Blog

By Tessa Ruff In Kentucky this spring, unvaccinated eighteen-year-old Jerome Kunkel sued the Northern Kentucky Health Department when he was blocked from participating in his school’s basketball team following a chickenpox outbreak at his private Catholic school. The health department had implemented a three-week ban for unvaccinated students to attend classes or participate in extracurricular activities ...

I received innumerable calls in the last few months encouraging me to sign up for Medicare. The callers know one important fact about me: I’m turning 65 soon. With a few exceptions, age is all that counts with Medicare. Turn 65 and you’re eligible. The story was different when my 27-year-old daughter enrolled in Medicaid during ...

By Tessa Ruff Human sexuality, pregnancy prevention, and pregnancy intention are all complicated issues. And, people must balance a range of trade-offs when selecting the contraceptive option that works best for their unique situation. Many methods are available, which work differently and have diverse side effects, as well as other important considerations. Complicating matters, what one ...

By Tessa Ruff In 2016, the FDA reclassified transvaginal mesh used to repair pelvic organ prolapse (POP) as a Class III device—the highest risk category—in response to over 20,000 adverse event reports during a three-year period alone. The NWHN actively fought for the change, which also should have required manufacturers to submit thorough, randomized safety and ...

By: Caitlin Hoff, Consumer Advocate at ConsumerSafety and NWHN Staff The National Women’s Health Network (NWHN) has long advocated for the greater participation of women and other key groups in clinical trials for all drugs and devices, and particularly for products that are principally marketed and used by women.  For decades, health research was done on men ...

The decision to breast- or formula-feed is a highly personal one, with the right answer varying parent to parent. But this is not an article about the benefits of breastfeeding or about concerns that previous studies may have exaggerated those benefits. This isn’t an overview of the long coercive history of formula companies or the ...

By Tessa Ruff “I have had transmasculine patients who have told me they would not feel comfortable seeking an abortion in a clinic—a waiting room full of female-identified people can be triggering. I have had a patient tell me that taking any more time off of work would risk them getting fired or that finding ...

In the wake of historic election gains for women last fall and opinion polls this month showing that Americans (correctly) blamed Donald Trump for the longest government shutdown in history, it’s easy to feel complacent. It might seem like we’ve overcome the information challenges that defined the 2016 election when, for example, the media’s obsession ...

By Tessa Ruff My peers and I have access to more information about our bodies and our health than ever before, encouraging us to take care of ourselves and make well-informed decisions. But informed and well-informed are not the same and sometimes Google searches can be disempowering—particularly when the top hits promote pseudoscience, debunked claims, and ...

By: Lily O’Connor Coates I don’t know about you, but I very clearly remember the first time I learned about my body in grade school. It was fifth grade and all of us girls were separated from the boys and brought into a classroom with a projector. Without a word, our teachers set up the ...