More Than A Magazine, A Movement
For The Weekly Pulse, we’ve scoured the most trusted journalistic sources—and, of course, our Twitter feeds—to bring you this week’s most important news stories related to health and wellness.
This week: updates on the pandemic as cases rise worldwide; birth control users question the FDA pause on distribution of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine; the Biden administration bolsters reproductive health by lifting medication abortion restrictions and undoing the domestic gag rule; and more.
Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in America to receive a medical degree, in 1849. Becoming a doctor as qualified as any man was a noble ideological quest.
“The idea of winning a doctor’s degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral struggle,” she wrote, “and the moral fight possessed immense attraction for me.”
The dismissal of women’s symptoms is an epidemic; women are constantly ignored within the healthcare system, blocking them from receiving the health care they desperately need.
When women are elected to office they make a difference for woman. Kamala Harris has been committed to resolving the rape kit backlog and ensuring an administrative and legislative system that brings justice to all who have been raped or sexually assaulted.
The Sex, Gender and COVID-19 project tracks gender differences in infection rates and health outcomes for COVID-19. Launched as a joint project between Global Health 50/50,The International Center for Research on Women and the African Population and Health Research Center, the dashboard provides access to data on 173 countries.
In 1989, the Physician’s Health Study on the benefits of aspirin for heart disease included 22,000 men and no women—and while we have made great strides toward more representative research in the decades since, women still aren’t included in biomedical research at a proportionate rate.
While President Trump prepared to deliver his “State of the Union” address, Mothering Justice Michigan Executive Director Eboni Taylor offered an address to highlight disparities and inequalities Black mothers face and to challenge the public and policymakers to take action.
Teaching young patients to advocate for themselves at every medical appointment and to ask informed questions before consenting to exams may help correct for an imbalance of power between patients and physicians.
In the aftermath of my son’s birth, I found myself caught between two clashing world views.
Until we learn to truly trust the people giving birth to know what’s best for themselves and their babies, we will continue to spend more healthcare dollars per person than any other country—while killing and traumatizing increasing numbers of parents with our ignorance.
