COVID-19

The White House’s Medical Misinformation Is Harming American Children

PUBLISHED 4/11/2026 by

Amid a war in Iran, the Epstein files, Americans gunned down in the Twin Cities, the gutting of the Department of Justice and more, domestic health policy might not be at the top of mind. Yet, American children are being harmed.

Vaccine mandates are being lifted across the United States, and the consequences are immediate and measurable.

In 2000, U.S. healthcare officials declared measles eradicated nationwide—a major public health achievement now under threat. As politicians weaponize science and elevate misinformation, measles cases are rapidly rising, driven overwhelmingly by low vaccination rates among children.

How did we get here? Disinformation, conspiracy theories and debunked claims about childhood vaccines have been transformed into political talking points and, in some cases, policy guidance. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—once globally respected—has been hollowed out, with key experts pushed out or resigning in protest.

Under the Trump administration, measles has not only returned but surged to record levels, following actions like the dismissal of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, long considered the gold standard for vaccine guidance.

The consequences are not abstract. Before the measles vaccine, millions of Americans were infected each year, with thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of hospitalizations. Children suffered encephalitis, pneumonia and lifelong complications; pregnant women faced miscarriage and death. That history is not distant—it is a warning.

Today, as vaccination rates decline and exemptions rise, the United States risks repeating it. Protecting children requires rejecting political distortions of science and recommitting to evidence-based public health—before more preventable harm is done.

The Strange Hopefulness of Growing a Human While the World Burns

PUBLISHED 2/14/2026 by

As I write this, I’m in my third trimester, anxious and excited for my daughter’s arrival, which feels imminent.

Yes, it’s an extremely dark time, but that’s not exactly a historical outlier. People have been making babies throughout the worst of them. And nothing motivates me more to build a better future for all of us than this little girl—who, like every child, deserves safety, stability, love and care, and a world equipped to give it to her.

I can’t wait for her to see it.

Mifepristone Could Treat Endometriosis, Some Cancers, Depression and Chronic Illness—If Politics Didn’t Interfere

PUBLISHED 1/21/2026 by

Across a range of conditions that disproportionately affect women, research into mifepristone’s potential has been slowed, defunded or blocked altogether. Nowhere is that clearer than in the treatment of endometriosis and other serious illnesses that leave millions of women in chronic pain.

Endometriosis—when endometrium cells grow outside the uterus—afflicts an estimated 10 percent of reproductive-age women. It can lead to chronic pelvic and back pain, heavy or abnormal bleeding, pain during sex or bowel movements, fatigue, bloating, digestive issues, infertility, anxiety and depression.

Mifepristone can help—it blocks the progesterone causing the cellular growth and decreases the size of existing endometrial lesions, thereby relieving painful symptoms. But antiabortion politics have obstructed the development of the medication for these uses in the U.S.

Researchers have also produced studies showing mifepristone is effective for treating ovarian and breast cancer, chronic inflammatory diseases, and several psychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psychotic depression.

This is Part 2 of 3 in a new series, “The Moral Property of Women: How Antiabortion Politics Are Withholding Medical Care,” a serialized version of the Winter 2026 print feature article.

bell hooks Taught Us to Imagine Freedom. Universities Are Forcing Us to Fight for It.

PUBLISHED 12/15/2025 by

On the day bell hooks became an ancestor, four years ago today, my beloved friend, comrade and co-conspirator Black feminist sociologist Shawn McGuffey and I were consoling one another over text when he wrote, “We should do something.” “Say less,” I replied.

We had institutional support from Northeastern University at a time when universities and other institutions were publicly and ceremoniously committing to funding DEI related initiatives in the tidal wave of so-called racial reckoning that occurred in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. The first symposium took place two months later on a cold and clear February morning in 2022. This annual gathering became an important tradition that we looked forward to each year.

This week, we mark four years since the woman born Gloria Jean Watkins, a Black feminist writer, academic, professor and activist became an ancestor. But in 2026, there will be no bell hooks symposium at my university. Due to university wide fiscal austerity, we will not mark the anniversary this year in any official way. It is a tremendous loss, for our students and for our community locally, nationally and internationally.

As I grappled with my own grief over this loss, I had to also reflect deeply about what it means to be a Black feminist scholar in the academy today.

Toward More Connected, Caring and Equitable Online Classrooms: Groundbreaking Anthology Advances Feminist Approaches to Remote Teaching

PUBLISHED 12/8/2025 by

An exciting new anthology, Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online synthesizes decades of experience and pushes forward dynamic conversations about feminist pedagogy and remote learning, offering a meaningful and much-needed contribution to this area of research and teaching.

Overall, the collection strives to explore how online education can “align more thoughtfully with intersectional feminism and practices of social justice education.”

Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online, in print and as an electronic book, was preceded by the FeministsTeach.org website. The website went viral in August 2020 when large numbers of college professors were grappling with how to teach online. Two of the anthology’s coeditors compiled resources for colleagues at the Newcomb Institute at Tulane University for online teaching.

A Game-Changing Approach: Providing Anonymous Hotel Check-Ins for Domestic and Sexual Violence Survivors

PUBLISHED 10/24/2025 by

Safe Stays by ReloShare partners with hotels nationwide to protect survivors’ identities and expand access to secure housing.

“When guests check in, hotel staff often insist on seeing their identification and recording their full name. Because hotel staff members are not trained advocates, she said, they probably won’t be on high alert if an abuser calls or walks through the door,” said Ruth Glenn, the former chief executive and president of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. And “leaving is often the most dangerous time for survivors of abuse,” according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

Paige Allmendinger, Safe Stays by ReloShare’s chief product officer, told Ms., “First, we needed the ability for a guest to check in under a fake name, with no ID required at check-in. If the survivor’s real name isn’t tied to the reservation and an abuser calls the hotel searching for them, there won’t be any record that the survivor is in-house, giving the survivor a degree of protection at the very time they need it most.

“Second, we needed hotels to forego the usual requirement for a credit card from the guest or agency at check-in. Credit-card transactions can expose location putting survivors at risk. While social service organizations may have funding to pay for hotel stays, many have limited credit lines for upfront payment or can’t send staff in person to present a card at check-in.”

One in Three U.S. Women Is Stalked. A Harvard Study Is Finally Talking About It.

PUBLISHED 10/22/2025 by

When Tammy was being stalked by her ex, she didn’t know what to do or where to go. Tammy said it was the roughest part of her life, mentally and physically. Soon after, Human Options, a nonprofit based on Orange County, Calif., became her outlet and a safe haven for her to receive legal counseling and housing.

Tammy’s case is not isolated. In a recent study out of Harvard, 66,270 women were studied over a nearly 20-year period to determine the health effects of stalking: Women become more susceptible to heart disease.

From Veterans to Caregivers—The Importance of Expanding Remote Education for Women Worldwide

PUBLISHED 9/27/2025 by

We need to continue normalizing and destigmatizing nontraditional remote learning opportunities as valid, accessible pathways toward women’s realization of their right to an education. 

This means expanding the number of hybrid and remote learning options available through well-established colleges and universities.

It means rethinking the types of technological adaptations deemed as “undue hardships” in the context of student disability.

It means investing in longitudinal research regarding best pedagogical practices—the impacts of evidence-based instructional interventions in the remote learning milieu—and in the professional development of online instructors in synchronous and asynchronous online programs to ensure impact. 

To do so is to ensure that those who fight to pursue their education in nontraditional ways are not shortchanged, but rather equipped with the social and intellectual capital needed to work against the existential threats of our time.

The Abortion Pill That Transformed Medicine Is Under Attack

PUBLISHED 9/26/2025 by | UPDATED 10/1/2025 at 12:13 P.M. PT

By approving mifepristone (the first pill in the two-step medication abortion regimen), the Food and Drug Administration gave people access to one of the safest, most effective and most studied medications in modern medicine.

Yet despite overwhelming evidence and broad public support, there are relentless attempts to restrict access to mifepristone. In 2023, a coalition led by extremist antiabortion groups filed a lawsuit seeking to roll back the FDA’s approval of the drug (which the Supreme Court ultimately dismissed). But the attacks have continued, fueled by a dangerous belief that science is optional.

We’ve seen it with COVID vaccines. We’ve seen it with birth control. We’ve seen it in lawsuits claiming Tylenol causes autism. We’ve even seen people question milk pasteurization and folic acid in prenatal vitamins—two of the most basic public health measures we have. The through line is the same: Ignore the evidence, stir up doubt and leave patients to bear the consequences.