If House Republicans Get Their Way, Rural Americans Are Screwed
Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. Back in 2016, the Republican Party won the presidency and both chambers of Congress with strong support in rural areas, particularly among farmers. But since that triumph, the Grand Old Party hasn’t exactly been a champion of rural interests. As I’ve written in recent months,…
Iowa Wants to Ban Abortions After 6 Weeks. Planned Parenthood Just Filed a Lawsuit to Stop It.
Planned Parenthood supporters rally outside the Iowa Capitol Building, Friday, May 4, 2018.Barbara Rodriguez/AP Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. A lawsuit filed Tuesday by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Iowa seeks to block Iowa’s recently-passed “heartbeat” abortion law, one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. The…
This Map Depicts Abortion Access Across America and It’s Really Bleak
Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. It’s not just rural women who must travel long distances to get an abortion. Researchers mapped out 780 abortion facilities across America in a new study out Monday and found that 27 major cities are 100 miles or more from their nearest abortion provider. The…
With Each Pharma-Funded Meal, Doctors’ Opioid Prescriptions Rise
SARINYAPINNGAM/Getty Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. Amid a spiraling overdose epidemic, opioid prescribing is still on the rise for a small subset of physicians: those who receive funding from opioid manufacturers. That’s according to a research letter published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study combined two datasets:…
Lawmakers Just Might Do Something Positive for Pregnant Women for a Change
The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed nation. Every year, hundreds of American women still die in childbirth—and that number has increased over recent years. Centers for Disease Control and PreventionWithin these grim statistics, for certain groups, giving birth is especially dangerous: Black mothers die at three times the rate of…
“I Was Directed to Market OxyContin”: A Purdue Pharma Rep Tells How He Was Paid to Push Opioids
Pureradiancephoto/Getty When Sean Thatcher was a sales rep at Purdue Pharma, which makes OxyContin, doctors he visited often complained that their patients were developing tolerance to the opioid painkiller. Thatcher, who worked for the company between 2009 and 2015 in Montana, was instructed to tell the prescribers to increase the dose, and to clarify that…