Women are more likely to use smoking as a way to handle stress, says Sherry McKee, and quitting itself is stressful. While she researches gender differences in the physiology of quitting, she also urges women to just keep trying.
Passage of the Hyde Amendment was Merle Hoffman’s political wakeup call. In this excerpt from her upcoming book, “Intimate Wars,” she looks at how the amendment widened the gap between rich and poor women, further fueling abortion politics.
The decision by a Boston judge about the unconstitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act is potentially monumental. Alexis Sclamberg explains why social progressives and Tea Party activists alike are tensely watching for word of an appeal.
After 16 years at the L.A. Times Stephanie Simon has just moved to the Wall Street Journal. Her up-close coverage of the abortion wars–one person and angle at a time–built a singular body of work in the archives of her former paper.
The Clinton campaign may have lost its air of inevitability, but Caryl Rivers says it still has recent presidential history to refuel morale. Her message to the candidate: If JFK could hack it, so can you.
(WOMENSENEWS)–CheersBreast cancer rates in the United States dropped by 7 percent from 2002 to 2003, possibly as a result of millions of women who discontinued hormone replacement therapy, the Associated Press reported Dec. 15. The analysis was reported at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.Breast cancer cases dropped most among women 50 and older, the age group taking hormones. In 2003, there were only 124 cases per 100,000 women, the biggest decline in the breast cancer rate since the 1970s. That year, nearly 200,000 cases of breast cancer had been expected, but about 14,000 fewer women actually were diagnosed with the disease.The decline in the number of women taking hormone replacement therapy came just after publication of the Women’s Health Initiative trial in 2002, which revealed that health risks among recipients were elevated, especially for breast cancer and stroke.”This is big news,” said Dr. Jay Brooks of the Ochsner Health System, in Baton Rouge, La.
A growing number of women who once took hormone therapy are now taking black cohosh and eating soy foods to treat menopause. Major studies of the two therapies, however, are scrambling for needed funds.
Every 20 seconds, a woman contracts HIV, the infection that leads to AIDS. With a record 260,000 U.S. women living with this deadly disease, activists are battling to improve prevention and treatment.
Helen Keller would have been 125 this month. Kelly Parisi says that like many great women her full story is getting lost. The deaf and blind child who found language at a water pump became an international celebrity and advocate for women’s rights.