As of this month, an estimated 47 million women covered under a variety of health plans gain access to eight more preventive health-care services. We previewed this aspect of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last year. Of course, it’s not just women who are benefiting from the ACA-in the last couple of years, everyone has….
Continue ReadingGynecology
Hormone Replacement Therapy Review Confirms Recommendations for Caution
It has been 10 years since the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) raised a red flag of concern for women who take hormone replacement therapy (HRT). A systematic review of scientific research published on the subject since 2002, the task force concluded last week, confirms the initial call for caution. HRT is most often….
Continue ReadingMore Clarity for Who and How Often on Mammograms
Since 2009, when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force threw a grenade into the “mammograms for everyone” approach to women’s care, researchers, doctors and women have been wondering just who should get a mammogram, when and how frequently. As widely reported last week, the results of new studies are helping to tease out the variables….
Continue ReadingIncontinence Drugs Often Disappoint
Few medical conditions are as embarrassing as urinary incontinence, so no wonder that its victims often are desperate to try anything that might help. A new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine concludes that for many women, drugs are inadequate and can produce side effects that may be worse than the disorder. As described….
Continue ReadingBirth Control Pills Recalled
All medications carry risks and potential side effects, but seldom does a pill do precisely the opposite of what it promises. That’s why Pfizer recalled about 1 million Lo/Orval-28 and generic norgestrel birth control pills. Thanks to a packaging error, women who are taking the contraceptive risk getting pregnant. As widely reported, the recall announcement….
Continue ReadingCanada Agrees with U.S. to Ease Back on Mammograms
In 2009 the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended against routine mammograms for women in their 40s. That caused a political firestorm then, with ill-informed politicians claiming that bureaucrats were trying to hold back a lifesaving test to save money. The truth was, and is, that mammograms cause more harm than good unless the women….
Continue ReadingScared Pink: The Dubious Value of Fear Mongering about Breast Cancer
The relentless campaign to convince every American woman of her imminent risk of fatal breast cancer doesn’t measure up to any calm review of the numbers on who dies from what in the United States. And the value of regular mammograms for women is coming under increasingly skeptical scrutiny. The latest skeptical report on breast….
Continue ReadingTask Force Calls for Reduced Pap Testing
Last week the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), about which we wrote recently, weighed in with another advisory to cut back on what has long been standard gynecological practice. As Reuters reported, although Pap smear tests are still the best practice for the prevention of cervical cancer, the USPSTF says that many women needn’t….
Continue ReadingProof that Medical Innovations Can Save Lives at Low Cost
The scourge of cervical cancer — a leading cancer killer of women in the third world without access to Pap smears and HPV vaccinations — is being whipped with an unlikely low-tech, low-cost preventive treatment: Ordinary vinegar plus freezing of the cervical warts before they turn cancerous. The vinegar is brushed on the cervix by….
Continue ReadingMore Generous Insurance Coverage for Preventive Care for Women
The news that health insurers will be required to cover contraception and related counseling, courtesy of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed last year, received a lot of media attention and political blowback. Because some people find that provision of preventive care for women objectionable, it overshadowed other elements of the new guidelines, which pertain….
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