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Opposition To Abortion Rights 'Purity Test For Remaining In GOP Inner Circle,' Opinion Piece Says
People "will not be surprised" by the recent Republican "purge" and "un-eulogies" of several conservative abortion-rights supporters -- including retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, former Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) and former Secretary of State Colin Powell -- given that "abortion is the purity test for remaining in the GOP inner circle," syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman writes in a Memphis Commercial Appeal opinion piece. The U.S. is "in for another battle centered, again, on Roe v. Wade" as President Obama nominates a replacement for Souter, she writes, adding that the "purge has led me to wonder what would have happened if the first abortion case to arrive at the Supreme Court" were Struck v. Secretary of Defense, rather than Roe. "What if it had been brought by the woman who did not want an abortion?" Goodman writes, noting that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has recently "mused out loud about the case that got away -- the one she would have liked to argue before the court back when she was a women"s rights litigator."According to Goodman, Susan Struck was a captain in the Air Force who became pregnant in 1970 and was told by her commanding officer that she could either resign or have an abortion. "Struck picked a third choice: a lawsuit," and Ginsberg -- a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union -- "argued that the regulation prohibiting pregnant women from military service was sex discrimination," Goodman writes. Ginsberg also argued that Struck"s choice to carry her pregnancy to term was a personal one and that government intervention was a violation of her liberty. However, as the case was heading to the Supreme Court, the defending lawyer "figured that he was going to lose. So the savvy solicitor advised the armed services to change the rules and the case became moot," Goodman writes."It is mind-bending to think about how different the whole debate might have been if the first Supreme Court case arguing for the right to decide had been brought by a woman wanting to have a baby," Goodman continues. She asks if the U.S. would "have better understood this reality: a government that can force a woman to have an abortion is the same government that can force a woman to continue the pregnancy? Would it have changed a Republican Party that was traditionally so wary of government power-grabs?" (Goodman, Memphis Commercial Appeal, 5/14).
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Mice With Parkinson's Disease Gene May Point The Way To New Treatments
Scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have developed a new mouse model of Parkinson"s disease (PD) that successfully reproduces the impairments of movement and the degenerative brain changes that occur in the human disease. Their research, performed in collaboration with investigators at Columbia University Medical Center, appears in the June 7 issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience.
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New Method For HIV Testing Holds Promise For Developing World
A new technique that detects the HIV virus early and monitors its development without requiring refrigeration may make AIDS testing more accessible in sub-Saharan Africa.
Cardiovascular

Opinion Pieces, Editorial Discuss Federal Needle Exchange Funding Ban

Summaries of two opinion pieces and an editorial related to the ban on the use of federal funding for needle exchange and recent congressional action appear below. Washington Post Columnist Michael Gerson discusses Washington, D.C."s "largest needle-exchange program," PreventionWorks, and the "controversy" surrounding the program and others. Gerson writes that the recently passed House bill that includes an "amendment banning exchanges ò€¦ within 1,000 feet of places where children gather ... would effectively put programs like PreventionWorks out of business," if approved by the Senate. He continues, "This restriction might make sense if needle exchange programs increased the number of addicts. But they don"t." According to Gerson, "Critics claim that needle exchange programs create a moral hazard by legitimizing drug abuse. But it does not legitimate drug abuse to help people with the clinical disease of addiction avoid other deadly diseases until they are ready for help. Sacrificing the lives of addicts to send an "unmixed" moral message actually sends a troubling moral message: that the unwanted have no worth" (8/5). *The ban on the use of federal funding for needle exchange programs "is among the most glaring examples of politics trumping science in modern governance," columnist Kai Wright writes in a Minneapolis Star Tribune opinion piece, adding, "Congress imposed it in 1988, arguing that by letting addicts swap dirty needles for clean ones, syringe exchanges encourage drug use." Wright continues, "But research from all over the world has proved that notion apocryphal. It"s now clear beyond a doubt that these programs not only dramatically reduce HIV transmission, they also offer excellent conduits to addiction recovery." Comparing data on the lifetime cost of treating a case of HIV with the cost of preventing an infection through needle exchange, Wright concludes that, "syringe exchange programs are stunningly good for the balance sheet" (8/2). *By "banning the use of federal dollars for [needle exchange] programs in 1988, in the very teeth of the epidemic, federal lawmakers discarded a powerful weapon in the fight against a deadly disease," a New York Times editorial states. "Nearly 600,000 Americans with AIDS have died since the beginning of the epidemic. Nearly a third of those cases can be traced to intravenous drug users who became infected with the virus that causes AIDS by sharing contaminated needles. ò€¦ Many of the dead would never have been infected if Congress had allowed federal financing for [needle exchange] programsò€¦." The editorial concludes that the limitations included in the current House legislation regarding the use of federal funding for needle exchange programs, "ò€¦ are a clear threat to public health. They deserve to be stripped out in conference" (8/4). This information was reprinted from dailyreports.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily U.S. HIV/AIDS Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at dailyreports.kff.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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