Medical Monday: Breaking News from the World of Obstetric and Gynecology

Policy

The GOP appears to be giving up on repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Those who support the patient care aspects of the ACA may cheer, but they should not breathe a sign of relief, since the funding mechanisms of this plan remain somewhat undetermined. Encouragingly, there is increasing GOP interest in crafting legislation which will make the plan more fiscally stable. The goals in this case would be to guarantee Federal subsidies to insurers, and to reduce patient premiums while keeping essential benefits.

Do you think that people realize that the more people sign up for the ACA, the more stable it will be ? Well, it's true. It's easy. Go to heathcare.gov to see if you qualify. 

South Carolina has argued that a “ human being is a person at fertilization”. They have created a legal category “preborn humans” which incidentally my spell check refuses to recognize, and they propose these preborn humans be afforded due process and all protections under the law. ACOG, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, opposes the bill since it is not based on science. 

A 20 week ban on abortion failed the Senate. The bill’s proponents advanced the bill on the basis of their belief that 20 week fetuses can feel pain. ACOG has gone on record saying “ the fetus does not have the physiological capacity to perceive pain until at least the 24th week of gestation.”. We as a medical culture have a great deal of experience with 24 week babies since they routinely come to any large newborn ICU. Had the bill passed, it would have been challenged under the standing Roe V. Wade. 

Idaho has introduced a bill which introduces misinformation into the informed consent language for medical (pill based) abortion. The bill’s language asserts that medical abortion can be halted after the first of two pills is taken. The bill further requires providers to provide a list of other providers who can advise about “ abortion reversals”. None of the bills assertions are based in fact. A patient contemplating a medically induced abortion should not proceed if she has any doubts, since there is no evidence reversal is possible. I feel angry on behalf of distraught women who may be told this misinformation and who try to rely on it. 

A group of private donors has bankrolled the provision of medical abortion services for all public universities in California. A bill is under debate which will require public universities to provide this service. 

Another bill proposed in California would require larger businesses with new construction to provide space for breastfeeding. The bill stipulates these areas need to be be in place by 2019. 

The Utah bill which will require the offering of IUDs through Medicaid has passed the House and is heading to the Utah Senate. Republican lawmaker Ray Ward, has proposed the measure to decrease unplanned pregnancies, teen pregnancies, and abortions. 

Medicaid expansions may be able to move forward in several traditionally red states if they are paired with work requirements. What do you think ?

Medicine

 

Researchers out of UC San Francisco have come out highlighting the adverse effect of marijuana on the unborn. Dr. Dana Gossett has cited several recent studies which indicate marijuana increases risk of still birth and adversely affects how the babies brain develops. ACOG has already come out formally warning pregnant women not to use. This could potentially turn out to be a huge generational problem if these children, as a generation, have significant delays. This research also raises the question of what is marijuana does to the brains of children and adults who use. This research also raises the issue that state policy on marijuana has been made without any reference whatsoever to available science. 

Preliminary date from a Dutch population based study indicate that women with implants may be somewhat more likely to develop anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Further studies are needed to clarify the risk. 

It has been well established that obese women have an increased incidence of breast cancer based on weight aone. However it is now becoming clear that even fat/skinny women are also at increased risk. This means even a woman of normal overall weight with a high body fat percentage has increased risk. 

TDAP stands for tetanus diphtheria and acellular pertussis. This vaccine is given to children and to pregnant women. It turns out that that protection is afforded to the baby through the mother no matter when mother gets the vaccine in her pregnancy. Upshot: It is never too late to get a TDAP in pregnancy. Babies first vaccinations are not until 2 months, so baby needs passively acquired immunity from mom getting her shot in pregnancy. 

This season’s flu is on tract to be the worst of the decade. already it has surpassed the 2009 “ swine flu” epidemic. As f this writing, flu has led to 37 pediatric deaths nationwide. You may have heard that this year’s vaccine is only partially effective. This is true, but some protection is better than none. Get you and your loved ones vaccinated. Do not go to work of you are sick. Ask sick co-workes to go home. Do not take sick children to day care. Wash you hands twitch soap when you arrive at home. Be assertive ! If you think you have been exposed to flu, call your health care provider. You may be eligible for preventive medication, and certainly are if you are pregnant or immunocompromised. 

A new Zika vaccine has been fast tracked by the FDA. It is called TAK-426 and is currently being tested on 240 people between the ages of 18 and 49. 

Women have autoimmune disease 9 times more often then men. I will therefore report on two news items of interest to those with autoimmunity. The first pertains to Rheumatoid Arthritis. A new study has shown that women with Rheumatoid Arthritis tend to deteriorate after menopause. This hints at a relationship between autoimmunity and reproductive hormones. Unfortunately the relationship is not yet clear. Meanwhile, those with these issues should talk to their Gynecologist about navigating through menopause in a way that minimizes difficulty and risk. 

The second has to do with lupus, a condition which I have. New research indicates that a gene called “ Toll Like Receptor 7 (TLR-7) ” may be involved. Normally, only one copy (allele) a gene is active in a given individual. However, in lupus patients the second copy of TLR-7 does not deactivate as it should. The normal role of TLR-7 involves activation of type 1 interferon signaling which is critical to antiviral immunity. However too much of this powerful immune response can be damaging. Lupus nerds stay tuned with cautious optimism. 

Stay tuned next week, here, for more breaking news from the world of Obstetrics and Gynecology. 

Medical Monday: Breaking News from the World of Obstetrics and Gynecology

The Graham-Cassidy Bill leads the policy news this week. This is the GOP's last ditch attempt to repeal the ACA (Affordable Care Act). It has been simplified down to one key point : redistributing Federal funds for Medicaid expansion and insurance subsidies as State block grants. The bill was introduced by two GOP Senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and with support from others. 

During the week that the Graham Cassidy bill has been around, it has been scrutinized. The Kaiser Foundation has determined that the redistribution of funds in those plan would be quite unequal between States. Consider that different States expanded Medicaid more than others, and some did not expand it at all. What States would stand to have taken away would therefore vary. Overall Federal spending on health care would drop by more than 100 billion dollars between 2020-2026 under this plan. Many physician groups have also criticized the plan. Most notably, ACOG (the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists). Eleven Governors including some from the GOP have come out against the bill as well. 

It is unclear if there will be enough votes to pass this bill. More than 50 are needed. Toward the end of the week Senator John McCain has stated he will not support it, and that alone may doom it. Remember that Senator McCain was recently diagnosed with brain cancer this last year, and is therefore deeply involved in the health care world. 

The deadline to pass this bill is September 30th. But it will only be brought to the floor if it is determined beforehand that it will pass. This deadline is needed in part because insurance companies and insurance commissioners need to settle on rates which the commissioners will approve and that will keep the insurers solvent. 

The Iowa legislature voted to forego Federal Funding just so they could deny funding to Planned Parenthood. Now the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services is beginning a collection of data about the effects that this is having. They are trying to determine if defunding Planned Parenthood has reduced access to reproductive health services for Iowans. Seems bass ackward to me. 

In a interesting and positive turn, State Senator Ray Ward, a Republican out of Bountiful, Utah  has proposed a bill that would allow Utah Medicaid recipients to have a postpartum IUD placed while they are still at the hospital. This would bring the red state in line with all but 6 other states which lack this law. 

On to the medical news. 

How bad is the opioid crisis ? It is so bad that death from opioid overdoses is skewing our life expectancy gains statistics. 

Women and opioids are a special case. It turns out opioid addiction and sexual violence are closely linked. In these cases, police are seldom called due to the presence of the drugs and fear or retaliation. 

Speaking of drugs, ACOG has come out with a new Committee Opinion. In this latest document, they have stated clearly that pregnant and breastfeeding women should not use marijuana. 

In the this-makes-perfect-sense department, a new study out of Harvard has shown that adequate sleep and adequate support protect against postpartum depression. That said, even those with high levels of support can get postpartum depression. For example, Ivanka Trump has recently shared her story of postpartum depression. 

An insulin pump may give better control to pregnant diabetics than conventional prick and inject methods.We currently use insulin pumps in non-pregnant diabetics, but have not until now, seen evidence about their use in pregnancy. 

There was a recent Apple event with new product announcements. In it, mention was made of the Apple watch, and the app called Health Kit, and their potential for ultimately helping patients like diabetics. Fast forward only a few days later when I attended Stanford MedX conference. We heard from a young diabetic woman who solved her own problem. Using small cheap components and a little home built computer set up called raspberry pi, she combined a blood glucose sensor with some dosing software and an insulin pump to create her own “ artificial pancreas”. We heard her presentation as an example of what an empowered patient could do. Empowerment plays a huge role in healing. 

The opposite of empowerment is psychological trauma, with resultant PTSD. It turns out that this sort of thing significantly increases one’s risk of being diagnosed with lupus. Lupus is a serious autoimmune disorder characterized by inflammation of the joints and many other tissues. According to a study published in the Journal Arthritis and Rheumatology, trauma even without PTSD are than doubles the risk of getting the disease. Those with PTSD are three times more likely than their peers to get lupus. Nearly 55,000 women’s questionnaires were examined over a 24 year period. This news reinforces the already widespread advice that stress management is important. 

Stay tuned for more exciting news from the world of Obstetrics and Gynecology, next week, on Medical Monday.