Hear are the top things to know in women’s health and wellness so far this week:
HHS Sec. Kennedy stacked an advisory panel to vote against universal Hepatitis B vaccines for newborns. Pediatrician groups are rejecting the recommendation and saying it will lead to fatal infections later in life.
Bloomberg has the scoop that Marty Makary, the head of the FDA, has told officials the agency will delay the (very scientifically questionable) review of the abortion pill until after the midterm election — highlighting how this is just a game of politics to this administration.
A trial published in the Lancet found that planning birth at 36 weeks for women at risk of pre-eclampsia cut rates of the deadly complication by 30% compared to standard care.
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EVERYTHING
What: HHS Sec. Kennedy stacked the CDC’s vaccine advisory group to vote against universal hepatitis B vaccination at birth, recommending it only for “high risk” babies. But pediatricians, state health agencies, and hospital systems across the U.S. said they will ignore that change and follow the American Academy of Pediatrics’ long-standing policy to vaccinate all newborns. They argue the advisory panel provided no new research and that scaling back the program would reverse decades of progress against childhood hepatitis B.
Key Line: “Recommendations from the ACIP ‘were made without any new research suggesting that the current vaccine schedule is flawed in terms of its safety or effectiveness,’ Kociolek said. ‘We will continue to endorse the pediatric vaccine schedule currently in place.’ ACIP’s members were handpicked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist. Many of the new members parrot Kennedy’s false claims that vaccines aren’t adequately tested for safety.”
Source: CIDRAP News
PREGNANCY + POSTPARTUM
What: A trial in the Lancet found screening pregnant patients at 36 weeks and offering early-term delivery based on risk cut pre-eclampsia rates by 30% compared with standard care. The randomized study included over 8,000 participants in two NHS hospitals and reported no rise in emergency C-sections or newborn intensive care needs. Researchers say the approach could offer safer, more personalized care for those at risk.
Key Line: “Professor Kypros Nicolaides, founder and chairman of the Fetal Medicine Foundation, and senior author of the paper, said: ‘A 30% reduction in term pre-eclampsia, from 5.6% to 3.9%, is very important. It represents an even greater reduction in the number of pre-eclampsia cases than we can achieve for preterm pre-eclampsia with aspirin.’”
Source: The Lancet
ABORTION ACCESS
What: The New York Times looks at how, three years after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, research has found the number of abortions nationwide increased each year since 2022. Still, states are even more split on abortion—some tightening bans, others expanding protections. North Dakota reinstated a near-total ban, Texas now allows lawsuits against out-of-state doctors who mail abortion pills, and California passed a law shielding those doctors.
Key Line: “‘The U.S. is becoming a tale of two countries in terms of abortion access and abortion policy,’ said Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, a professor and a public health scientist at the University of California, San Francisco. But, she added, ‘All of this legislation will never take away from the fact that women will continue to need abortion care, and continue to get abortion care.’”
Source: The New York Times
What: The FDA has postponed reviewing safety data for the abortion pill mifepristone at top FDA official Marty Makary’s request, delaying the process until after the midterm elections. Though Makary and Health and HHS Sec. Kennedy have publicly said a review is underway, insiders say the agency was instructed to hold off. The delay raises questions about political influence over reproductive health decisions that directly affect access to safe abortion care.
Key Line: “Makary and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have told lawmakers and state attorneys general for months that they are actively conducting a review of mifepristone. But behind the scenes, Makary has told agency officials to delay the safety review, people familiar with the discussions said.”
Source: Bloomberg
ONCOLOGY
What: A study found women with estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer were more likely to be living in disadvantaged neighborhoods and had higher levels of inflammation-related proteins, altered hormone and cholesterol patterns, and tumor gene activity tied to faster cancer growth. Researchers analyzed plasma from 91 patients compared with 141 healthy controls, plus 71 tumor samples, showing that social conditions align with measurable biological stress signals. The findings suggest chronic inflammation and metabolic disruption may partly explain worse outcomes for patients in poorer areas.
Key Line: “Our analyses show that neighborhood disadvantage correlates with upregulation of inflammatory and proliferation-related gene expression within tumors themselves, establishing a biological pathway linking social determinants of health to tumor aggression.”