parenthood. In Nashville, that money will now go to the local health department, which explicitly said that it doesn’t expect to serve the same number of women for the money.

Planned Parenthood made up the gap between the federal funds and what it takes to actually serve Nashville’s women by raising funds from donations. The health department does not expect any additional funds to make the shortfall, and would need local tax increases to make up the difference.

As at least one Twitter friend observed, the irony of Republicans causing health care to be shifted *to* the government – and needing to raise taxes if the same level of service is to be provided – is just too bitter to appreciate.

Jeff Woods has additional follow-up on this story for the Nashville City Paper, where he writes, “Told that health officials fear thousands of women might lose services once Planned Parenthood is denied federal money…the governor wouldn’t acknowledge the problem.”

“It’s news to me if that’s true,” he said. “Nobody’s told me that.

Oh, really?

As I pointed out in the previous post, the letter from the Metro Public Health director accepting the money was pretty damn explicit that the same number of women would not be served.

Perhaps Governor Haslam never saw that letter. Perhaps State Health Commissioner Susan Cooper, who reportedly pressed Metro to accept the funds at Haslam’s urging, didn’t tell her boss that this political “win” came with a downside for women seeking health care. Perhaps nobody on the Governor’s staff reads the news and not a single person involved in the political pressure to move the funds either thought of or worried about the implications and was willing to say so. I’ll pause here so we can all ponder whether that seems likely, and what it means if it is.

Notice that the quote Woods got from the Governor doesn’t say, “That’s news to me, and we’ll make sure the same level of preventive care and family planning services is provided, because the health of Tennessee’s women, including vulnerable low-income women, is important to me.” There is no “we’ll check on that” addendum, at least in Woods’s reporting. What this suggests is that the Governor Haslam may not have known – which is problematic on its own – but doesn’t especially care. “Nobody’s told me that” is a brush-off, one that doesn’t commit Haslam to any future worrying about or follow-up on this issue.

I also wrote in my previous post that I am troubled by public health officials accepting this money knowing that doing so, in addition to playing a part in a ridiculous political agenda, would mean fewer women getting the same services for the same money. In Woods’s piece, Metro Health Director Bill Paul weakly defends this move with the excuse that he thought the state legislature might kill the funding altogether if he didn’t. “I honestly was quite concerned that the money would go away completely,” he said.

I’d like to know how Paul thinks that would have worked out given that the funds are federal, and would have put Tennessee in basically the same position as Indiana. The state trying such a move might actually have worked out better for Nashville’s women, because the federal funding agency might have stepped in at that point as they have in Indiana – which was already happening when Paul accepted the funds in Nashville.

Paul reportedly told Woods he hopes nonprofit family planning providers will fill the unmet need caused by Metro taking the funds. Uh, again, nonprofit family planning providers LIKE PLANNED PARENTHOOD? Paul played a role in solidifying that gap in services by accepting funds that would have been supplemented by private donations if they had one to Planned Parenthood. And now he hopes some unnamed non-profit family planning provider – presumably through private donations – can make up the gap? Who does he think is likely to do that? Is this really just a way of saying, “We took the money because of political pressure, but we really hope Planned Parenthood can keep providing those services, because we know and have acknowledged that we don’t have the capacity?” Maybe Paul’s secretly a great guy in a tough position, but I’m pretty sure being complicit in this situation was not the best way to protect or promote the public’s health.

Filed under: Access, Rights, & Choice, Adolescent Health, Cancer, Contraception, Ethics, Government, Health, Sex & Sex Education, Vaginas & Vulvas, Women’s Health

There have been a variety of estimates of the benefits and harms of mammographic screening for breast cancer.  A study aimed to assess the effect of screening for breast cancer on mortality and morbidity.

The researchers found that, while screening were likely to reduce breast cancer mortality, screening also led to a 30 percent rate of overdiagnosis and overtreatment — which meant that all in all it actually increased the absolute risk by 0.5 percent.

According to the study, as reported by Green Med Info:

“This means that for every 2000 women invited for screening throughout 10 years, one will have her life prolonged and 10 healthy women, who would not have been diagnosed if there had not been screening, will be treated unnecessarily.”

Collectively, these diseases and problems kill nearly one million men annually. But if you understand your risks, you can learn how to negate them.  Here are the 5 top killers of men, with tips from Yahoo Health on how to avoid them:

Stroke:  Each year, nearly 50,000 American men die of a stroke.  Keep your blood pressure at 120/80 or lower.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease:  COPD claims the lives of close to 60,000 men each year.  Most were smokers.

Accidents:  80,000 men die each year in accidents, including 30,000 from auto accidents.  You can lower your odds of being in one by not texting while driving.

Cancer:  Cancer kills nearly 300,000 men a year.  The Mediterranean diet could lower your risk.

Heart Disease:  More than 390,000 men die of this each year.  Remember that mall lifestyle changes can yield big results when it comes to improving heart health.

Green Med Info has assembled a collection of studies that show the great health benefits of consuming krill.  Krill affects as many as 24 diseases and conditions, including:

• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Chronic inflammation
• Colon cancer
• PMS

According to one study linked by Green Med Info:

“[The] findings indicated that the consumption of [krill oil] may provide benefits to control serum lipid levels in certain diseases and inhibit growth of colon cancer cells. Therefore, [krill oil] may be a good candidate for development as a functional food and nutraceutical.”