(Health) Weekly News Round-Up

Posted by Hieu Tran at 10:13 AM


Get off your phone while driving: “Studies say that drivers using phones are four times as likely to cause a crash as other drivers, and the likelihood that they will crash is equal to that of someone with a .08 percent blood alcohol level, the point at which drivers are generally considered intoxicated.” I feel like I’ve heard this same finding repeatedly, along with the evidence that hands-free is not a solution because it’s the distraction that’s the problem, and yet… the Times piece talks about how nobody thinks *they* might be a problem.

TheFeministBreeder is trying to do some labor/unnecessary intervention-related outreach via Twitter. It’s fraught with peril. It is definitely interesting (maybe not the most appropriate word) to watch people go induction->c-section over and over on Twitter.

Feminists for Choice is talking about language and the abortion debate. Vibinc has a post stemming from one of those irritating “you’re pro-choice, you must be pro-slavery for people who choose it, then” emails. And RH Reality Check had a live chat with the National Sexuality Resource Center on language, especially with regards to sexuality and sex ed (and I see Heather Corinna of Scarleteen was a participant).

Speaking of RHRC, I left a super-long comment in a thread on crisis pregnancy centers. A prior commenter cited some studies after claiming that abortion causes increased risk of suicide. And claimed that women deserve to know “the truth” about risks of abortion. Uh, those studies don’t mean what you think they mean.

Via this ScienceBlogs post from Sciencewomen on not Disney princessifying fairy tales for her daughter, I learned about DadLabs – in particular, this video entry on “princess parenting” and how the gentlemen want to raise strong women, not little princesses. I liked it. :)

Mother Jones is talking about the war on drugs.

I learned about this book – The HPV Vaccine Controversy Sex, Cancer, God, and Politics: A Guide for Parents, Women, Men, and Teenagers – which I haven’t read yet but am going to add to my list. (try Worldcat.org for a copy in a nearby library)

Illinois adds parental notification.

Meghan McCain has a response for anyone who feels compelled to comment on her body.

Via Siobhan, Racial Disparities in Breast Cancer Mortality. Also, Paying Girls Not to Get Pregnant.

And as always, don’t forget to check out the posts at Our Bodies Our Blog. :)

Dispatches from Libraryland:
If you haven’t already been following it, read Nikki’s open letter to Clinical Reader, a company that threatened to sue her, via Twitter (!), for her post critical of the company’s use of copyrighted images and not possible endorsement claims on their medical information site. The whole thing just got more and more bizarre after that, with tweets blaming the social media approach fail on a junior employee, a mysterious rogue Canadian (cue “Blame Canada” earworm), and an unauthorized Twitter account. The Twitter account was changed, with previous offending tweets preserved, and then they were wiped from the new account with a claim that the old account was unauthorized (although they previously linked to it on their site). Completely bizarre.

This is not a libraryland issue, but that Library Chic found it and shared it. Remember the odl Sesame Street cartoon in which the little girl goes to the store and has to remember “a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter?” Well, it’s on YouTube for now. Enjoy.

Book cart drill championship. Covered by NPR. Lots of videos of this activity on YouTube.

And, the American Library Association annual conference was mentioned on Jezebel due to a kind of jokey alasecrets Twitter account. Which somebody got their panties in a wad about and shut down, which doesn’t go over well with librarians at all.

Oh, dear. Really?

Posted in Abortion, Access, Rights, & Choice, Adolescent health, Birth, Body Image & Eating Disorders, Boobs, Cancer, HPV, Libraryland, News Round-Ups, Pregnancy, Sex & Sex Education
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