August 13, 2026
Tonight: the 82% miscarriage lie returns, AOC's egg-freezing, and more.
— Meghan McCarthy
THE 82% MISCARRIAGE LIE
After the release of Anthony Fauci's 2021 text messages, Republican Sens. Rand Paul and Ron Johnson revived the false claim that COVID-19 vaccines caused an 82% miscarriage rate among women vaccinated early in pregnancy. The figure is an intentionally misleading interpretation of data from a single 2021 study, which actually reported a 12.6% miscarriage rate. (To get the 82% number, they only looked at women who had gotten the vaccine earlier in their pregnancies. But the study only looked at “completed” pregnancies when it closed, and at that point, an early pregnancy appeared in the data table mainly if it had ended in miscarriage.) A meta-analysis of 21 studies covering more than 123,000 pregnancies ultimately found no increased risk. The claim spread widely on X before fact-checkers caught up.
FOUR IN TEN AREN'T SURE THE ABORTION PILL IS SAFE
Only 44% of adults say medication abortion is safe when taken as directed, while 15% call it unsafe and 41% say they simply aren't sure, according to KFF's latest health tracking poll. Just 26% know that pills account for most abortions in the U.S. today. The uncertainty comes as anti-abortion groups push a widely criticized paper claiming mifepristone contaminates wastewater, an argument with no evidence behind it.
IVF SHOTS ON CAPITOL HILL
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 36, posted an Instagram video of herself injecting fertility medication before a TV hit, framing egg freezing as reproductive freedom and calling out the "political tax" that comes with talking about it. Egg-freezing cycles climbed from about 6,090 in 2014 to nearly 39,000 in 2024, per the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. Doctors used the moment to caution that the process can be grueling, and not shockingly, Republicans accused AOC of selling women a fantasy.
IN NEPAL, THE AID STOPPED AND THE DYING STARTED
The Trump administration's move to dismantle USAID gutted maternal and child health programs worldwide. The AP meticulously documented the human cost in Nepal, where the shutdown closed nutrition and reproductive-outreach programs that had kept mothers and infants alive. Health workers and families described pregnant women dying after services vanished, including one woman who died in December while 28 weeks pregnant. The State Department says it still supports maternal-health programs in the country.
FOR EARLY MENOPAUSE, MONEY IS PART OF THE PROGNOSIS
In a study of roughly 20,000 women who went through early natural menopause, social disadvantage predicted worse long-term outcomes, and unemployment was the single strongest predictor of both death and dementia over a median of nearly 11 years, researchers reported in the journal Menopause. The Menopause Society team tracked all-cause mortality and cognitive decline, finding that economic circumstance, not just biology, shaped how early menopause played out.