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North America | United States | Health

Allyson Felix, her life at risk before C-section, urges lawmakers to hear her story

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Allyson Felix shared the story of the two most terrifying days of her life, revealing she had a severe case of preeclampsia that led to her emergency C-section childbirth at 32 weeks on Nov. 28. Felix testified Thursday at the House of Representatives Ways & Means Committee hearing on overcoming racial disparities and social determinants in the maternal mortality crisis.
North America | United States | Medicine

Pioneering Black Woman Physicist Invents Nanotech Treatment That Kills Cancer Cells

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The United States only officially began to outlaw racial segregation in the 1950s, and women have only been given equal academic opportunities at some top institutions since the 1980s. Columbia University, for example, didn’t allow women to apply until 1983—and the other Ivy League schools didn’t allow women until the 1960s and 1970s, themselves. These advancements in academic opportunity have helped to pave the way for women and people of color to contribute even more heavily to social and scientific progress, but African-Americans continue to make up a minority of pioneers in thes
North America | United States | Corruption

FDA: Government Recommends Untested, Unlicensed Vaccines for Pregnant Women

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In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the FDA has admitted, for the first time, that government agencies, including the CDC, are recommending vaccines for pregnant women that have neither been licensed for pregnant mothers by FDA nor tested for safety in clinical trials. The lawsuit, filed by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) attorney, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on behalf of Informed Consent Action Network(ICAN), a vaccine safety advocacy group, sought all clinical trial data used by FDA to approve influenza vaccines for pregnant women. The FDA’s terse reply: “We
Latin America | Mexico | Medicine

Women-Led Team of Mexican Scientists Develop Cure for HPV

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Researchers at Mexico’s National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) are celebrating a major scientific achievement: a new treatment that they claim can completely cure the human papillomavirus (HPV), helping to curb a leading cause of deadly cancer among women. Led by scientist Eva Ramon Gallegos, the team was able to eradicate HPV in 29 patients through a non-invasive technique known as photodynamic therapy, according to El Universal. The treatment involves the use of a drug called a photosensitizer or photosensitizing agent, alongside a wavelength of light that is used to treat affected are
South Asia | Australia | Health

25-Year-Old Student Discovers Way to Kill Superbugs WITHOUT Antibiotics — Science Freaks Out

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The outlook for humanity is, indeed, bleak. However, thanks to a handful of research students from the University of Melbourne School, we may have hope after all. Ph.D. student Shu Lam, the study’s lead researcher, believes they’ve found a way around antibiotic dependency in the battle against bacteria. “We’ve developed a new class of antimicrobial agents, which are very unique. They come in the form of tiny star-shaped molecules that are made from short chains of proteins,” Lam told VICE. “We found that they are very effective at wiping out [bacterial] infections in mice and
North America | United States | Medicine

Nursing Student Kicked Out College For Refusing to Lie about Vaccines (Audio)

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Nichole Rolfe, formerly Nichole Bruff, was a nursing student at Baker College in Michigan who dreamt of being a nurse practitioner of midwifery before the nursing department’s director dismissed her–shortly before she was to graduate–after Rolfe questioned instructors who were teaching students to lie to patient’s in order to coerce them into getting vaccinated. Nichole spoke with Robert Scott Bell about her story
Asia | China | Health

Woman, 61, gives birth in China as grieving ‘one child policy’ parents seek second chance

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A 61-year-old woman has became what is believed to be China’s second oldest mother, according to media reports, in a growing trend of older births among desperate couples who have been left childless by Beijing’s draconian one-child policy. The woman, who was identified by her surname Zhang, gave birth to a boy in China’s eastern Zhejiang province through in vitro fertilization (IVF). The C-section delivery came two years after the death of her 30-year-old daughter, who was her only child at the time.
North America | United States | Medicine

Nation’s first uterus transplant provides hope for women without wombs

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Surgeons in Cleveland say they have performed the nation's first uterus transplant, a new frontier that aims to give women who lack wombs a chance at pregnancy. In a statement Thursday, the Cleveland Clinic said the nine-hour surgery was performed a day earlier on a 26-year-old woman, using a uterus from a deceased donor. The hospital had long been planning for such a surgery, announcing last fall a clinical trial that would attempt 10 transplants. The hospital said it wouldn't release any more details until a press conference next week, except to say the woman's condition was stable.
Africa | Ethiopia | Medicine

Meet the young women leading the way in Ethiopia’s TB fight

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At first, Beyera Guta assumed he had a cold. Months passed and the sickness dragged on until he became so weak that he could no longer provide for his family. Tuberculosis was consuming his lungs and slowly killing him. The person who saved his life wasn’t a doctor, or a nurse. It was a 24-year-old woman from his village called Anuma Moreda, who hadn’t finished school. Alerted to Guta’s symptoms by his cousin, she examined him and sent a sputum sample to the local hospital. When the result came back positive, Moreda supervised his treatment and nursed him back to health. This is th
North America | United States | Health

Uterus transplants offer new life to women

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In the next few months, surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic expect to become the first in the United States to transplant a uterus into a woman who lacks one, so she can become pregnant and give birth. The recipients will be women who were either born without a uterus, had it removed or have uterine damage. The transplants will be temporary: each uterus will be removed after the recipient has had one or two babies, so she can stop taking transplant anti-rejection drugs. Uterine transplantation is a new frontier, one that pairs specialists from two fields known for innovation and for pushing li
South Asia | Australia | Health

IVF hope for older women, as Adelaide scientists make ‘damaged’ eggs good again

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Women over the age of 35 are more likely to have 'old' or 'damaged' eggs, which will not go on to make embryos in IVF treatment. Now scientists at the University of Adelaide's Robinson Research Institute have discovered a way to make the 'old' eggs viable again, by injecting them with haemoglobin. It offers new hope for the increasing number of older women seeking IVF treatment. Transcript: MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Scientists in Adelaide have made a research breakthrough that may give women a better chance to become mothers later in life. The team at the Robinson Research Institute have fo
North America | United States | Medicine

Female Physicians And The Future Of Healthcare Delivery

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There are more women in medicine today than at any point in history. Female physicians make up approximately 33% of the workforce in the United States, compared to 27% in 2008 and just 12% in 1981, according to the Physicians Foundation. This number continues to rise as women enter medical schools in record numbers. According to a recent Physicians Foundation survey, female physicians are slightly more optimistic than their male counterparts about healthcare today. Despite this optimism, trepidation still exists among female physicians in regards to elements of reform, such as accountable c
North America | United States | Medicine

A Breast Cancer Surgeon Who Keeps Challenging the Status Quo

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Late one afternoon this summer, Dr. Laura J. Esserman, a breast cancersurgeon at the University of California, San Francisco, sat in a darkened room scrutinizing a breast M.R.I. With a clutch of other clinicians at her side, she quickly homed in on a spot smaller than a pencil eraser. She heard the words “six-millimeter mass.” Her response was swift: “No.” Meaning no biopsy. Most doctors, including the radiologist seated next to her, would have said yes. But Dr. Esserman, who has dedicated much of her professional life to trying to get the medical establishment to think diffe
North America | United States | Medicine

Newborn infants experience psychiatric drug withdrawal

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Babies born to women with psychotic disorders often have the deck stacked against them. Their mothers tend to receive less prenatal care; have poorer nutrition; use more tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs; are unlikely to be married; and often have limited social support. New labeling recently promulgated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that these babies may also be susceptible to withdrawal symptoms from their mothers' antipsychotic medications, but some practitioners fear the results of those warnings will be worse than the symptoms of withdrawal. Last month the FDA poste

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