Victory for Reproductive Justice Advocates: CDC Removes Discriminatory HPV Vaccination Requirement for Immigrant Women and Girls

Today, the CDC published a rule that finalizes a set of criteria for evaluating whether vaccinations recommended by the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices should become automatic requirements for immigrants.

Starting December 14, 2009, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine will no longer be a required vaccination for immigrant women and girls.

NAPAWF, NLIRH and CLRJ opposed the mandatory vaccination requirement when it took effect in July 2008, and worked together with national, state and local partners in the reproductive justice, women’s health, immigrant rights, medical and public health movements to remove the mandate. Organizations from around the country sent letters to the CDC opposing the rule and submitted comments in support of the proposed criteria. This was an important victory for the reproductive justice movement and showcased the power of cross-movement building strategies to secure reproductive justice and bodily autonomy for the most vulnerable women and girls.

Read the full press release here.

Lou Dobb’s resigns from CNN

After much considerable pressure, Lou Dobb’s resigned from CNN last night. Today the Drop Dobb’s Coalition held a press conference call to discuss his resignation. From the coalition:

Over the years, Lou Dobbs has consistently used his CNN platform to spread hatred and fear. He played a critical role in skewing the immigration reform debate in 2006, leading to the derailment of that effort, and his obsession with the issue of immigration and with defeating immigration reform continues unabated.

Adding to his repertoire of hate and fearmongering, he has recently aligned himself with the “birther” conspiracists and their racially tinged attack on the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency. From his CNN platform, he has bolstered the claims of those on the fringe by asserting repeatedly that President Obama has failed to produce adequate proof that he was born in the United States. His recent focus on the birth certificate conspiracy issue has reinforced what immigration reform proponents have long known — that Dobbs has a long history of the worst kind of pandering by promoting hate and ethnic and racial division.

Leaders from various organizations came together to discuss the damage Dobb’s has done with his hateful opinions toward immigrants. His resignation is a major victory against hate and misinformation and leads the way for an honest debate on immigration.

Now we must begin the process of undoing the damage he has done to immigrants and minority communities. Hopefully CNN will finally take an active role in correcting his errors. We also hope that Dobb’s will ultimately be banned from the airwaves to ensure our communities aren’t victimized by this type of journalism ever again.

By Krystal Chan, Development and Communications Intern

Women and Immigrants: left on the sidelines of health care reform

Outrageous, that’s the phrase that came to mind as we watched the health care reform debates over the weekend. While health care reform passed a hurdle in the House of Representatives, women and immigrants were left on the sidelines.

What happened???
•    In an effort to pass health care reform, Congress included an amendment that singled out and banned most abortions from all public and private health plans in the insurance exchange.  Women who think they may need an abortion in the future would be required to buy an additional insurance “abortion rider” with their own personal funds for coverage.
•    Under the House bill, undocumented immigrants can buy into the public health insurance exchange with their own money. But, they are prevented from receiving any subsidies, affordability credits, or receive federal Medicaid.
•    The 5-year ban on legal residents accessing public health benefits, including Medicaid, also remained intact.
Essentially politicians are saying that under current health care reform, women would have to plan for an unplanned pregnancy.

OUTRAGEOUS!

Anti-choice activists know that the real goal of this amendment is to limit women’s access to abortion coverage in both public and private health insurance plans since many private plans may choose to deny coverage for abortions.  They even brazenly called the final House bill “a nail in the eventual coffin of Roe v. Wade.”  (Christian Newswire)

And anti-immigrant forces are working day and night to strip out health care access for undocumented immigrants in the final bill that goes before the President for his signature.  In fact, the current Senate bill up for debate prohibits undocumented immigrants from using their own money to buy health insurance in the exchange, leaving millions without health care!

It’s not too late to demand real health reform for Latinas and their families.

CALL YOUR SENATOR. While we’ll be doing everything we can to protect the health and rights of Latinas and their families, your Senators need to hear directly from you.

Contact the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to be directly connected to your Senator or contact their office directly. To find and contact your Senator click here.

SPREAD THE WORD. Tell your families and friends to do the same. Also, don’t forget to spread the word on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter!

For more information and talking points, go here.

HPV Vaccine being considered for boys

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is scheduled to debate whether HPV vaccination of boys with Merck’s human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil will be cost-effective and a route worth exploring, reports NPR’s All Things Considered.

The FDA approved Gardasil in 2006 as a method to prevent HPV strains 16 and 18 which cause70% of cervical cancer cases. Additionally, Gardasil also prevents two other strains of HPV that cause 90% of genital warts. From the National Partnership for Women & Families:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Wednesday recommended GlaxoSmithKline’s human papillomavirus vaccine, Cervarix, for routine use in vaccinating girls and young women to prevent cervical cancer, the AP/New York Times reports.

…

The CDC panel also recommended optional vaccination with Gardasil for boys and young men to protect them from genital warts, although they stopped short of recommending its routine use in boys, as CDC recommends for girls, the Times reports. FDA approved Gardasil for use in boy and men ages nine through 26 last week.

Neal Halsey, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, argued that the most effective way of preventing HPV  “would be to immunize both men and women, boys and girls.” He added that the “right thing to do—from a scientific standpoint, ethical standpoint, in terms of shared responsibility—is to immunize all boys, all girls.”

Harvard University research argues that vaccinating boys is not cost-effective if the majority of women are already vaccinated. A Gardasil regimen consists of three doses priced at $130 per dose. Immunizing boys as young as 9, the study states, would prevent HPV if fewer girls had the treatment. The CDC study shows that 37% of U.S. girls ages 12 through 17 have received at least one dose of Gardasil. In the United Kingdom, close to 80% of girls in have received the HPV vaccine.

It is extremely heteronormative to assume that simply by vaccinating girls, boys will be immediately protected from HPV. This leaves out the number of boys who might be gay or bisexual, or have same-sex sexual experiences. If they are not vaccinated, then they are at just as much a risk getting genital warts, anal cancer and other illnesses from HPV. The Harvard Study also places a sense of pressure of women who are made to feel like the must get vaccinated. It poses the question: why are women given the added responsibility of receiving Gardasil?

In debating cost-effectiveness of the vaccine, it is important not to forget the significance of Gardasil—this is one of the first vaccinations known to prevent HPV, a known cause of cancer. Whether it is cost-effective or not is irrelevant, providing it for both men and women as a means of protection is both unassuming and necessary.

By Carlos Blanco, Community Mobilization Intern

Political climate in Mexico pushes policies that put women at risk

In the past month, two Mexican states have passed laws to further criminalize abortion. Queretero and Oaxaca became the 15th and 16th Mexican states out of 31 to define life as beginning at fertilization. These laws result in the criminalization of abortions for all women with the exception of rape victims but not victims of incest.

What these legislators are forgetting is that the prohibition of abortion will only cause many of these women to seek to terminate their unwanted pregnancies under dangerous and risky circumstances. According to the Secretary of Public Health, in six of the 16 states that have criminalized abortion, maternal mortality is five times the national average.

According to John Ross in his article War on Mexican Women:

The anti-abortion push is being orchestrated by the ruling right-wing PAN party in connivance with the Princes of Catholic Hierarchy…their goal is to repeal Mexico City’s free abortion-on-demand law…which has provided 30,000 women the right to choice over the past two years, according to the Mexico City Women’s Initiative.

In addition, the Secretary of Education (run by the PAN party), confiscated first year high school biology text books in the city of Guanajuato, on the charge that they included education on birth control methods. According to John Ross,

The Guanajuato Education Secretariast (SEG) distributed 114,00 of their own biology textbooks that demonized masturbation and homosexuality, skipped any mention of AIDS prevention and advocated abstinence as the only method of avoiding unwanted pregnancies.

Last month the Mexican Senate also voted in Arturo Chavez Chavez as their new attorney general. Chavez Chavez’s previous work was as chief prosecutor in the state of Chihuahua, home to Cuidad Juarez, the location of hundreds of brutal murders of young women throughout the 90s and until today.  His conduct in regard to those murders has been seriously questioned, including assertions that he actually tried to place blame on the victims themselves.

With the same abortion criminalization bills pending in Michoacan, Sinaloa, Veracruz, and Mexico State, and the current tide of anti-choice and anti-women policies, it’s a difficult road ahead for women in Mexico.

We’ve seen time and time again internationally that laws which criminalize abortion don’t serve to lower overall rates of abortion, they just increase rates of maternal mortality. We’ve got to work against these policies that put the health and livelihood of women at risk.

By Krystal Chan, Communications and Development Intern

A dose of serenity for mothers battling substance abuse

Via CNN, comes the story of one residential treatment facility trying to provide services to pregnant and parenting mothers who struggle with substance abuse.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and SAMHSA’s health information network,  compared to other racial groups, Latinos come in second for highest incidence of binge drinking and heavy alcohol use. Additionally, about 1 in 10 Latino youth has recently used illegal drugs.  The effects of drug and alcohol abuse on our lives and health is massive. When pregnancy and parenting is also considered, the services needed to serve our community are even more difficult to find.

Serenity Place of South Carolina is one women’s treatment facility that tries to serve this community.

Serenity Place is a fairly new, 16 bed residential facility treatment program where women can bring up to two children with them and pregnant women battling substance abuse are also encouraged to enroll in services. While in the residential center, women learn a variety of new skills for parenting, in addition to techniques for coping with substance abuse. While the program says it can’t guarantee the success of every women who passes through its program, this type of holistic support is necessary to provide support to these women and their families. The program website states that private insurance and Medicaid are accepted and no one is denied services due to the inability to pay.

I think it is about time programs like this become accessible to ALL women regardless of situation, to ensure brighter futures for both them and their children. To read or hear more stories about the women currently in the program or those who have graduated, please read the article or watch the video here.

By Jennifer Leigh Velez, Policy Intern

Anti-immigrant “widow penalty” reversed by the Senate

The Senate voted last week to put an anti-immigrant seventy-one year old policy to rest.  Thankfully, the death of a spouse will no longer result in deportation of a widow and the widower’s children. According to Voto Latino:

The death of a spouse will no longer result in automatic deportation of widows and widowers and their children, following a historic vote in the Senate today. Ending a policy traced back at least seventy-one years, Congress has abolished the “widow penalty.” Thanks to a concerted effort by families, legal counsel and legislators over a period of more than five years, a horrible practice that added insult to injury is now at an end.

The fact that this policy could have even existed is absurd, much less the fact that it existed for this long.  According to Voto Latino, the “widow penalty” was a tragic quirk in federal law that unfairly punished recently married immigrants whose citizen spouses die before their green-card paperwork is processed. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services said that their hands were tied. According to the law if a person’s spouse dies before their petition for a green card has been handled and the marriage is less than two years old then the surviving spouse “ceases to be a spouse.” So as if the heartache and stress these families face wasn’t enough, now they must go back where they came from? For years advocates for shattered families and the families themselves have fought to change this policy with no luck. The Senate stepped up last week and voted 79 to 19, passing the bill by a significant margin, and President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law.

By Jennifer Leigh Velez, Policy Intern

Research Round-Up: Problematic approaches

Researchers are really good at coming up with questions. Sometimes, however, the answers they come up with are inappropriate. Let’s take for example work by Gail Wyatt, Ardis Moe and Don Guthrie called “The Gynecological, Reproductive, and Sexual Health of HIV-Positive Women.”

The authors understandably want to understand how HIV positive women go about meeting their gynecological, reproductive and sexual health care needs. What services support them and what blocks access to services are no doubt critical questions. My problem lies with the answers they develop.

Complicated questions about how and why certain people end up with HIV obviously have complicated answers. The authors contend that ethnic differences exist among HIV positive women that mirror ethnic variation among HIV negative women in terms of sexual behaviors and reproductive health care management. Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t. The authors have what researchers call an endogeniety problem. Endogeneity happens when the independent variable is correlated with the error.

Basically all this fancy jargon just means that the researchers didn’t include an important factor that has a relationship with a factor they did include. For example, let’s say you and I were doing a research project on women’s health experiences. We decide to ask women in a hospital waiting room to fill out a survey and do interviews with us. We have and endogeneity problem here because we’re only speaking to women who have the means and spare time to get to the hospital. We might be missing a factor like “easily accessible transportation” or a“job with paid time off” that would ultimately be really helpful in helping us understand women’s health care experiences in New York City.

Authors Wyatt, Moe and Guthrie have a major endogeneity problem because they only work with women already involved with a hospital. They also have some problems with unclear terms and small sample sizes, but endogeneity is their biggest problem. Since we can’t tell what their research means for women in Los Angeles (where their study takes place). Unfortunately they reach problematic conclusion because their approach is filled with errors. Let’s make sure to keep a critical key on research!

By Adrienne Wallace, Research Intern

New study highlights high rate of Latina suicide attempts

A CNN article recently placed spotlight on the troubling rates of Latina suicide attempts.

One out of every seven Latina teens, or 14 percent, attempts suicide according to a 2007 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of high school students. And Latina high school students have higher attempted suicide rates than white non-Hispanic (7.7 percent) or black non-Hispanic (9.9 percent) girls their age, the CDC reports.

Research done by Dr. Luis Zayas, a psychologist at Washington University, has tried to focus in on the cause of this high rate of suicide attempts.

He says the typical Latina teen who attempts suicide is 14 or 15, the daughter of immigrant parents, lives in a low-income setting and is caught in an intense battle with her mother over Latino and American cultures. Research conducted by Zayas has found the girls’ parents hold strictly to traditional Latino values, while teens who grow up in America learn “very different models about what girls should do, can do and are permitted to do.”

This struggle between two cultures is what many first generation teens experience everyday. Their parents come to this country with good intentions to give their children a better life but it’s a challenge. They go through years of separation from their families, working underpaid positions just to be able to minimally provide their families needs. This takes a toll on the parent but it also takes a toll on the rest of the family.

We have to look at all the ways the hardships faced by Latina immigrants impact our lives and our health, and find interventions and services that can prevent them as best we can.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing problems and needs to talk or has thought about attempting suicide please contact The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene at 1-800-Lifenet or call 311.

By Jennifer Leigh Velez, Policy Intern

My First Trip to DC for NLIRH’s Quinceañera Celebration!

Last week, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health celebrated its Quinceañera at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C. As an intern for NLIRH as well as a west coast native, I was very excited to attend this momentous occasion in our nation’s capital. The night began with the VIP reception featuring fancy hors d’oeuvres, plenty of white sangria, and live music provided by Mariachi Los Amigos. After plenty of mingling and picture posing, we finally moved to the main room where I encouraged many of the guests to participate in our silent auction while trying to make my way towards the food. The chefs at Café Atlantico and Oyamel gave everyone’s taste buds a little piece of heaven with all of their delicious creations. My favorite was the ceviche martinis, which not only looked and sounded delicious, but were jam packed with flavor!  The night had officially begun with an opening slide show and speech from our Director, Silvia Henriquez. We soon met our mistress of ceremonies, Maria Hinojosa, who was entertaining, enthusiastic, and had the entire room laughing in two seconds.

However, the highlight of my night was the award ceremony. Gloria Moreno, Maria Luisa Sanchez Fuentes, and Maria-Teresa Kumar (representing VotoLatino) delivered powerful speeches after receiving their awards for SALUD, DIGNIDAD, and JUSTICIA respectfully. Their words left me in tears, but also motivated me to get back to the office and continue contributing in the reproductive justice movement.  The night continued with the presentation of the silent auction winners followed by café con leche and some delicious pastries! Although the night was winding down, I could not help but wish it would never end. But alas it did, and I ended my night and my first trip to our nation’s capital with a moonlit stroll down the front of the White House back to my hotel. As I recapped all the events of the night, I could not help but feel very privileged and thankful to have the opportunity not only to attend this wonderful event, but also to be working for such an amazing organization run by powerful, intelligent, and beautiful women! Here’s to 15 years and many more prosperous ones to come!

By Krystal Chan, Development and Communications Intern