Dec 7: ICYMI news for women
No TL;DR. Just the facts, ma'am. Dozens of new articles in the last week alone that matter to women. Click your picks: we watch the news so you don't have to.
Sunday Snippets is a round-up of the week’s headlines about women’s health and lives that we haven’t covered in our Notes or posts. Snippets goes first to our terrific paid subscribers, then later to free subscribers. It takes a full day each week to search the news and add context. If you find Snippets valuable, give us a shout-out with a❤️ or a share, or reward us one time with a much needed espresso (or snippet of win) or—definitely best of all—a subscription to support what we do. We do it for you.
In the news this week for women: Cover pic: like Obama, she lives rent-free in Trump’s brain. Seriously this huge organization is finally saying women can go to a GYN doctor without daddy saying it’s OK? 2025 felt awful, but was actually a terrific year for women’s health; see why here. Weird things we never knew vaccines prevented, including one that may decrease dementia. Power up Fluffy’s defluffing? Night trips to the bathroom: what’s too often, and how to decrease trips. Light boxes—do they work? HPV vaccine highly successful in preventing women’s and men’s cancers, and one shot may be OK. Hints for Santa, including vagus nerve stress bio-hacks. More than any of us ever wanted to know about ACIP’s “reckless” play on Hep B vaccine—and the states already bucking it. Lead in cookware? Caffeine drinks and health, and the worst ultraprocessed foods. Med recalls: blood pressure and ADHD meds. Winter holiday sleep hacks. Weird new cancer in young people, and the huge increase in scromiting. Do vegetarian diets change breast milk? AI deepfakes of real doctors selling fake menopause fixes. Music and dementia, and the best exercise routine for older women—hint: not yoga, walking or swimming. 10 days before ACA fail—catch up on the dysfunction here. Chatbots and your medical records: not ready for prime time. And a touch of men’s health just to be fair.
Make sure you check our posts and Notes: We’re updating more frequently there to keep Snippets a readable length.
Tip: If you hit a paywall here or anywhere, copy the URL of the article into archive.ph.1
See our footnotes and italicized comments for context from our 30+ years in healthcare.
Articles marked with an asterisk (*) are from professional journals.
Disclaimer: Listing these headlines does not indicate a recommendation. With so many news items each week, we don’t take the time to review each. Use common sense and dig deeper into any issue that interests you. More on sources and bias.2
This week’s Women in the News cover pic
Rosie O’Donnell was the first very public target of Trump’s loud misogyny. In the 90s, she and Trump were both B-list celebs. Then in 2006, she took on Trump on The View and he immediately retaliated against her, calling her a slob. Two decades later, living an ocean apart, he still can’t get her out of his brain, and he’s become a routine misogynist, particularly if a woman—gasp!—dares to question him. Read this new article about Rosie’s life now in Ireland, where people cheerfully greet her with “we hate him, too.” (Gift article)
News about our bodies
- News on women’s health
Veterans Affairs joins the 20th century (yes, not even 21st) with Gyn access without PCP referral. Unexpected ways vaccines boost health—and shingles vaccine leads in decreasing dementia. Faulty glucose monitors cause death, injury. A pending announcement on yet more changes to life-saving vaccines is coming, and health leaders are already warning about it, as FDA has yet another personnel rupture, while Kennedy’s top vaccine advisor is caught saying he feels like a puppet on a string. Light boxes and SAD. Waking up to pee: how often and tricks to decrease trips. Could osteoporosis actually be reversed? HPV causes most cervical and other cancers and the vaccine greatly reduces cancer in both women and men. Plus a single dose may be as effective as two shots and new self-collection approved to improve pap access and privacy. Santa? 8 vagus nerve stimulus devices to bio-hack stress levels; here’s more on vagus nerve stimulation. And, finally…oh, boy—Ozempic for fat cats?
The states: FL issues red tide advisory in winter. CA mushroom foraging poisoning warning. WI, PA , CT, VT and West Coast Health Alliance quickly push back against “reckless” Hep B vaccine announcement.
Medication recalls: Ziac (high blood pressure); generic form of ADHD med; and more recalls, including compounded GLP-1 warning.
- Nutrition, exercise, sleep, and looking great
Foreign cookware lead warning. Hands on with new Fitbit personal health coach. Fruit strategies lower kidney risk. Coffee, caffeine products and health. The 6 worst ultraprocessed foods. Tips for better sleep—particularly during winter holidays.
- News by generation/lifestyle
We sort a bit here, but generation don’t have a ‘hard stop’—they overlap, so scan others, too.
Gen Z and Millennials
Diagnosed with cancer in her early 30s, she researches gifts Millennial cancer patients can use. A weird new cancer hits Millennials, and scromiting increases 10-fold among teens and young adults.
Pregnancy, birth and parenting
Kennedy’s HHS puts babies at needless risk for Hepatitis B at “chaotic, combative” meeting; here’s more from Dr. Jetelina. *Study: Black women still at far greater risk during pregnancy, birth; here’s what that looks like. Millions of kids on ADHD meds that can start a drug cascade. *Plant-based diets change fatty acids in breast milk in just 6 days, and *low Vit D in pregnancy leads to dental caries in kids. *Stopping GLP-1 in pregnancy leads to weight gain, complications.
Midlife and perimenopause
AI deepfakes of real doctors spread midlife health misinformation on social media, especially Tik-Tok. Newsom fixing menopause funding after Halle Berry scorched him; the misdiagnosis that kick-started her advocacy. (Gift article) Tricks to slow down aging in your 40s nd 60s. Survey: loneliest people are in 40s, 50s, and men more than women. For the Gen X sandwich generation, what you can do for those caring for adults in your life.
The free-to-be-me years
70+ music junkie? Good—lower risk of dementia. Deep dive: What drives life expectancy differences between the US and comparable countries? *Study: this exercise routine beats yoga, swimming and walking over 70. Fear of falls is real: here’s why.
News affecting our lives and families
Only 10 days left for Congress to fix ACA subsidies; catch up here on the latest. 2025 was finally huge for women’s health, with billions committed to overcome decades of research neglect. Be careful: Chatbots aren’t ready for uploaded personal medical records. Three ways US healthcare is getting worse. Deep dive from WHO on tracking universal health coverage worldwide (right—the US isn’t there). Murder of an insurance CEO led companies to promise to streamline prior authorization. A year later, nothing’s changed—except now all the execs have bodyguards. *Study: only 17% of Americans trust DC to do the right thing—an all-time low. UN: 137 women and girls killed every day by partners or family.
Men’s health: Men’s health by the numbers. Men are at higher risk for severe GI issues; here’s a primer. Is there a low T crisis? Here’s a good overview.
Archive.ph is a web archiving service that captures and preserves snapshots of web pages. If it’s a lesser-known site or if the article is very popular, it could take a few minutes to load, but it generally works very well—including, BTW, forwarding posts to Canada or other countries wisely concerned about some of our US media. And, yes, the FBI is now after it, so use while you can.
Sources: We check both public and professional news sites, with click-throughs for sources. We tend to go straight to the original info more than the interpretation of popular magazines and blogs, as we’ve found the latter do not always correctly interpret medical science information. Medical editors are becoming rare. We give you the news directly, including the primary studies when available, and leave you to your interpretation.
Bias: Yes, we’re biased. 1) We’ve been in women’s and children’s health for over three decades as providers, international consultants, and health system execs. If you’re in healthcare, with few exceptions, women’s and children’s services are not where you make money; those services are more often loss leaders. From policy to research to reimbursement for providers, women and children are second rate citizens, absolutely related to the historical perception of monetary value. So, you probably won’t be surprised we do not lean politically right on women’s health. We are center left but fair: we do not misrepresent data, and we do scan information from neutral and both center-left and center-right sites. It’s also possible we are a bit cynical. 2) We were trained in Western medicine, but have lived long enough to know much of Eastern and Ayurvedic medicine systems work just as well—what the US now calls “complementary and integrative medicine.” We strongly prefer actual scientific research to back up therapies, and definitely for therapies with potential harmful side effects. 3) If you’re wondering about media bias, check it on AllSides. We do. Another cool website and app (thank you, Julie L!) is ground.news, which rates political bias in particular stories.