Roundup: We've Got Good News to Tell

Roundup: We’ve Got Good News to Tell

Feb 4, 2010, 7:21am

Robin Marty

Eat, drink and be merry, it's a good news roundup!

We’re not all doom and gloom here at Rewire. Today’s roundup is a look at some of the good things that have been happening lately in reproductive health.

In Iowa, a bill has been introduced to provide more free contraceptives and family planning services to low-income residents.

A bill moving through Iowa’s legislature could make free birth control available to thousands of men and women in the state.
The Senate Human Resources Committee will vote on the bill on Thursday. It essentially would provide free birth control to low-income men and women who are under the age of 55. The bill would expand on a program that already exists in Iowa.

Advocates say every dollar spent on pregnancy prevention ultimately saves the state four dollars because babies and children require a lot of resources. But opponents think the state should spend more money on abstinence education instead.

The proposed bill would allow low-income women to get pills, IUDs and other forms of birth control for free. Men in similar financial situations could get a free vasectomy.

As an added benefit, the bill would redefine "reproductive age" to go up to and include women age 54, rather than cut off at age 44 as the current plan does. Although some are opposing the move as wasteful, others point out that it will allow even more women to have access to annual pap smears and mammograms at an age when it is most needed.

At least one Iowa physician is speaking out against extending the age limit to 54. Donald Young, a medical director at Mid-Iowa Fertility, said, "The odds of a woman taking home a baby at age 45 is one in 50,000." He added, "The idea that we need to provide birth control/family planning services for women up to age 55 is against basic reproductive physiology and a waste of taxpayer dollars."

Nancy Robertson, a staff attorney and lobbyist for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, noted that birth control is just one of the services that would be covered. An age 45 cutoff is arbitrary because the average woman begins menopause at age 54 and is capable of becoming pregnant before that point, Robertson said.

In other good news, President Obama released his budget earlier this week, with a boost for improving maternal and child health globally.

The State Department and USAID would receive
$700 million to target maternal and child mortality under the proposal,
an increase from the $474 million allocated in 2010. Family planning
would receive a $65 million funding increase under the budget, from
$525 million to $590 million.

According to the Journal,
the budget proposal includes several "ambitious targets" to be reached
by 2014, including reducing maternal mortality by 30% — or about
360,000 lives saved — and reducing mortality among children younger
than age five by 35% — or about three million lives saved — in
assisted countries. The proposed budget would aim to provide HIV/AIDS
drug treatment to 1.6 million more people and cut the prevalence of malaria and tuberculosis in Africa by half.

A majority of the requested funding — about $7 billion — would go to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief,
including $5.74 billion for bilateral HIV/AIDS programs, $251 million
for bilateral TB programs, and a $1 billion contribution to the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (McKay, Wall Street Journal, 2/1).

Also in international news, the Kenyan government has announced that prior to earlier reports, birth control implants available to women in the country are indeed safe.

Family planning methods being used in Kenya are safe, the
government said on Wednesday. The Ministry of Public Health and
Sanitation singled out implants, saying they were not to blame for
causing infertility and cancer.

“Currently, the government provides two types of implants, Jadelle and Implanon,
which are two and one rod implants respectively. Some of the side
effects associated with implants include weight changes and
irregularity in menses,” the government said in a press advertisement.

These
side-effects are individual based and do not necessarily affect every
user. Many women are using implants comfortably with no side-effects at
all, the ministry said. A number of women had started discarding
implants after they were said to cause infertility and cancer besides
having other life-threatening side effects.

But the
government said it procured all contraceptives, including implants,
from reputable pharmaceutical companies, which are World Health
Organisation certified. The National Quality Control Laboratories also
certified the quality of family planning products before they were
released for public use, the ministry said.