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  • Weekly Legislative Update: Pregnant Worker Fairness Act, Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Preventing Act and Congressional Bills Introduced

    This WeekMary Scanlon

    Floor Action:  Family Support —  On Monday, the House is scheduled to consider H.R. 4302, the Homeless Assistance Act.
     

    Mark-Ups:

    Employment — On Tuesday, the House Education and Labor Committee will mark up H.R. 2694, the Pregnant Worker Fairness Act, and H.R. 5191 Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Preventing Act of 2019.
     
    Right, Mary Gay Scanlon, (D – Pa)

    Bills Introduced 

    Abortion
    S. 3173 —  Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)/Finance (01/09/20) — A bill to provide that amounts paid for an abortion are not taken into account for purposes of the deduction for medical expenses.
     
    Child Care
    S. 3168 — Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)/Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (01/08/20) — A bill to establish competitive federal grants that will empower community colleges and minority-serving institutions to become incubators for infant and toddler child care talent, training, and access on their campuses and in their communities.
     
    Child Protection
    H.R. 5573 — Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI)/ Energy and Commerce (01/09/20) — A bill to amend the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998.
     
    H.R. 5583 — Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA)/House Education and Labor (01/10/20) — A bill to amend the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act to provide for better protections for children raised in kinship families outside of the foster care system.
     
    Employment
    H.R. 5564 — Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY)/Energy and Commerce (1/9/20) — A bill to provide for certain requirements with respect to ownership and diversity reporting for television broadcast stations and cable operators, and for other purposes.
     
    Family Support
    S. 3154 — Sen. John Thune (R-SD)/Finance (01/08/20) — A bill to improve the effectiveness of tribal child support enforcement agencies, and for other purposes.
     
    Health
    H.R. 5551 — Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC)/Energy and Commerce; Oversight and Reform; and Ways and Means (01/07/20) — A bill to require group health plans, health insurance issuers offering group or individual health insurance coverage, and Federal Employees Health Benefits Program health benefits plans to meet certain requirements with respect to medical child support orders, and for other purposes.
     
    S. 3152 — Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV)/Commerce, Science, and Transportation (1/7/20) — A bill to require the Federal Communications Commission to incorporate data on maternal health outcomes into its broadband health maps.
     
    S. 3170—Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR)/Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (1/9/20) — A bill to expand access to breastfeeding accommodations in the workplace, and for other purposes.
     
    Human Trafficking
    S. 3165 — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)/Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (01/08/20) — A bill to direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to conduct a study to assess the unintended impacts on the health and safety of people engaged in transactional sex, in connection with the enactment of the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 (Public Law 115-164) and the loss of interactive computer services that host information related to sexual exchange, and for other purposes.
     
    Miscellaneous
    H.R. 5549 — Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX)/Armed Services (01/07/20) — A bill to authorize the president to award the Medal of Honor to Doris Miller posthumously for acts of valor while a member of the Navy during World War II.
     
    H.R. 5562 — Rep. Marc Veasey(D-TX)/ Oversight and Reform (01/08/20) — A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 4650 East Rosedale Street in Fort Worth, Texas, as the “Dionne Phillips Bagsby Post Office Building.”
     
    H. Res. 786 — Rep. John Curtis (R-UT)/House Oversight and Reform (01/09/20) — A resolution supporting the designation of January 11, 2020, as “National Martha Hughes Cannon Day.”
     
    H.Res.785 — Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI)/Armed Services (01/09/20) — A resolution supporting the designation of February 1, 2020, as “Blue Star Mother’s Day.”
     
    Veterans
    H.R. 5556 — Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA)/ Veterans’ Affairs (01/08/20) — A bill to direct the secretary of Veterans Affairs to conduct an analysis of the need for women-specific programs that treat and rehabilitate women veterans with drug and alcohol dependency and to carry out a pilot program regarding such programs.
     
    H.R. 5568 — Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA)/Veterans’ Affairs (01/09/20) — A bill to direct the secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide abortion counseling to a veteran who has an unwanted pregnancy.

  • Sanditon by Jane Austen And Another Lady: “Women drive this … They’re so well written …”

    Rose Williams who plays Charlotte Heywood

    Charlotte Williams who plays the heroine Charlotte Heywood

    Editor’s Note: My copy of Sanditon (Scribner) ends with An Apology from the Collaborator ( the late Marie Catton Dobbs), from which I have drawn upon the following:

    “The first eleven chapters of Sanditon were written between January 27 and March 18, 1817. By that time, after writing 26,000 words, it was clear that Jane Austen was gravely ill and physically unable to pick up the work again. She died on July 18, 1817.

    “The fragment was bequeathed to her niece, Anna Austen Lefroy, and now belongs to King’s College, Cambridge. Only brief extracts from it were quoted in Austen Leigh’s Memoir, published in 1870s, and it had to wait more than a hundred years after the author’s death for its first edition by Dr. Chapman in 1925…

    “… Nobody could suggest it was a forerunner of Emma or Mansfield Park. Nobody could write other articles contradicting them. The other profitable line as to assess the fragment on its own merits as an isolated example of Jane Austen’s ‘probable development’.”

    “As such Sanditon has long been familiar to literary critics; I would like to emphasize, however, that neither this apology nor my completion of the manuscript is intended for them, but for the lay readers of Jane Austen. Ever increasing numbers, seeking to escape the shoddy values and cheap garishness of our own age, are turning to Jane Austen’s novels to catch glimpses of life in what appear to be far more leisured times…

    “The actual join in the present narrative takes place half-way through Chapter 11 following that last typically Austen sentence: ‘Poor Mr Hollis! It was impossible not to feel him hardly used: to be obliged to stand back in his own house and see the best place by the fire constantly occupied by Sir Henry Denham.’

    From an ITV introduction: 

    “Inspired by Jane Austen’s unfinished final novel, Sanditon is a compelling depiction of a developing Regency seaside town at the forefront of the great social and economic changes of the age. When a carriage accident introduces the young Charlotte Heywood to the Parker family, she embarks on a journey from the only home she has ever known to the seaside idyll of Sanditon.

    Carried along by the enthusiasm of entrepreneur Tom Parker for the development of the once small fishing village into a fashionable seaside resort, Charlotte quickly finds herself at the heart of a diverse and unexpected community. From the direct but miserly Lady Denham, on whose fortune the Sanditon project relies, to the bitter fight between the numerous relatives hoping to inherit Lady Denham’s money, Charlotte quickly  discovers that not everyone is as they first appear.

    With the arrival of a wealthy mixed race heiress, and a succession of hypochondriacs seeking saltwater ‘cures’ flooding in, Charlotte must learn for the first time to navigate the complex social structures evident in the town.

    And then there is Sidney Parker. Handsome, but also the most wild of the Parker brothers, Sidney and Charlotte almost immediately clash. Charlotte — spirited, open and inexperienced — is tactlessly forthright about Sidney’s family and he is affronted by her stridency and naïve ignorance. With the sea stretching out behind them, and the bustle of a regency ball just out of ear-shot, the battle lines of this central, winding and heated romance are drawn. Amidst the rival suitors and unexpected danger, can Charlotte and Sidney see past each other’s flaws and forge a real relationship? Against the backdrop of Tom’s ambitious vision for the town beginning to crumble, can Sanditon — and Charlotte’s place within it — be saved? This rich, family saga stretching from the West Indies to the rotting alleys of London, leads us to the heart of a  town consumed by class divide, ambition, power play and romance. In Sanditon, Charlotte Heywood comes to discover herself …  and ultimately find love.

  • Young Women Still May Be Getting Unnecessary Pelvic Exams; UCSF and CDC Study Finds Millions of “Outdated” Tests Being Performed on Healthy Females 15 to 20 Years Old

    By Elizabeth Fernandez,  UCSF.edu,  January 6, 2020

    Young Women Still May Be Getting Unnecessary Pelvic Exams

    Pelvic examinations and cervical cancer screenings are no longer recommended for most females under age 21 during routine health visits, but a new study has found that millions of young women are unnecessarily undergoing the tests, which can lead to false-positive testing, over-treatment, anxiety and needless cost. 

    Researchers at UC San Francisco and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that 1.4 million pelvic examinations and 1.6 million Pap tests performed on U.S. females 15 to 20 years old in a single year may have been medically unnecessary. 

    The findings suggest that despite professional guidelines and recommendations against routine pelvic examinations and Pap tests in this age group, there’s a critical lag in clinical practice. The estimated cost of these unnecessary exams was approximately $123 million a year.

    The study appears Jan. 6, 2020 in JAMA Internal Medicine. 

    “Recent media reports have called attention to inappropriate gynecologic examinations in young women,” said senior author George F. Sawaya, MD, professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at UCSF and director of the UCSF Center for Healthcare Value.

    Parents of adolescents and young women should be aware that cervical cancer screening is not recommended routinely in this age group of 15 to 20 years old. – George F. Sawaya, MD

    “Parents of adolescents and young women should be aware that cervical cancer screening is not recommended routinely in this age group of 15 to 20 years old. Pelvic exams are not necessary prior to getting most contraceptives and are often not needed to screen for sexually transmissible infections,” Sawaya said. 

    Cervical cancer screening is not recommended for individuals under age 21, according to the US Preventive Services Task Force, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Cancer Society. Additionally, leading professional organizations recommend against performing pelvic examinations in asymptomatic women who are not pregnant.

  • Horse, Horse, Tiger, Tiger; It’s the Tone of the Character That Makes the Word

     Shanghai

    Nanjing Road, Shanghai, part of the old City: Peter K Burian; Wikimedia Commons

    by Ferida Wolff

    One summer, my family went to China. No one spoke Mandarin, the official Chinese language. At our request, our Shanghai guide taught us how to say Hello, Goodbye, and Thank you. The Chinese people like to bargain, she said, so she also taught us to say, How much is that? and That’s too expensive. We learned the Chinese equivalent of so-so, which would make it seem as if we were not too eager to buy and we would not be cheated. What she didn’t teach us, and perhaps couldn’t, was how to listen with Chinese ears.

    In America, we accept many different pronunciations and still understand what is meant; it is the word itself that conveys its meaning. In China, it is the tone of the character that makes the word and, depending upon which is used, the meaning changes. The character ma, for instance, can mean you are calling your mother, asking a question, naming a horse, or saying something offensive.

    So, armed with our new linguistic knowledge, we headed off on our own into the shops that lined Nanjing Road, a major shopping area in Shanghai. In one shop, we pointed to a fan. The clerk took it from its case to show to us. We looked it over and carefully said in our best Mandarin, “Mao, mao, hoo, hoo.” The clerk’s eyes widened. She backed away into the protection of the other clerks who were standing around stone-faced trying to decipher our intentions. Afraid that we were creating an international incident, we quickly bought the fan and forgot the bargaining. We tried our language skills in another store. This time the clerk burst into laughter and repeated our statement loud enough for everyone around the counter to hear. They all laughed. We still didn’t get it.

    We were laughed out of a few more stores in a few more cities before we stopped trying to bargain. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong. We said what our guide had taught us, hadn’t we?

    We finally asked another guide in the resort city of Hanghzou why we were getting such reactions. When he heard what we said, he laughed, too.

    “What you are saying is, ‘Horse, horse, tiger, tiger‘.”

    He pronounced the words slowly for us to hear the right way to say them. We listened very carefully this time and said the phrase exactly as he taught us.

    “No, no. That is not right,” he said.

    We tried again with equally disastrous results. We couldn’t hear the difference. A dip in intonation, if we heard it at all was, for us, just another way of speaking — for our guide it was a whole new word. He shook his head and gave up.

    We stopped verbally bargaining for the rest of the trip but found that through gesture and intention, we were able to purchase what we wanted without feeling we were being taken advantage of too badly. And we were rewarded with smiles instead of laughs.

    Somewhere along the way, we were told that the few words we knew were spoken with a Shanghai accent. We didn’t try to figure out the regional variations; we were still stuck on horses and tigers.

    ©2009 – 2020 Ferida Wolff for SeniorWomen.com

  • Grab That Museum Pass! Could Arts Engagement Have Protective Associations With Survival?

     Met Museum of Art

     European paintings at Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC, USA); Wikimedia Commons, André Lage Freitas

    This British Medical Journal study* explored whether receptive arts engagement could have protective associations with survival. We analysed the longitudinal relation between receptive arts engagement and mortality across a 14 year follow-up period in a nationally representative sample of adults aged 50 and older. Results showed a dose-response relation: risk of dying at any point during the follow-up period among people who engaged with cultural activities on an infrequent basis (once or twice a year) was 14% lower than in those with no engagement; for those who engaged on a frequent basis (every few months or more), the risk was 31% lower. The association was independent of all identified confounders, was found across all major causes of death, and was robust to a wide range of sensitivity analyses.

    This study had several strengths. We used a nationally representative sample of older adults, applied data linkage to national mortality data, and included a comprehensive list of identified confounders. However, several limitations exist. Firstly, this study was observational, and although we took a number of additional steps to try and test the assumptions of models, causality cannot be assumed. It remains possible that unidentified confounding factors could account for the associations found. However, our E value** suggests that such unmeasured confounders would need to have a considerable effect to account for the associations found. Secondly, most of our data were based on participant self report (eg, existing clinical diagnoses of health conditions), so data might be affected by self report bias. However, participants were unaware of the specific hypothesis of this study. Relatedly, there could be measurement error and misclassification (especially for categorical variables) in our confounders that might result in our analyses not being fully adjusted and leaving residual confounding. Thirdly, in our analyses on cause of death, we focused on four major categories, but owing to insufficient power it remains unclear how results differed for specific subsets of cause of death.

    Our results build on previous broad literature on leisure activities and mortality, and more specifically, on the findings from two previous analyses of Scandinavian data. However, our study extends these findings in three key ways. Firstly, the results show the association in another national population. Recognised cross cultural differences exist in the consumption and value of receptive arts engagement, therefore the replication of results in a different country is important because it suggests the association is not confined to one particular cultural context. Secondly, we found no evidence of moderation by sex. Previous research suggests that men and women are affected differently by protective factors. For example, daily reading has been associated with survival in men but not women,  while leisure participation broadly has been found only to be beneficial in men. However, another previous study found that receptive arts engagement was the only leisure activity that did not appear to show a differential survival association by sex. Our study supports this finding and showed no moderating effect and similar protective associations for men and women.

    Thirdly, our study identified some of the potential factors that could act as mechanisms that underpin the protective association with mortality. Part of the association is attributable to differences in socioeconomic status among those who do and do not engage in the arts, which aligns with research that suggests engagement in cultural activities is socially patterned. However, the association remains independent of socioeconomic status, so this does not fully explain the association. Some of the other factors that accounted for part of the association included mental health and cognition. This finding is consistent with research that shows that receptive arts engagement can help in preventing and managing depression, and that it can provide support in preventing cognitive decline and in developing cognitive reserve. Our results are also consistent with research that suggests poor mental health and lower cognition can be barriers to engaging in arts activities. Similarly, other social and civic engagement explained some of the association, which ties in with well known literature on social activity and mortality. However, this study also showed that the association is independent of all of these factors, and over half of the association remains unexplained.

    When considering what could explain this remaining association, research has suggested that arts engagement builds social capital, which improves people’s access to knowledge and resources, and could help with successful ageing. Further possibilities are that arts engagement improves a sense of purpose in life, helps with the regulation of emotions and thereby enhances coping, supports the buffering of stress, and builds creativity, which improves people’s ability to adapt positively to changing life circumstances. The potential mediating role of these factors remains to be explored further in future studies.

  • Being forced to engage in any activity where you cannot leave is illegal. This includes: commercial sex, housework, farm work, construction, factory, retail, restaurant work, or any other activity

    Editor’s Note: A couple of days ago, we had to go to an Urgent Clinic when my husband’s car was rear-ended. It was near the end of the Christmas/New Year’s break time. I was in the waiting room of the John Muir/UCSF Health Berkeley Outpatient Center when I noticed the following notice posted prominently on the wall of the Center:

    AB-2034 Human trafficking: notice. (2017-2018) … Amended

    Be the One Poster

    Being forced to engage in any activity where you cannot 
    leave is illegal. This includes: commercial sex, housework, farm work, construction, factory, retail, restaurant work, or any other activity.

    If you or someone you know is being forced to engage in any

    activity and cannot leave, please call the National Human

    Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888 or the

    California Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST)

    at 1-888-539-2373 to access help and services. Victims of

    slavery and human trafficking are protected under United

    States and California Law.

     

    The hotlines are:

    – Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

    – Toll-free

    – Operated by nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations

    – Anonymous and confidential

    – Accessible in more than 160 languages

    – Able to provide help, referral to services, training. And

      general information

    SECTION 1.

     Section 52.6 of the Civil Code is amended to read:

     (a) Each of the following businesses and other establishments shall, upon the availability of the model notice described in subdivision (d), post a notice that complies with the requirements of this section in a conspicuous place near the public entrance of the establishment or in another conspicuous location in clear view of the public and employees where similar notices are customarily posted:
    (1) On-sale general public premises licensees under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act (Division 9 (commencing with Section 23000) of the Business and Professions Code).
    (2) Adult or sexually oriented businesses, as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 318.5 of the Penal Code.
    (3) Primary airports, as defined in Section 47102(16) of Title 49 of the United States Code.
    (4) Intercity passenger rail or light rail stations.
    (5) Bus stations.
    (6) Truck stops. For purposes of this section, “truck stop” means a privately owned and operated facility that provides food, fuel, shower or other sanitary facilities, and lawful overnight truck parking.
    (7) Emergency rooms within general acute care hospitals.
    (8) Urgent care centers.
    (9) Farm labor contractors, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 1682 of the Labor Code.
    (10) Privately operated job recruitment centers.
    (11) Roadside rest areas.
    (12) Businesses or establishments that offer massage or bodywork services for compensation and are not described in paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) of Section 4612 of the Business and Professions Code.
    (13) Hotels, motels, and bed and breakfast inns, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 24045.12 of the Business and Professions Code, not including personal residences.
    (b) The notice to be posted pursuant to subdivision (a) shall be at least 81/2 inches by 11 inches in size, written in a 16-point font, and shall state the following:
    “If you or someone you know is being forced to engage in any activity and cannot leave—whether it is commercial sex, housework, farm work, construction, factory, retail, or restaurant work, or any other activity — text 233-733 (Be Free) or call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or the California Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) at 1-888-KEY-2-FRE(EDOM) or 1-888-539-2373 to access help and services.
    Victims of slavery and human trafficking are protected under United States and California law.

  • New Year’s Peeve! A Resolution to Learn Italian — and Not Just the Entrees on the Olive Garden Menu

     Betel Cutter at the British Museum

    This betel-nut cutter was acquired by Hugh Nevill (1847–1897), a British colonial official in the Ceylon Civil Service; Coillecting Histories, British Museum

    by Rose Madeline Mula

    Am I glad I didn’t live in Babylonia four thousand years ago.  There the New Year celebration lasted eleven days.  One is bad enough.

    By the eleventh day, the Babylonians must have had prodigious hangovers. They probably weren’t even fully conscious for the first month of the new year. That’s not for me.  It would mean missing all those great post-holiday sales.

    When I was young, I hated New Year’s — the whole shebang, beginning with New Year’s Eve. The forced gaiety. The pressure to be happy!  It was all so depressing.

    The worst part was that if I didn’t have a date for New Year’s Eve, it cast a pall on the next twelve months.

    One year, to avoid the social ignominy of being dateless on the Big Night, a girl friend and I fled to Manhattan to mingle with the throngs in Times Square so no one could tell that we were unescorted. No one, that is, except a couple of sleazy characters who latched onto us and tried to entice us back to their pad to “start the new year off with a bang.” Did we really look that desperate? When we adamantly refused, a drunk who had been eavesdropping berated us for “spoiling the boys’ New Year.” Give me a break! That was even more disheartening than being home with the old folks watching Guy Lombardo on TV.

    Now that  I’m an “old folk,” I miss Guy Lombardo; and I don’t hate New Year’s Eve any more because I no longer feel pressured to party. Instead, I can go to bed early and sleep through the countdown. It’s wonderful!

    But when I wake up, it’s New Year’s Day, which is not so wonderful, because I feel compelled to make those cursed resolutions that I know are doomed to failure. If I didn’t lose those stubborn ten pounds last year, why will turning a page on the calendar help me shed them this year? (Could you hand me that last brownie, please? And don’t be stingy with the ice cream.)

    And why would I think that taking a new pledge to hike three miles a day is going to work when it never did before? It’s too cold to go out and walk anyway. It’s January in New England, for heaven’s sake! I’ll start in April when it warms up a bit.  Or maybe not. What would be the point? I would have already blown three months.

    Don’t look at me like that. I know I really must cut down on sweets and ramp up my exercise.  And I will.  But making a resolution on January 1 and then giving up completely the first time I weaken isn’t going to do it. Eating a hunk of cheesecake and foregoing the mall walk on January 2 should not give me an excuse to stuff myself and flop on the couch every day for the rest of the year.

    On the bright side, I have stuck to at least one of my last year’s resolutions: I’ve stopped wasting time playing computer FreeCell solitaire. Instead, however, I’m now addicted to Spider solitaire.  Whenever I sit down at the computer to work, that insidious game draws me into its web and traps me there for at least an hour.  I’d resolve to give it up, but I’m afraid something even more obsessive will replace it.

  • Pew Research Center: Stats Informed, Inspired and Challenged Us to Take On Some of Today’s Most Pressing Issues

     
    1. 85% of Americans say political debate has become more negative
    This year, the public rendered a harsh judgment on the state of political discourse over the past several years in the US, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

    • 85 percent said it had become “less respectful”political discourse graph
    • 76 percent said “less fact-based”
    • 60 percent said “less issues-focused”
    FULL RESULTS
    2. Flood-related disasters have cost the US $845 billion since 2000
    ;
    Flooding is the most common — and most costly — natural disaster in the US, but it doesn’t have to be.

    • Every $1 spent on disaster mitigation saves $6.
    • 77% of Americans say federally funded infrastructure must be flood ready.

    Some ways communities are using policy to prepare for flooding:

    Map: See how much your state could save with federal investments in mitigation.
    3. Only about 400 North Atlantic right whales remain
    Scientists calculate that even one North Atlantic right whale death a year is too many if the population is to recover. The main threats: ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear.

    Time is running out for this endangered species — but innovations like ropeless technology offer hope.
    WHAT’S STILL NEEDED
    4. U.S. newsroom employment down 25% since 2008
    More Americans get news on social media than from print newspapers, and they expect it to be largely inaccurate, the Pew Research Center found.

    In related news, newspapers are shrinking—fast:

    Try the tool: See your city’s local news habits.
    5. Americans suffered 2.8 million-plus superbug infections
    What’s more, antibiotic-resistant infections kill more than 35,000 Americans every year.

    2 reasons the problem is so persistent:

    • Up to 50 percent of antibiotic use in humans is unnecessary as prescribed.
    • Deficiencies in antibiotic development: Too few new drugs are in the pipeline to replace ineffective ones.

    Priorities for 2020:

    • Reduce antibiotic use in human medicine.
    • Improve antibiotic use in animals.
    • Fix the broken antibiotic market.
    • Ensure stewardship and innovation funding.
    • Continue building international solutions.

    Take the quiz: Test your superbug IQ

    December 31, 2019

  • Women Exposed to Persistent Organic Pollutants Had Slightly Smaller Fetuses than Women Who Haven’t Been Exposed

    Persistent organic pollutants in maternal blood linked to smaller fetal size, NIH study suggests

    Latest findings suggest that the chemicals, which are no longer produced in the United States but persist in the environment, may have lasting health effects even at low levels.scan of pregnancy

    Pregnant women exposed to persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, had slightly smaller fetuses than women who haven’t been exposed to these chemicals, according to an analysis of ultrasound scans by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions. The researchers also found that the women in their study had lower levels of POPs than women in the 2003-2004 U.S. Health and Nutrition Survey, the most recent comprehensive study of these compounds in U.S. pregnant women. The latest findings suggest that the chemicals, which are no longer produced in the United States but persist in the environment, may have lasting health effects even at low levels.

    The study appears in JAMA Pediatrics and was conducted by Pauline Mendola, Ph.D., an investigator in the Epidemiology Branch at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and colleagues.

    Persistent organic pollutants are chemicals once used in agriculture, disease control, manufacturing, and industrial processes. They include the pesticide DDT and dioxin, a byproduct of herbicide production and paper bleaching. POPs are slow to break down, may persist in water and air, and may be passed through the food chain. Their health effects vary, but some compounds have been linked to reproductive disorders and a higher risk of birth defects.

    Earlier studies of the potential effects of POP exposure during pregnancy have produced conflicting results. According to the authors, most of these studies looked at infant birth weight and length, measures that could suggest impaired fetal growth but could also indicate genetic factors that lead to smaller birth size and weight. Moreover, previous studies have investigated POPs as individual chemicals, but people typically are exposed to a mix of these compounds.

    “The differences we found in fetal growth measures may be more sensitive indicators, compared to birth size, of the potential effects of these compounds,” said Dr. Mendola. “Even at low levels, there is evidence of a possible effect on fetal growth.”

    In the current study, researchers analyzed records, stored blood samples, and a series of ultrasound scans taken from weeks 16-40 of 2,284 pregnant women enrolled in the NICHD Fetal Growth Study from 2009 to 2013. The blood samples were tested for the presence of 76 POPs soon after the women began the study. The POP levels in each woman’s blood were listed as percentiles, with the highest levels set at 100 and the lowest at 1. The researchers then compared growth measurements of head circumference, abdominal circumference, and femur (thigh bone) length of the fetuses of women in the 75th percentile to those of women in the 25th percentile.

    They found that, compared to fetuses in the 25th percentile of exposure to organochlorine pesticides, the fetuses of women with exposure in the 75th percentile had the most widespread growth reductions, with head circumference reduced by an average of 4.7 mm, abdominal circumference reduced by 3.5 mm, and femur length reduced by 0.6 mm. High levels of dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls were associated with an average head circumference reduction of 6.4 mm and an abdominal circumference reduction of 2.4 mm. High levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers —flame-retardant chemicals used in furniture, electronics and other consumer products—were associated with an average abdominal circumference reduction of 2.4 mm and an average femur length reduction of 0.5 mm.

  • Berggruen Prize for Philosophy & Culture Awarded to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for Her Work in Pioneering Gender Equality and Strengthening the Rule of Law

    Legal Scholar, Judge and Advocate Whose Work Provided a New Era of Vital Philosophical Ideas to Fruition; Extending Women’s Rights and Human Rights Rooted in Ethical Principles

    Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

    RACHEL S. BAUCH

    Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States is the winner of the 2019 Berggruen Prize for Philosophy & Culture. The $1 million award is given annually to thinkers whose ideas have profoundly shaped human self-understanding and advancement in a rapidly changing world. Justice Ginsburg will direct the monetary prize to charitable or non-profit organizations that she designates.

    Justice Ginsburg was selected from more than 500 nominees and a shortlist of five, which included some of the world’s most renowned thinkers from various fields including social science, global justice, animal rights, and bioethics. Since its inception in 2016, the Berggruen Prize has been awarded to four outstanding thinkers, three of them women.

    “It is a true honor to have Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the recipient of this year’s Berggruen Prize,” stated Institute Founder and Chairman Nicolas Berggruen. “I am delighted the Jury has chosen to honor such a prolific leader in the field of jurisprudence. Throughout her career, Ginsburg has used the law to advance ethical and philosophical principles of equality and human rights as basic tenets of the USA. Her contributions have shaped our way of life and way of thinking and have demonstrated to the world the importance of the rule of law in disabling discrimination.”