If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
There isn't one person in this country who hasn't been touched by ALS, Parkinson's, MS, Alzheimer's, spinal cord injury, cancer, diabetes and thousands of other diseases and conditions. And for every American who is suffering, there is potentially an already approved drug waiting to be rediscovered.
Two years ago, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. The president's health care law gives hard working, middle-class families security, makes Medicare stronger, and puts more money back in seniors' pockets.
Over the last two years, women have begun to see the better health, better care, and lower costs that everyone deserves. And over the next two years, women will continue to see stronger benefits and protections for them and their families.
Over the last three years, we've made significant strides in our fight against tobacco, and our efforts are paying off. But today's report is an important reminder to our nation that we have a lot more work to do to make tobacco death and disease part of our past.
By making contraception only about women's health, we're telling voters contraception decisions are not about parents, not about men, and not about families.
We can't wait to act. As the population of the United States ages, the time for bold action on the growing public health challenge posed by Alzheimer's is now.
Shouldn't we ask why women's health, our ability to control our lives and bodies and careers, is such a popular political football? Is it because the women who actually are affected have no voice in our political system?
In the State of the Union, President Obama spent exactly 44 words on health reform; in 2010 he spent 570. Is the President backing away from his prized achievement, the Affordable Care Act? How should we interpret the complete lack of attention?
It's time for the women and men who fought so hard to establish reproductive rights in the first place to shake off their complacence: their hard-fought gains are in jeopardy. It's also time for young adults, who have taken their reproductive rights for granted, to take a stand.
I was appalled by the president's rejection of the scientific and medical advice he and Secretary Sebelius received, recommending exactly the opposite.
Gene Marks's epic poverty fail, faith-based slavery in a Georgia prison, and making the mundane crunk.
Health and Human Services acted to protect kids Dec. 7 when HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius rejected a recommendation of the Food and Drug Administration to let stores sell powerful hormonal drugs to children over the counter.
So what was the HHS decision really about? What everything seems about in Washington these days: Garnering political support for President Obama in next year's presidential race.
Any time an administration finds science politically inconvenient, this precedent by a supposedly pro-science president will make it that much easier for future administrations to assert more absolute authority. That is dangerous for the future of science and the nation.
By interjecting politics into the FDA drug review process, Secretary Sebelius placed the president in the unenviable position of not acting in the best interest of women's health. And politically, that's not a place the president wants to be.
The money that patients' rights advocates have to spend to convince the administration that Americans should have decent health care benefits pales in comparison to the boatloads of cash insurers and their corporate allies have on hand to do largely the opposite.
