Sore Spots & G-Spots

Sore Spots

On May 31, abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was murdered while attending church in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. Tiller was one of the nation’s few doctors who performed late-term abortions. Tiller endured multiple acts of domestic terrorism aimed at preventing him from practicing medicine, including a bombing at his clinic in 1985, mass protests and demonstrations in 1991, and being shot in both arms in 1993. Despite this, Dr. Tiller remained committed to help women receive necessary health care. We mourn his loss and hope that his killers will be brought to justice.

Pharmaceutical companies are using the popular website www.RealAge.com to target you for marketing. The side has been heavily publicized as a result of its affiliation with Dr. Oz, Oprah’s favorite doctor. The site calculates your “real age” based on answers to about 150 lifestyle and health-related questions, and sends the estimate to your email address. What RealAge doesn’t tell users is that both their responses and e-mail address are sold to pharmaceutical companies so they can market drugs directly to you. We hope Oprah will expose this site’s misleading practices!

Nationally, Cesarean section rates have been increasing every year and have increased by more than 50% over the last decade. In Florida, however, many counties have C-section rates well above this average. In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, the number of C-sections has surpassed vaginal births — at one hospital, fully 70% of all births were by Cesarean. Good evidence shows that the majority of C-sections aren’t medically necessary, and are often driven by hospital requirements and physician attitudes. It's time for an attitude adjustment!

G Spots

Thanks to the work of Breast Cancer Action, food product manufacturer General Mills has committed to making yogurt without the use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), which has been linked to cancer. General Mill’s popular yogurt brand Yoplait has been a major sponsor of the Komen Race for the Cure since 2001. It’s ironic that General Mills needed a prompting from a small women’s health organization to do what’s right and put women’s health before profits -- but we’re glad they listened.

The Obama Administration proposed a new $110 million Teen Pregnancy Prevention initiative in its 2010 Health and Human Services Budget. The new program would replace finding in place since 1996 to support programs that aggressively promoted abstinence-only until marriage. Bringing science back to public health, the new initiative “addresses rising teen pregnancy rates by supporting evidence-based models that provide medically-accurate and age-appropriate resources to reduce the risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.”

The FDA recently ordered a “black box” warning to be placed on testosterone gel. Testosterone gel is only approved for men who need testosterone, but it is sometimes promoted (off-label) to increase women’s sex drive. The black box warning makes the gel’s dangers much more clear – pregnant women should avoid it due to the possibility of birth defects; adults must be careful to avoid exposing children to the gel, as it can cause numerous physical and mental health problems including aggressive behavior, early aging of bones, premature puberty, and increased sex drive.