ICYMI news for women - Aug 31

Yes, we have news — but perhaps nothing more than important to women and those we love than what happened in Minneapolis and Atlanta this week.

Sunday Snippets is a round-up of headlines about women’s health and lives from the past week that we haven’t covered in our regular posts. Snippets is a perk for our terrific paid subscribers, released two days later for all subscribers. It takes time — 10+ hours every week — to search for relevant news, add context and deeper dive links and get these news stories to you without ads or promotions. If you find this valuable, give us a shout-out with a❤️ or a share, or consider buying us a much needed espresso (or a snippet of wine?) or—definitely better yet—a paid subscription to support what we do for you.

Special note Aug 31, 2025: While Snippets is usually reserved first for paid subscribers, given the enormity of events this week we’re releasing it to everyone: we need to all be clear about what’s happening that dramatically impacts our health and the health and lives of those we love, and will for decades.

Our health: The destruction of the CDC—if allowed to continue—is mind-boggling. Beyond putting vaccines in doubt as the contagion season starts, Kennedy is quickly destroying the most preeminent public health authority in the world. These experienced scientists aren’t hatched overnight, and they’re actively being recruited by other countries. We have a separate post about this that we are updating daily, not duplicated here. Please go to that now and continuing this week as this politically-engineered chaos continues to unfold.

The health and lives of those we love: Children shot while they were praying. Folks, it’s the guns. We will never, ever predict everyone who might shoot someone; it’s impossible. They could be on top of the world today, get fired, and shoot kids tomorrow. All the talk about magically predicting mental health is delaying mumbo-jumbo. The US has the same percent of mental illness as other countries—and 10 times as many gun deaths. Without guns, they can’t shoot. With guns, we get kids shot at prayers. Don’t lose track of this with what’s going on at the CDC and, in particular, please don’t lose track of it in the ‘26 and ‘28 elections. WE let this happen; we can also make it no longer this way in our country. Here’s where we are:

• What you may not know: Gun violence is the #1 cause of death among our children in the US. We kill nine times more kids with guns that the second highest nation. Consider that: more kids die from gun violence every year here—and only here—than from all causes of accidents. More than car accidents, skiing, playground falls…more than all the damage that can be accidentally done to a little body.

• Here’s why you may not know that: Our government isn’t telling us; we have to get that info from outside organizations, who do not have the same power of communication. Why? In 1996, the Republican-dominated Congress passed the Dickey Amendment, which prevented the CDC and NIH from doing research on gun violence or publishing anything that could possibly, in anyone’s mind (like the NRA) be construed as advocating for gun control. We’ve been muttering prayers and thoughts ever since anytime someone waves the Second Amendment. That leaves creatures like Charlie Kirk able to openly say that gun violence is the price we pay to keep the Second Amendment. And our kids are paying. We’re like zombies on this issue, seeing no gray, only guns everywhere all the time or no guns at all¹.

• About the Minneapolis shooting:

  • The shooter broadcast his intentions for a month on social media, but the 22-year-old hired by Kristi Noem to lead Homeland Security’s main hub for terrorism prevention was apparently busy elsewhere—expertise being overrated in this administration. Noem also cut funding for mass shooting prevention programs. Of course.

  • Hundreds of kids and adults were praying at the church when a mentally disturbed 23-year-old—the prime age of mass shooters—fired 120 rounds through a window after barricading the doors. In a church. While the kids were praying.² Through a miracle, “only” two kids died. Seventeen more people were injured, and everyone will be traumatized for life. I can’t even imagine how those parents will be able to help their kids return to that church tomorrow—or ever.

  • Imagine your own 10-year-old child ever having to say, “My friend Victor, like, saved me. Because he laid on top of me. But he got hit.”

  • Our Secretary of HHS? He immediately pops up—with no knowledge of the event or any research backing him up—and says antidepressant could have caused the shooting. Because antidepressants are another obsession with Mr. Preach Health from the Tanning Bed. Please remember: Kennedy is a lawyer practicing medicine without a license, passionate about dragging the rest of us into his medically illiterate world.

    • Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) rightly laid him low and said he should be fired. #ImWithHer

  • What might help you talking to your kids and grandkids. Again.

    • Talking to kids about school shootings. Be truthful and follow their lead.

    • Helping kids feel safe after the Minneapolis school shooting.

    • Health experts address student anxiety in the wake of another mass shooting.

  • 'There is no message': The search for ideological motives in the Minneapolis shooting. Forget the (also diversionary) focus on why he did it. We all drive past people every day who could turn into shooters tomorrow. If they don’t have guns we wouldn’t have to ask “why.” It’s that simple.

I could barely focus on any other news important to women and those we love. But here’s the rest of it.

• Tip: If you hit a paywall here or anywhere, copy the URL of the article into archive.ph.³

• See our “Why it matters” footnotes 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.⁴

Our bodies

• Nutrition and exercise

  • Nutracast: Beyond prenatals: Folate’s crucial role in methylation, women’s health and more. Note this is a vendor profile, but it does contain information on the role of folate, recently assuming more importance.

  • 40-ish racer Micah Ling: I used SynrgyCycling to train around my period. Here’s how I performed on race day.

    • Related: SynrgyCycling.com

  • The 7 healthiest fish to eat – and the best ways to cook them, according to nutritionists.

• Women’s health: Hair loss and how to prevent it.

• 8 signs of a heart attack in women doctors want you to know.

• PCOS and endometriosis

  • * Endometriosis found to influence blood pressure and stress response.

  • * Breakthrough endometriosis test detects biomarker in menstrual blood.

  • * PCOS patients report feeling dismissed by providers.

Note we arbitrarily group some articles into generational/lifestyle categories for faster reading, but some overlap generations. Also check femtech, below, for more news that can apply to your generation and interests.

- Gen Z and Millennials

• Study: Over-the-counter pill has improved access to birth control.

  • Related: * The study.

- Pregnancy, birth and parenting

• What’s normal ‘down there’ after childbirth?

• How to successfully breastfeed your NICU baby.

• Most women under 50 have risk factors for birth defects that can be lowered. Note this is a report on research done from 2007 to 2020. It’s also the type of research that would not be funded under the current administration, since it focuses on women (DEI).

• Recent policy proposals could weaken the reproductive health safety net as more people become uninsured.

• Solving the U.S. Black maternal health crisis could save lives and dollars. This may be the understatement of the year.

  • Related: Black maternal mortality remans a crisis despite overall decline.

• Debunking 5 common maternal mental health myths.

• * New tool accurately assesses infant development from 16 days of birth.

• Tylenol use in pregnancy linked to autism: Why is the science contradictory?

• * High genetic risk tied to gestational diabetes and family history.

- Midlife and perimenopause

• ‘Patient-led revolution’: With menopause medicine booming, here’s how to find a specialist.

• Mathematical model enhances understanding of ovarian aging and menopause timing.

  • * Related: The study

• Hormone therapy for menopause might provide memory boost.

  • Related: *Experts warn menopause hormone tests often unnecessary.

  • Related: Doctors want women to know the nuanced reality of hormone therapy for menopause.

- The time-for-me years

• Reduce the risk of dementia: Play a board game.

Kennedy’s HHS

It only took Kennedy 7 months to reduce the CDC to total chaos and blow up our world leadership in disease prevention and research. See our special post on what’s going on there; we’ll continue to update separately there. In the meantime, some of the fall-out:

• Related: COVID is spiking again, particularly in these states (and that’s before kids going back to school begin the annual fall family fun contagion explosion)

• FDA approves COVID vaccine with new restrictions.

  • Click for full interpretation of the new rules—which are in upheaval—and follow Dr. Katelyn Jetelina for constantly updated indepth and inside info on CDC news.

• Here’s what we’re not hearing from while Kennedy feeds his obsessions on vaccines and autism: The rapidly-spreading recall on radioactive shrimp. Listeria cases from raw milk. (Kennedy’s a fan of raw milk.) Legionnaire’s deaths rise. A huge increase in fraudulent scientific papers.⁵ Salmonella from eggs. A rise in drug-resistant-fungus. Flying flesh-eating maggots—seriously. Flesh-eating bacteria at beaches, rabies in a national park, malaria unrelated to travel, and—of all things—plague at Lake Tahoe.

Deeper dives | policy

• NEW: While we gave Republicans the power to rule everything in the Senate and the House in the 2024 election, the states are quietly very active and getting creative:

  • New Colorado law lets health officials seek out non-CDC vaccine guidance.

  • Dem governors make alternate plans for vaccine purchase.

  • This may be the most interesting: With CDC in chaos, Vermont joins 8-state regional coalition to navigate public health challenges.

• By gatekeeping health data, the Trump administration will automate health inequities.

• The Trump Republican tax and budget law: Devastation to women’s health and financial security (includes a chart summarizing the damage)

• Why women’s health research gets relegated to the margins, despite its essential role in improving health outcomes.

• How women’s health gaps cost lives and trillions in lost productivity.

• KFF: Dashboard: Abortion in the US.

• By the Numbers: OBBBA will take health coverage away from millions of people and raise families’ costs.

• KFF: Status of state Medicaid expansion decisions.

Femtech and women’s health innovation

We’re way past time for innovation in women’s health, and Femtech is hoping to fill the gap. Don’t miss this free post with tips on investing in women’s health and see more about why investors are excited, but also why femtech can be the new Wild West. And see more about why we have a special section on femtech.⁶

• Women’s wealth catalyzes growth in women’s health investment.

• The women’s health OS that will never be.

• UCSD pioneers a combination of artificial intelligence and 3D printing to develop a customized implant for the spine during fusion surgery.

• Portfolia launches $20M fund for women’s health, building on 46-company women’s health portfolio.

• Viatris, Inc. (VTRS) achieves key clinical milestones in ophthalmology, pain, women’s health.

• Organon & Co. (OGN) advances VTAMA cream, strengthens women’s health portfolio.

• Here’s a headline you don’t see everyday: Mechanical engineering and materials science professor named director of the Wash U Center for Women’s Health Engineering.

  • What does a Center for Women’s Health Engineering do, you ask? Here you go.

• UCLA scientists map primate ovarian reserve development, a first-of-its-kind blueprint that captures how the ovarian reserve — a female’s lifetime supply of eggs — forms in primates.

• Visana Health raises $23.6M, bringing total funding to $46M for virtual women's health care.

• Why climate change is the next frontier for women’s health innovations.

1. This isn’t the time to get into this, but can I just say that’s insane? Of course there’s a way—likely many—to limit gun access and still be able to use guns for non-homicidal purposes. But you know—as long as it isn’t my kid shot at school…

2. No, an armed guard or a metal detector or armed teachers wouldn’t have stopped it. He shot through the window. There is always a way with someone committed to killing others. That’s all diversions to keep us from facing the real issue: we simply cannot protect everyone everywhere if anyone can get a gun.

3. 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.

4. 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: 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 to understand 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. If you’re wondering about media bias, check it on AllSides. We do.

5. Speaking of fraudulent scientific papers, you may remember Kennedy’s own team quoting non-existent research on a national policy report; that’s called fraud by anyone not named RFK Jr.

6. We have a special section on femtech for three reasons: While not all femtech is created equal, outside investors—now finally often led now by women—are stepping up in a major way to fill the huge hole that traditional medical research is still neglecting and will worsen under Trump and Kennedy’s NIH that classifies women’s health research as DEI. Second, many of us have never invested specifically in women’s health but are in a position now to do so—if not us, then who? Finally, it’s a good eye-opener to those of us who have been dulled to the possibility of better after decades of often insensitive and boringly predictable care. Femtech views that neglect as opportunity.