The Femtastic Podcast
A raw, unedited, unproduced reaction episode to the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. Includes advice for how you can support abortion access and fight back, in both the short and the long term. The episode ends with a moment for reflection, featuring a song called "Animal" by Jean Rohe. In Jean's words, "'Animal' is a song about my own abortion experience, but ultimately much more: the things we can choose (or should be able to choose) in the garden of our lives, and all that lies beyond our control as mortal humans." May this song serve as a moment of un-silence,...
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It’s no secret that our country’s gun laws are riddled with loopholes, but one is killing women specifically. Since the beginning of the pandemic, murders linked to domestic violence have risen dramatically, up 58% in the last decade. Guns are the most common weapon abusers use to kill their partners, and victims are usually women. And many of these perpetrators are not even allowed to have guns in the first place. Under federal law, people convicted of a felony, a domestic violence misdemeanor, or who are subject to family violence protection orders are not allowed to have guns. But...
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Recently, Politico a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case on the future of Roe v. Wade. Unsurprisingly for many in the reproductive rights community, Alito calls for the overturning of Roe. We know that overturning Roe will mean that millions of people of reproductive age will be without access to abortion care. But what does it look like when someone who otherwise wanted an abortion is forced to carry a pregnancy to term? We don't have to imagine it, because the landmark Turnaway Study has already studied...
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In Part 2 of our 2-part series on the misleading practices of Crisis Pregnancy Centers, we delve into another misleading, yet surprisingly underreported, aspect of Crisis Pregnancy Centers (aka CPCs aka "fake clinics). As we covered in Part 1, CPCs masquerade as if they are real health clinics - but because they are not, they're not subject to privacy laws like HIPPA that protect your personal health information. Of course, by design, their clients do not know this. CPCs then use information given to them by clients seeking their services to violate privacy and confidentiality for many...
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Crisis pregnancy centers, or “CPCs,” are anti-abortion organizations that target pregnant people with predatory, deceptive marketing. They by operating under the guise of offering comprehensive reproductive healthcare. Instead, they are religiously-affiliated, anti-abortion, and often unlicensed “medical” centers that, as stated by the California legislature, dissuade pregnant people from abortion through “intentionally deceptive advertising and counseling practices that often confuse, misinform and even intimidate” clients from making informed choices. Eighty-three...
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Back in early December 2021, you may have heard some rumblings celebrating that the FDA had changed some of its draconian and scientifically unsupported regulations around medication abortion. Medication abortion, a safe and legal method of first-trimester abortion, accounted for 54% of US abortions in 2020 but has been subject to decades of politically-motivated FDA regulations that placed strict and unnecessary controls on it to limit access. In late 2021, amidst the most hostile environment to abortion since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, some of these limits were lifted. However, the...
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Today on the podcast is the a grassroots nonprofit that provides financial support for people traveling to and living in Maryland who need abortion care, and as the Supreme Court decides in June on a that threatens legal abortion like never before, they’re working to remove the financial barriers for those seeking abortion care. As of late 2021, 30% of BAF’s callers were already from out of state, and the majority of people that BAF supports are 13 weeks or further into their pregnancy. BAF discusses on the podcast the implications of further...
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You've probably heard of the - the fact that, according to the most recent from 2018, women of all races earned, on average, just 82 cents for every $1 earned by men of all races. Last week, Equal Pay Day was recognized on March 7 - this is the number of days into 2022 women would need to work to earn the equivalent of men in 2021. Do you know how the gender pay gap may impact your earnings over the course of your career? Do you know that the gap is ? In fact, the wage gap for women in some racial minority groups is not only wider than the overall gender wage gap, but it is also . ...
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You may have heard that Texas enacted a six-week ban on abortion in 2021, and that other states have begun attempting to pass copycat laws. You also may have heard many people remarking that 6 weeks is "before many people even know they are pregnant." But do you know why that is? Dr. Lauren Ralph, Associate Professor in the (ANSIRH) program at UCSF, recently that found that 1 in 3 people discover pregnancy past six weeks or later, and almost 2 in 3 young people discover pregnancy past six weeks or later. She is on the podcast today to explain WHY many people don't know they are...
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It's Black History Month, and we're also in what may quite possibly the last few months of Roe v. Wade's existence as we know it. So it seems an important time to talk about what exactly Reproductive Justice means, the history of this Black women-led movement, and why it's so very important. Joining the podcast is Monica Simpson, Executive Director of *the* organization for the Repro Justice (RJ) movement, . Monica explains what RJ is; its history and founding by Black women; how we do everyone a disservice if we shy away from talking about sex when we talk about reproductive justice;...
info_outlinemedical research gap: a disparity that exists because the vast majority of biological literature is based on single sex studies of males of European ancestry.
Did you know that it wasn't until 1993 that it was required for women to be included in clinical trials? Or that as of 2018, 78% of people included in key genomic research were of European ancestry?
The implications of gender and racial exclusion in medical and scientific research has had huge (negative) implications for the health of us all. It leads to biased data sets that then result in unequal diagnosis and treatment for people of varying backgrounds.
Today on the podcast is Elizabeth Ruzzo, Ph.D., founder of Adyn, a company on a mission to make scientific discovery more inclusive. Adyn recognizes that medical gender and race gaps have profound and devastating impacts on available diagnostics, treatment, and care. To close this gap, Adyn is starting out by using genetic and hormonal info, combined with big data, for a birth control test. This test could tell you the best hormonal birth control method to use for YOUR particular genetic and hormonal makeup. It's precision medicine that not only will help the individual accessing it, but will contribute to the (long-overdue!) advancement of healthcare research for biologically female people.
Elizabeth discusses what the medical research gender gap is, why it's a problem, and how we can help close it. She also tells us more about why her company is first tackling the problem of "trial and error" birth control selection that has plagued the reproductive years of so many of us, how they're using actual research and data to do this, and where this technology may go next. Lastly, Elizabeth explains why Adyn won’t call itself a “women’s health company.”
LINKS AND RESOURCES:
- Join Adyn's waitlist for early access to their Birth Control Test
- Want to make a more immediate impact on health equity? Share any of Adyn’s Instagram posts on your Instagram Stories, tag @adynhealth, and they’ll donate $1 to The Loveland Foundation’s Therapy Fund.
NERDY STUFF:
- Drugs and Medical Devices: Adverse Events and the Impact on Women’s Health
"Between 1997 and 2000, eight of the ten drugs withdrawn from the market posed a greater health risk for women either due to unanticipated gender-prescribing trends or sex-specific adverse drug reactions." -
More info about how women weren’t included in trials until 1993:
- Women Were Left Out of Clinical Trials Until the ‘90s—This Is How It’s Impacted Our Health (Well + Good)
- We Don’t Have Enough Women in Clinical Trials — Why That’s a Problem (Healthline)
- National Institutes of Health (NIH): History of Women’s Participation in Clinical Research
- For those who love an academic article: from the journal of Pharmacy Practice - Women’s involvement in clinical trials: historical perspective and future implications
- Articles about racist clinical algorithms:
- Millions of black people affected by racial bias in health-care algorithms (Nature)
- Racial bias skews algorithms widely used to guide care from heart surgery to birth, study finds (Stat News)
- Take Racism Out of Medical Algorithms (Scientific American)
- Why clinical algorithms fall short on race (American Medical Association)
- Hidden in Plain Sight — Reconsidering the Use of Race Correction in Clinical Algorithms (New England Journal of Medicine)