As AIDS wreaks devastation on the African continent, imagine a health service organization that’s reluctant to give out condoms to people who are HIV-positive but instead seeks to stem HIV transmission by promoting abstinence and monogamy. Welcome to the world of PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), George W.’s “feel good” proposal rolled out… Read more »
healthcare
Flu vaccine shortage: Is there a cure for an industry infected by the profit motive?
If you’re elderly or chronically ill, if you’ve already stood in line for hours in the rain only to find that the flu vaccine had run out, here are some suggestions from the press. • Be one of 20,000 to enter a lottery for 300 doses. • Hope your MD can find a stash, perhaps… Read more »
Whose uterus? A reality check
• A November 2004 spending bill blocks federal funds to federal, state or local agencies that require hospitals, insurers or HMOs to provide abortion services, information or referrals. • A judge in Spokane, Washington, revoked a woman’s uncontested divorce because she was pregnant. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1/1/05. • Over 80 percent of “abstinence only” programs (which… Read more »
Australia: Confronting the patriarchs of church and state
Last October, as soon as the reelected ultra-conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard was sworn in, feminists’ worst fears began to materialise. A war on abortion, commanded by Minister for Health Tony Abbott, is now in full swing. Other main figures in the anti-choice crusade are Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, Governor General Michael… Read more »
Racism is hazardous to your health: Poverty and poor care spell affliction for African Americans
From 2005, a look at healthcare disparities – acutely exposed today because of the Covid pandemic – and prescriptions for change.
Uncle Sam wants YOU — to abuse and discard
Soldiers are being abandoned by the same government that says it supports the troops,” charges National Guard Sergeant Kelly Dougherty, who spent ten months in Iraq. She is not alone in her sentiment. Enlisted men and women are fast discovering that they are dispensable cogs in an imperialist military machine fighting, suffering and dying for… Read more »
Assistance, Dubya style
Medical help is disappearing, and it hits me, hard. In 1995 I developed full-blown AIDS, and in 1997, the Department of Labor and Industry (L&I, which administers workers’ compensation) accepted that I was HIV-positive due to an “industrial accident”: a medical technologist, in 1990 I had jabbed myself with an HIV-infected needle, and had had… Read more »
Our Bodies, Ourselves: celebrating the women’s health revolution
Thirty-five years ago, a pamphlet that would revolutionize women’s lives made its first appearance, created by a feminist collective who became the health experts they were looking for. The publication, which would become the classic Our Bodies, Ourselves, combined a radical political critique with a demystified, do-it-yourself approach to medicine. The spark for the book… Read more »
Rightwing moralists: dispensing discrimination at the pharmacy
Across the U.S., the battle over reproductive justice has played out in many arenas: attacks on clinics, attempts to ban abortion-inducing RU-486, pressure on medical schools not to teach surgical abortions, and more. Flying under the radar has been an effort to win “conscience clauses” that allow druggists to refuse to fill prescriptions because of… Read more »
Reviving healthcare
Pretty much everybody agrees that something has to be done about the state of U.S. healthcare and healthcare coverage. President Bush’s idea of a fix is to offer a tax deduction for people who abandon employer-financed medical insurance and purchase their own private insurance. From the viewpoint of workers and the poor, this is not… Read more »
