ICYMI news for women
No TL;DR. Just the facts, ma’am. Brand new headlines; click your picks!
Sunday Snippets is a perk for paid subscribers, released later for all viewers. We round up recent women’s health news that we haven’t otherwise posted about—just the headlines and the link for the story. See what interests you and click for more.
In the news this week: Was the promise to restore WHI hot air, while the EU jumps way ahead of us on women’s health? Another hidden cost of having a baby in America—death in the year after birth. Are we starting to see pushback on abortion laws states refuse to clarify, leaving providers in the middle? A man sacrifices his body to save our kids and us from snakebites; DOJ goes after medical research journals, and more evidence new women’s research and innovation may come from the private side—including MIT. A long overdue test to predict pregnancy complications, and handling symptoms before, during and after menopause, including for neurodivergent women, and a lot more this week!
May is National Women’s Health Month: Keep an eye out for special screenings, information sessions and other events in your area. Take advantage!
Tip on getting around paywalls: If you hit a paywall, try copying the URL into https://archive.ph. Depending on traffic, it can take a few minutes but usually works well.
This week’s headlines
Women’s Health Initiative (WHI): Last week, the big news was that funding for the landmark women’s health study was pulled by the Trump administration. In response to worldwide pushback, three days later the WH announced restored funding. However, this week, WHI researchers say that DC is silent. See more in Stat News: Despite Kennedy’s stated support, funding for Women’s Health Initiative remains in limbo.
The gaps in our own health knowledge are huge: Cleveland Clinic: Survey reveals insights into women's health, sheds light on gaps in knowledge and barriers to care, with surprising gaps in what we know about ourselves, and new interest in participating in research trials. (Stick around—we’re working on that!)
We’ve written previously about OB-Gyns abandoning 12 states that can’t afford to lose them. Now one state is actively recruiting those physicians: Hey, Texas! We’ll take your women’s healthcare doctors if you don’t want them, part of a Choose New Jersey Reproductive Rights Campaign. Are we starting to see a tipping point on restrictive laws in those 12 states that also refuse to define how physicians can or can’t be in compliance with the law? Regardless of where you are on the polarizing issue of abortion, writing a law is one issue. Refusing to clarify what physicians can or can’t do affects availability of all women’s healthcare as physicians refuse to be caught in the middle.
Neurodivergent women are at even more risk during menopause: Falling estrogen, soaring ADHD: Menopause care for neurodivergent women. “The transition to menopause is, arguably, the most consequential stage of life for women with ADHD” with an escalation of cognitive and physical symptoms that women with ADHD already experience.
Women Unbroken will be talking about the real issues behind our record low fertility rates next week, but here’s yet another hidden cost of having a baby in America: One third of maternal deaths occur long after delivery—and so are largely unrecognized and ignored. (Click for the free JAMA research publication.)
In this administration’s continuing zeal to shape what we see and hear, Medical journals hit with threatening letters from Justice Department. The requirement for publication in a medical journal has always been objectivity: prove your objectivity, or you don’t get published. RFK Jr’s approach is the opposite: “prove what I believe,” and the DOJ appears eager to help.
More evidence that women’s health research and innovation will come from the private side: Fierce Healthcare: Jill Biden teams up with Milliken Institute to create a women’s health network. Check our archives for many articles on how investors are taking up the slack, and how we can be part of that.
More on how investor-owned companies are getting into women’s health: Fierce Healthcare: Telehealth company LifeMD accelerates push into women's health market with acquisition deal
And it’s not just investors: Only 1% of research and innovation funding addresses female-specific conditions beyond oncology, and less than that focused on sexual and reproductive health. Sometimes it’s hard to remember we’re >50% of the world population. MIT Solve, IE University and Women of Wearables are launching The equalizer challenge: Scaling women’s health innovation, “designed to provide catalytic, equity-free funding while empowering innovators to amplify their impact and scale up transformative solutions for women’s health.” That’s a lot of syllables to say (again) that outside players recognize a huge opportunity our government is missing.
If you hike, garden, or have inquisitive kids, help may be on the way for (unbelievably expensive) snakebite antivenom: He let snakes bite him some 200 times to create a better snakebite antivenom.
At a time when our own government seems intent on getting us back to the 1950s kitchen, it’s refreshing to see the EU take a very different approach: EPHA responds to the European Parliament’s Women’s Health Survey. (It’s probably just a coincidence that the US Congress is a record 25% female, but the EU Parliament is 40% female. Just sayin.’) And they responded within a month of publication of the survey results—imagine that! (But it’s socialized medicine, you know—can’t have that.) Their focus will be on
Universal access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), including safe abortion care and maternal healthcare. (The EU has played a big role in promoting and protecting SRHR domestically and globally. See more here.)
Inclusive and gender-sensitive healthcare systems, supported by anti-bias training and culturally safe services.
Greater EU action on mainstreaming women’s health across Member States, particularly for marginalised and/or vulnerable groups.
Intersectional research funding and the collection of disaggregated data to inform targeted interventions.
Integration of women’s health into existing frameworks.
OK, this is geeky, but it is absolutely true for those of us with a marketing bent: Despite women appearing in twice as many images and videos used in healthcare marketing than men, women in mid‑life are the least represented and are 77% less likely to be shown in marketing than younger or older generations. Said another way, those images about health are of young, often sexy, women or feeble 110-year-olds. And that’s midlife—imagine finding decent images of nice, normal Boomer and Builder/Silent generation women.) Women Unbroken uses images extensively, and in our experience, image searches mostly go from beguiling babes in bikinis to almost hairless crones in imminent danger of death. This is where I note 65% of web designers are men—and that’s way down from the recent past. Kudos to Magdalena Wolk (a woman, of course) of Getty Images for reporting on the issue: Visibility gap in women’s health.
Professional news that’s fairly understandable without a doctorate
Contemporary OB/Gyn week in review:
Cardian arrhythmias in pregnancy (click for video)
Gaps in women’s menopause knowledge (video)
Fertility: a test to evaluate egg quantity relative to age (video)
Managing vaginal and urinary issues during menopause (article)
Public health shortcoming in helping moms after delivery (video)
Iron levels linked to reduced brain fog during menopause (article)
New RNA platform can predict pregnancy complications (article)