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Category Archives: Medicine

Protecting people’s privacy on health topics

Axios: “Google announced it will soon start deleting the “Location History” entry if a user who is signed in to a Google app — including Gmail or YouTube — visits a “particularly personal” medical facility. That includes counseling centers, domestic violence shelters, abortion clinics, fertility centers, addiction treatment facilities, weight loss clinics and cosmetic surgery… Continue Reading

FDA calls for fall boosters against BA.4/5 as subvariants take over US

Ars Technica: “On Thursday [June 30, 2022], the US Food and Drug Administration advised vaccine makers to reformulate COVID-19 booster shots for this fall. The boosters would target both the original strain of the pandemic coronavirus plus two new omicron subvariants—BA.4 and BA.5—which became the dominant versions of the virus circulating in the United States… Continue Reading

HHS – Know Your Rights: Reproductive Health Care

This is a new website via Health and Human Services – ReproductiveRights.gov: “Reproductive health care, including access to birth control and safe and legal abortion care, is an essential part of your health and well-being. While Roe v. Wade was overturned, abortion remains legal in many states, and other reproductive health care services remain protected… Continue Reading

Abortion donation link fairy

@helmsinki Replying to @SCOTUSblog – The Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, Eliminating the Constitutional Right to an Abortion: “I have created a document with info about abortion funds specific to each state: https://bit.ly/AbortionFundsTwitter. I encourage y’all to share this information and follow/donate to the orgs I have cited! There’s also a website version: https://donateabortions.com.… Continue Reading

What the data says about abortion in the U.S.

“Pew Research Center has conducted many surveys about abortion over the years, providing a lens into Americans’ views on whether the procedure should be legal, among a host of other questions. In our most recent survey, 61% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal all or most of the time, while 37% say it should… Continue Reading

Is abortion illegal in the U.S. now? Depends where you live

AP: “The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had provided a constitutional right to abortion. The ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states, although the timing of those laws taking effect varies. Some Republican-led states will ban or severely limit abortion immediately,… Continue Reading

Facebook Is Receiving Sensitive Medical Information from Hospital Websites

The Markup: “A tracking tool installed on many hospitals’ websites has been collecting patients’ sensitive health information—including details about their medical conditions, prescriptions, and doctor’s appointments—and sending it to Facebook. The Markup tested the websites of Newsweek’s top 100 hospitals in America. On 33 of them we found the tracker, called the Meta Pixel, sending… Continue Reading

Genetic paparazzi are right around the corner, and courts aren’t ready to confront the legal quagmire of DNA theft

Via LLRX – Genetic paparazzi are right around the corner, and courts aren’t ready to confront the legal quagmire of DNA theft – Liza Vertinsky and Yaniv Heled, are law professors who study how emerging technologies like genetic sequencing are regulated. They believe that growing public interest in genetics has increased the likelihood that genetic… Continue Reading

Hospitals are required to post prices for common procedures. Few do

NBCNews: “Few hospitals are posting the prices of their common procedures online, despite a federal law that went into effect more than a year ago. The Hospital Price Transparency Law is intended to make the hidden costs of services such as X-rays, medical tests or colonoscopies clear to patients before they enter the hospital. But… Continue Reading