It’s been 13 years since a United States Surgeon General issued a public health advisory, but on Thursday Jerome Adams did so to urge every person to carry the overdose-reversal medication naloxone.
“Neither this [advisory] nor naloxone is a panacea,” said Surgeon General Adams at the National Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit. Instead, the advisory serves as a way to draw attention to a public health crisis, where more Americans have died of drug overdoses in 2016...
health
Health department removes breast cancer and Obamacare info from women’s health website
The Department of Health and Human Service’s (HHS) Office on Women’s Health removed a webpage dedicated to breast cancer and other helpful reproductive health information, including important insurance information for low-income people, according to a new report.
The Sunlight Foundation’s Web Integrity Project first reported the missing webpage. The group has been documenting page or link removals from the OWH website and shared its most recent report with ThinkPro...
The 2020 Census citizenship question will affect your health care
Monday’s announcement that the 2020 census will include a question about citizenship was quickly met with uproar. Census data, is in a very big way, the bedrock of our democracy, as it’s used to decide congressional seats and electors in each state and how voting districts are drawn.
But it’s also incredibly important how federal funds are divvied out to state and localities. And that includes health care.
Asking about citizenship on the census dissuades man...
Kellyanne Conway on opioids: ‘Eat the ice cream, eat the french fry, don’t do the street drug’
Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway offered her advice to a group of millennials Thursday, encouraging them to just eat more junk food instead of turning to opioids.
“On our college campuses, your folks are reading the labels, they won’t put any sugar in their body, they don’t eat carbs anymore, and they’re very, very fastidious about what goes into their body,” Conway said at a meeting with young people at the White House. “And then you b...
In bizarre opioid speech, Trump barely mentions treatment but has a lot to say about immigrants
In a strange Monday afternoon speech on opioid policy, President Donald Trump dedicated the bulk of his time to ideas that would be likely to worsen the crisis.
Reporters who had been briefed on the administration’s plans ahead of time wrote that the White House seeks to put force behind a 12-point guideline for the proper, safe prescribing of opioids that has languished for two years after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released them. The move would be a rare ...
Iowa House to vote on one of the most draconian anti-abortion measures in the country
A bill prohibiting the sale of fetal tissue and banning abortion after six weeks passed the Iowa House and Human Resources Committee on Thursday, clearing the way for a floor vote in the state House that reproductive justice advocates say could have sweeping consequences in the state and all but ban the procedure before most people even know they are pregnant.
In a 12 to 9 vote, Iowa lawmakers endorsed the so-called “heartbeat bill”, which would ban abortion after a feta...
Nebraska is mere steps away from defunding Planned Parenthood
The funding for Planned Parenthood’s Lincoln South Health Center, a clinic where Brooke Thomas gets birth control shots every three months to deal with excruciating pain, is at risk. The Nebraska Legislature advanced a budget bill Tuesday evening that includes language that would deny Planned Parenthood and other local family planning clinics public funds. In a 38-6 vote, lawmakers voted to block federal Title X funding to clinics that perform, counsel, or refer abortion services.
Health care is a top priority for the Pennsylvania voters who turned out for Conor Lamb
While many Republican strategists and conservative pundits struggled to make sense of how a Democrat could have been so successful in Pennsylvania’s 18th district on Tuesday, voters sent a clear message: Health care is a priority.
Election night exit polling by Public Policy Polling found that among PA-18 voters who said health care was the most important issue, Democrat Conor Lamb beat Republican Rick Saccone by a margin of 64 to 36. Saccone’s support of the Republican health care ...
Mental health providers are failing bisexual patients
Last fall, I made an appointment with a new psychiatrist, hoping to explore my options for more effective treatment for my lifelong struggle with depression and anxiety. Life under the Trump regime has taken a harsh toll on me as an openly queer/bisexual woman, and like so many of my friends and fellow advocates from various social justice movements and marginalized communities, my regular regimen of antidepressants and self-care simply isn’t cutting it anymore.
Having been to this ...
Wisconsin seeks to bring costly, ineffective drug testing to Medicaid
Over the past several months, Wisconsin lawmakers have waged a war on the state’s Medicaid program by requesting federal permission to add time-limits, work rules, and drug tests. But new data obtained by ThinkProgress suggests these drug tests are especially costly and virtually ineffective at enabling care. And if the Trump administration green-lights Wisconsin’s request, taxpayers will have to pay for it.
Requiring people who depend on government benefits to pee in a ...