well. this is interesting. awaiting my return from chicago was a form letter from the pentagon’s “comprehensive review working group” alerting me to my requested participation in the 2010 Department of Defense (DoD) Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Survey of military spouses.

aside from the amusement of a survey being called “don’t ask, don’t tell” (they didn’t prepare me for that contradiction in my MPH studies, that’s for sure), i am curious to see what sorts of questions they’re going to ask – as well as if there’s any sort of push polling going on. apparently the DoD is trying to “assess the impacts, if any, a change in the law … might have on military family readiness and military community life.”

from where i sit, getting rid of DADT, removing any mention of homosexuality from the UCMJ, allowing gay families (geez, there’s got to be a better term for family units where the central adults are the same sex… oh, wait… “families”?) the same benefits as straight families, and no longer treating a large portion of the military population as typhoid marys could only be a good thing. but maybe i’m queer that way.

[this is a recovered post from the great data disappearance of 2009. links, comments, and other html may have been lost permanently.]

(before launching into my outraged diatribe, i’m going to stipulate that safe abortion access is an integral part of not only women’s reproductive health, but our ability to exercise self-determination. many other individuals have written more coherently and persuasively on the subject than i could, so i’ll leave any interested readers to the googles for the specifics.)

with that out of the way, on to the diatribe.

in a press release celebrating the 240-194 approval of his odious abortion restriction amendment, bart stupak exulted,

Now that those voices have been heard we must move forward and pass a bill that provides quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

he’s also said, “All Americans deserve the right to quality, affordable health care coverage.”

all americans? really? apparently stupak doesn’t think that abortion access has any place in women’s “quality” or “affordable” reproductive health care. his amendment (couched in “this just [just! - ed] continues the hyde amendment’s prohibitions on the use of federal funds for abortion” logic) will have the practical effect of denying abortions to any women participating in the health insurance exchange.

how? right off the bat, it prohibits exchange-participating plans that offer abortion coverage from accepting any federally-subsidized customers (estimated at 80% of exchange participants)¹.

oh, but wait. apparently women will be allowed to purchase separate “abortion riders.” that’s great, provided a) women will think to insure against unintended pregnancies (or better yet, pregnancies with complications necessitating an abortion either due to risks to the woman’s health, or abnormalities with the fetus); and b) that there are insurance companies willing to offer those riders in the first place.

and it’s b) that’s really the kicker. via NARAL,

According to the respected National Women’s Law Center, the five states that require a separate rider for abortion coverage, there is no evidence that plans offer these riders.²

so. we’ve got a health reform plan from the house that is intended to create universal coverage by requiring individuals to acquire health care coverage through a national exchange³. and that exchange will effectively reduce women’s access to abortion services. fantastic.

i really, really hate washington right now. a meteor could demolish the entire hill, and i’d only mourn the architecture. okay, i’d feel sad for the families of the members of congress, but the representatives? not so much.

particularly not bart stupak or nancy pelosi, who facilitated the introduction of stupak’s amendment. because of those two (insert foul adjective of choice here… oh, hey… choice!)s, women are going to remain second-class citizens when it comes to health care.

(and finally, because i’m pissed off at the pro-choice democrats who folded and voted for the bill with stupak’s amendment: there’s a niggling voice in the back of my head trying to convince me that perfect should not be the enemy of the good, and that this reform bill is better than none. to that voice i say – there are far fewer anti-choice democrats than pro-choice ones in the house. if the pro-choice dems couldn’t get the antis in line and force a vote without restricting abortion access, they’re a useless political machine. if they’re going to allow abortion to be a political football, they should play the damn game to win.)

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¹ how ironic that the democrats have brought us our own version of the mexico city policy.
² i’d link directly to the national women’s law center on this, but i can’t find anything on point on their website.
³ it will also expand medicaid access, but that doesn’t help low-income women access abortion. see the hyde amendment.

[this is a recovered post from the great data disappearance of 2009. links, comments, and other html may have been lost permanently.]

things lately haven’t been terribly conducive to generating my own content, and there’s a good chance i’ll get around to writing about that in the next few days. in the meantime, i’m just going to share this. i’m not a fan of this style of rock & roll, but the message is spot on.

oh, and another interesting link for the rest of the research and health geeks out there: the spread of health behaviors in the framingham heart study social network (LINK TO http://www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/node/2316). researchers mining the data found a totally overlooked nugget: the information to create a complete map of the social connections of the participants, which allowed them to track the dissemination of both disease (of the generally non-contagious variety) and behavior through friend and family networks. the moral of the story – there may be hidden gems in your data. look at it with a fresh eye, if you can.

hey, judy, wherever you are – the president signed the FDA tobacco bill. i think you’d be pleased with most of it.

miss you.

plus, he’s dreamy.

despite having a startling similarity in appellation, i’m pretty sure that janet napolitano is no relation to johnette napolitano. which kills any chance of hearing the DHS secretary sing joey anytime soon.

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in reproductive health news, it’s looking likely that the FDA will be making it easier for 17-year-olds to buy plan B. the u.s. district court for the eastern district of NY has told them to, at least. (PDF of the memo & order in tummino v. von eschenbach)
i like the judge’s straightforward approach:

…the gravamen of plaintiffs’ claims is that the FDA’s decisions regarding Plan B – on the Citizen Petition and the SNDAs – were arbitrary and capricious because they were not the result of reasoned and good faith agency decision-making.

Plaintiffs are right.

…

Indeed, the record is clear that the FDA’s course of conduct regarding Plan B departed in significant ways from the agency’s normal procedures regarding similar applications to switch a drug product from prescription to non-prescription use, referred to as a “switch application” or an “over-the-counter switch.” For example, FDA upper management, including the Commissioner, wrested control over the decision-making on Plan B from staff that normally would issue the final decision on an over-the-counter switch application; the FDA’s denial of non-prescription access without age restriction went against the recommendation of a committee of experts it had empanelled to advise it on Plan B; and the Commissioner – at the behest of political actors – decided to deny non-prescription access to women 16 and younger before FDA scientific review staff had completed their reviews.

somehow i don’t think the rank & file up in rockville are too broken up about the district court’s decision.

last week i was kvetching about monday’s late-winter snowstorm and subsequent single-digit temps. today it’s nearly 65 degrees at 9 a.m. yay, march.

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atheists are responsible for the dwindling percentage of christians in the united states. (maybe they’re eating them?) and i should move to vermont. except for that cold thing.

nifty charts here.

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almost everything i read online this weekend was about death and dying. one friend’s father passed away in late february. another friend’s mother, over the weekend. my great-uncle, on thursday. g’s grandmother was hospitalized with chest pains. then a friend’s dog had to be put down. isn’t spring supposed to be a time of rebirth?

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as i tweeted on saturday, the best time to watch watchmen is the 9:00 showing. with the coming distractions and a run time of 163 minutes, it means you’ll be out of the theater at five to 12:00. freaky. even freakier: billy crudup’s blue CGI dingle, which doesn’t dangle much.

great flick, btw. and fantastic use of leonard cohen on the soundtrack (and muzak tears for fears), but other people differ. (contains some spoilers.) although i have to ask: how do you put together a 3-hour movie set in 1985 without a single duran duran song? they’d released duran duran, rio, and 7 and the ragged tiger by that point!

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i’m not much of a batman fan, but the first issue of neil gaiman’s two-part “death of” is storytelling at its finest. and what a story it is.

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and finally, in news of the sane, today obama will “issue a presidential memorandum aimed at insulating scientific decisions across the federal government from political influence.” the circular argument about that itself being political influence that will affect scientific decisions aside, it’s good to see obama continuing to dismantle the politicoreligious machine of the bush administration.

from his prepared remarks:

“This Order is an important step in advancing the cause of science in America. But let’s be clear:¹ promoting science isn’t just about providing resources — it is also about protecting free and open inquiry. It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”

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¹ am i the only one who would be happy if obama excised “but let’s be clear” from his vocabulary? i’m getting tired of being lectured at.

the colorado senate recently passed a bill, 32 to 1, requiring pregnant women to submit to HIV testing. the lone dissenting vote came from a republican who believes that the measure would “remove the negative consequences that take place from poor behavior and unacceptable behavior.”

apparently the senator believes that living with the consequences of untreated HIV appropriately punishes poor behavior. on the other hand, the rest of the state’s senators apparently believe that a fetus’ medical needs outweigh a woman’s right to privacy. according to one of the bill’s sponsors, “What this bill will do and why it’s so important to test the woman when she is pregnant — if she is HIV-positive, treatment is started immediately to protect the baby, the unborn baby.”

now, don’t get me wrong – i think HIV testing is a good idea. it’s a good idea if you’re sexually active and if there’s a possibility you could be exposed to HIV. it’s a good idea if you’re a pregnant woman who wants to make the most informed choices about health care for yourself and your fetus. so it’s a good idea to require doctors to offer the test, and to either require health insurance to cover it, or to pay for it out of government coffers. but requiring women to get tested – which is the likely outcome of an opt-out system – bothers me. interjecting the government anywhere in a woman’s reproductive health care bothers me, because in this country, it’s a quick jump to measures that limit reproductive choice, and that impinge on a woman’s right to conduct her life as she sees fit.

i believe the wording of the bill is highly problematic, even though it’s basically the existing syphilis law with HIV tacked on:

25-4-201. Pregnant woman to take blood test. (1) Every licensed health care provider authorized to provide care to a pregnant woman in this state for conditions relating to her pregnancy during the period of gestation or at delivery shall take or cause to be taken a sample of blood of the woman at the time of the first professional visit during the first trimester for testing pursuant to this section. The blood specimen obtained shall be submitted to an approved laboratory for standard serological test for syphilis and HIV. Every other person permitted by law to attend pregnant women in this state but not permitted by law to take blood samples shall cause a sample of blood of each pregnant woman to be taken by a licensed health care provider authorized to take blood samples and shall have the sample submitted to an approved laboratory for a standard serological test for syphilis and HIV. A pregnant woman may decline to be tested as specified in this subsection (1), in which case the licensed health care provider shall document that fact in her medical record.

(2) If a pregnant woman entering a hospital for delivery has not been tested for HIV during her pregnancy, the hospital shall notify the woman that she will be tested for HIV unless she objects and declines the test. If the woman declines to be tested, the hospital shall document that fact in the pregnant woman’s medical record.

25-4-203. Birth certificate – blood test. In reporting every birth and stillbirth, physicians and others required to make such reports shall state on the certificate whether a blood test for syphilis and HIV has been made upon a specimen of blood taken from the woman who bore the child for which a birth or stillbirth certificate is filed and the approximate date when the specimen was taken. In no event shall the birth certificate state the result of the test.

first, they’re requiring a sample of blood to be taken for the purposes of the HIV test, whether a woman agrees to be tested or not. then, the bill allows women to opt out, rather than requiring affirmative assent to the procedure, which would provide more protection for the woman. nothing will prevent a provider from taking the blood and “oops!” either “forgetting” to give the woman the option to decline the test, or “losing” any documentation of her refusal. finally, if they do offer her the option to decline, and she does, the fact of her refusal must be documented. why? and how will that information be used down the line? will providers be allowed to refuse to treat women who decline the test? will health insurers refuse coverage to women – or their infants – who have not tested negative? and what is the purpose of recording the fact or absence of the test on the child’s birth certificate?

the legislation is broadly written to cover all providers treating women for “conditions relating to … pregnancy.” this would require that a woman seeking an abortion must go through the HIV rigamarole. and to what end?

while this legislation might have evolved from good intentions, the potential for abuse seems very high, and the rationale behind requiring the testing, flimsy at best. i can only hope the house shows better sense than the senate and defeats it.

earlier this month, the VA state legislature passed what is (IMO) a pretty pathetic compromise clean indoor air bill. perhaps to show they can come up with meaningful legislation, they’ve just passed a bill to expand the death penalty.

you read right. once the ink dries, a whole new category of people will be eligible for capital punishment: those who assist in a murder, but don’t actually kill anyone.

yay richmond.

ecuador’s 2008 constitution has a governmental guarantee of sustainable development. the whole section on the environment is fascinating. (there’s also an interesting article in the post that leads one to question just how involved a spanish consulting group was in drafting the document.)