lborkowski

A policy brief about Congressional Republicans’ bill to replace the Affordable Care Act has two Medicaid provisions that could prove seriously detrimental to public health and states’ finances: Gutting the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, and changing the current Medicaid financing structure. A Center on…

Government scientists play essential roles in our country's top public health achievements. From food-safety improvements to tobacco cessation, we rely on them to warn us of health risks, identify solutions, and create standards that promote public health. The Trump administration puts our health…

by Laura Punnett, ScD Perhaps you’ve heard that there are some unusual trends in U.S. death rates – specifically, that white people are experiencing an unexpected increase in mortality. Last year, the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton published an innovative analysis calling attention to the…

A few recent pieces I recommend: Sarah Frostenson at Vox: Public health shouldn’t be contentious. But it’s incredibly polarizing. Mallory Falk and Eve Troeh at WWNO: Kids, Trauma and New Orleans Schools Vann R. Newkirk II in The Atlantic: Obamacare’s Unlikely Defenders Andrés Miguel Rondón in the…

by Andrea Hricko, MPH When I offered to write a Pump Handle review of Dr. Paul Blanc's new book Fake Silk, I had no idea that it would make me question the clothes I was wearing, which I believe to be "environmentally sustainable."  I didn't even put that connection together after hearing…

Twenty-four years ago, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Family and Medical Leave Act. The FMLA has allowed millions of workers to take time off work to care for new children and seriously ill family members, but it has several shortcomings and was only intended to be a first step. But…

President Trump’s callous and short-sighted executive order restricting US entry for refugees and travelers from certain countries is rightfully getting a lot of attention, but it risks overshadowing another destructive thing he did for global health during his first week in office: reinstating and…

By Jonathan Heller President Trump’s 100 day plan includes deporting 2 million undocumented residents from the US. The plan represents a massive increase in scale and speed of deportations. Trump says he will focus on deporting undocumented people with criminal records. With fewer of them in the US…

As Congressional Republicans continue taking steps toward repealing the Affordable Care Act without providing a detailed, workable plan to replace it, more people are speaking out against ACA repeal. GOP Governors John Kasich of Ohio and Rick Snyder of Michigan are speaking to journalists about how…

Republicans in Congress are pressing forward with a plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act through a budget reconciliation process, which requires only 50 votes but can only eliminate the portions of the law that affect the federal budget. They don’t yet have a viable plan to replace it, so they’re…

The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on April 25, is one of our favorite posts from 2016. by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH During 1999-2000, reporter Andrew Schneider blew the lid off the asbestos disaster in Libby, Montana. Schneider’s original…

The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on Jan. 29, is one of our favorite posts from 2016. by Kim Krisberg In the midst of another national debate over gun safety regulations, some argue that higher rates of gun ownership will protect people from…

The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on May 23, is one of our favorite posts from 2016. by Kim Krisberg Last summer, 25-year-old Roendy Granillo died of heat stroke while he installed flooring in a house in Melissa, Texas, just north of Dallas. His…

The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on March 9, is one of our favorite posts from 2016. by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) continues to make the case that consumers and contractors should stay away from…

The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on July 8, is one of our favorite posts from 2016. by Kim Krisberg In 2005, the World Health Assembly adopted a revised version of its International Health Regulations, a legally binding treaty among 196 nations to…

The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on August 29, is one of our favorite posts from 2016. by Liz Borkowski, MPH Two decades ago, President Bill Clinton signed the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act” (PRWORA) and heralded…

The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on Feb. 29, is one of our favorite posts from 2016. by Liz Borkowski, MPH I've written before about the Colorado Family Planning Initiative, which in 2009 started providing free IUDs and contraceptive implants (the…

A few recent pieces worth a read: Sarah Kliff at Vox: Why Obamacare enrollees voted for Trump Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the New Yorker: Now is the time to talk about what we are actually talking about Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic: My President Was Black Nidhi Subbaraman at BuzzFeed: Obamacare…

Last week, the journal Antibiotic Agents and Chemotherapy posted an accepted manuscript that contains some very bad news: an easy-to-spread gene that makes bacteria resistant to an important class of antibiotics has been found in samples from a US pig farm. A team of researchers from Ohio State…

Recent news has highlighted just how important and popular the Affordable Care Act has been, but its fate under a Trump administration and Republican Congress is uncertain. Congressional Republicans have voted repeatedly to repeal the ACA, but now that they actually have a shot at doing that,…

New data from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics show that the US teen birth rate dropped substantially between 2007 and 2015, but it has declined most slowly in rural areas. "From 2007 through 2015, teen birth rates declined 50% in large urban counties, 44% in medium and small urban…

In the days following the 2016 election, reports of hate crimes and harassment have spiked, and experts have described it as being worse than in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks. Between Wednesday, November 9 (the day after the election) and the morning of November 14, the…

by Jill Johnston, PhD Steve and I were driving down a long stretch of two lane highway in eastern North Carolina. The six-hour round-trip journey happened frequently so Steve could visit residents most impacted by the industrial hog industry. Today, we were visiting a family concerned about their…

Months after a severe earthquake devastated Haiti in 2010, UN peacekeeping troops exacerbated Haitians’ suffering by introducing cholera to the country, via waste that leaked from a UN housing base into the Artibonite river. The disease sickened 800,000 people and killed more than 9,000 – although…

Last week, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas temporarily enjoined provisions of the Obama Administration’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executiv Order (EO 13673), which would require companies bidding on federal contracts worth more than $500,000 to report whether or not they…

A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Eric Boodman at STAT: Night sweats, bloody cough — and a diagnosis that turned a doctor into an activist Laura Fink in The San Diego Union-Tribune: Debt of gratitude owed to Trump accusers Eliza Barclay at Vox: How to confront sexist “locker room talk,”…

Just before the end of its September session, Congress finally did what public health officials had been begging it to do for more than seven months and approved substantial funding for Zika response efforts. The $1.1 billion package fell short of the $1.9 billion President Obama requested back in…

A few of the recent pieces I've liked: Maryn McKenna at National Geographic’s Germination: How We'll Tackle Diseases That Are Becoming Untreatable (“The United Nations just declared antibiotic resistance “the greatest and most urgent global risk.” Here’s what they’re going to do about it.”) Kelli…

Last summer, Nigeria celebrated having gone a year without a case of polio. But then last month, just before meeting the two-year mark, two children in Nigeria were diagnosed with polio paralysis, and a third case has now been detected. All three cases are in Borno state (in northeastern Nigeria)…

The latest findings on US health insurance coverage from the first quarter of the current year continue what is becoming a familiar story: The portion of the US population without health insurance continues to decline. This year, the estimate from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics is that…