It is an assault on the human rights of us all that Aung San Suu Kyi is still in captivity and a failure of the international community that she now faces an even harsher imprisonment. Please follow the link below calling on immediate action to secure her freedom. From The Burma Campaign:
The Burma Campaign UK today called for an intense diplomatic effort to secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, after she was detained in custody in Burma’s notorious Insein Jail.
Aung San Suu Kyi is being tried for breaking the terms of her house arrest, which forbids visitors, after an American man, John Yettaw, swam across Inya Lake and refused to leave her house. Her trial is due to begin on 18th May.
“The United Nations and ASEAN must dispatch envoys to Burma to demand the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all Burma’s political prisoners,” said Zoya Phan, International Coordinator at Burma Campaign UK. “Burma’s generals will use any excuse to keep Aung San Suu Kyi detained. If strong action isn’t taken, Aung San Suu Kyi could face the rest of her life in jail.”
The Burma Campaign UK is calling on the British government, EU and USA to use their influence to ensure the UN sends an envoy to Burma.
“Aung San Suu Kyi has committed no crime, she is the victim of crime,” said Zoya Phan. “There was an intruder in her house who refused to leave, but she is the one being imprisoned.”
Today Aung San Suu Kyi will have spent a total of 13 years and 202 days in detention. The United Nations has ruled that Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention is illegal under international law, and also under Burmese law. The United Nations Security Council has also told the dictatorship that they must release Aung San Suu Kyi.
While most of us of know that women with the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 gene mutations are at increased risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer, what you might not be aware of is that the patent for the BRCA 1 and BRCA2 genes are held by a company called Myriad Genetics. Yes that is right, a privately held company can own a patent for for something in our bodies. To say that is way past creepy, not to mention an affront to human rights would be an understatement and the ramifications in terms of women’s health are very serious.
Breast Cancer Action (BCA) is challenging the legality of patenting human “breast cancer genes.” BCA is joining the American Civil Liberties Union in suing Myriad Genetics (a private biotechnology company based in Utah), that currently holds the patent on the two human genes known as BRCA1 and BRCA2.
The BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are present in every human. However, people with certain genetic mutations on these genes are at an increased risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. Myriad holds exclusive rights to these genes and their mutations and to the research performed on them. Testing for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations can only be performed at Myriad labs and currently costs over $3,000.
When one company controls all the testing, less information and resources are available to both patients and researchers. Women unable to afford the $3,500 fee are prevented from access to the test; women seeking second opinions on any results they might receive have nowhere to go; and women of African, Hispanic, or Asian decent are at a significant disadvantage because they disproportionately receive ambiguous results when tested by Myriad.
According to the New York Times, plaintiffs in the suit,
(A)rgue that BRCA testing would improve if market forces were allowed to work.
Harry Ostrer, director of the human genetics program at the New York University School of Medicine and a plaintiff in the case, said that many laboratories could perform the BRCA tests faster than Myriad, and for less money than the more than $3,000 the company charged.
An estimated 182,460 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to occur among women in the U.S. in 2008. An estimated 40,480 women will die. In addition to invasive breast cancer, 67,770 new cases of in situ breast cancer are expected to occur among women in 2008.
Of those, some 15% have family histories of breast cancer and thus might be assumed to be at risk of hereditary genetic issues. So once again clicking on my handy dandy desktop calculator, if every one of the women at risk paid for the $3500 it would enrich the Myriad coffers to the tune of $95,791,500 every year.
No doubt not every woman would want to be tested, and in the scheme of things this is chump change in the total picture when it comes to health care costs. But it is yet another example of women’s health care being determined by the way health care is regulated and funded.
Over the last several days the Feminist Peace Network blog has focused on some of the ways in which the current system of health care delivery and funding is detrimental to women’s lives. What is abundantly clear from these examples is that while how health care is paid for is something that needs to be re-structured, we also need to look at how the decisions are made regarding research as well as how care is delivered. Even more importantly, as we make those decisions, we need to keep in mind that these decisions have very gender-specific ramifications that need to be considered and addressed. As is the case with every public policy decision, to not do so will result in ineffective and quite possibly damaging choices that we can ill afford.
While we’re on the topic of women and the cost of healthcare, Rachel Walden at Our Bodies Our Blog points to the more than 50% cesarean delivery rate in Miami-Dade County in Florida (at one hospital the rate was over 70%) and a report that says the overall rate in the U.S. is now a whopping 31.8%. Optimally, the rate should be between 5-10% and more than 15% can do more harm than good according to Childbirth Connection.
As Walden points out, the cost of a cesarean delivery is about twice that of a vaginal delivery, and with about 4 million babies born in the U.S. every year and the cost of a cesarean averaging about $10,000 more than the cost of a vaginal delivery that adds up to… 30% of 4,000,000 = 1,320,000 x $10,000 = $13,200,000,000 more being spent on c-sections in the U.S. every year than would have been spent on vaginal deliveries.
With the rate of medically necessary c-sections being considered as less than half that, we’re talking over $6.5 billion dollars in unnecessary and very profitable medical procedures, literally at the expense of women and their babies and if you think that isn’t related to the much higher premiums that women pay for health insurance, have I got some swamp land in Florida for you.
Despite the billions of dollars they have spent trying to protect their turf, it has finally dawned on the health insurance industry that some kind change in the way we pay for medical needs is likely. How else to explain the Hail Mary magnanimous gesture of offering to quit charging women more than men for health insurance.
Wow. Forgive me if I don’t sound grateful. Let’s do a little math…
Since I don’t work for a large corporation, I have been paying my own healthcare premiums for some 25 years now. At first they were quite affordable, now in order to have a policy that would truly protect me if I had major medical needs, it is a significant outlay. Rough numbers, probably erring a tad low, let’s say my payments for health insurance have averaged $250/month over that period. So $250 x 12 months x 25 years equals…wait for it…$75,000. A recent article by the New York Times uses the discrepency in charges by Anthem as an example and since this is the company that I get my insurance from, just for kicks let’s use the 38% number they use. By my reckoning, that means I have paid $28,500 more than my imaginary twin brother.
Wow again. Not only am I not grateful, I’m steaming mad.
But the best part of this is why we get charged so much more. Not only do we bear the entire burden of pregnancy-related costs, but insurers say, “they charge women more than men of the same age because claims experience shows that women use more health care services. They are more likely to visit doctors, to get regular checkups, to take prescription medications and to have certain chronic illnesses”.
In other words, we are getting penalized for bearing children and taking care of ourselves in a very big way. But wait, it gets worse. According to Reuters,
70 percent, or 63.8 million, working-age (American) women are uninsured, underinsured, have medical bill problems or medical debt, or did not access needed care because of cost. That compared with 59 percent, or 51.9 million, working-age men.
52 percent of women were more likely to leave a prescription unfilled, skip a recommended medical test or treatment, or fail to seek needed medical care. That compared with just 39 percent of men.
45 percent of women had medical debt or reported problems paying medical bills, compared with 36 percent of men.
The reasons that women fare worse than men in terms of being able to afford health care are obvious–we tend to be paid less, are more likely to work in low-end or part-time jobs that don’t provide coverage and then we get penalized for bearing children and seeking medical care.
These numbers speak for themselves. The American system of paying for health care is dysfunctional, most especially for women, and insurance companies have contributed significantly to this literally deadly debacle. So when those same companies try to keep their grubby little fingers in the pie by ending misogynistic profiteering, the answer should be a resounding no.
And while we’re at it, the women of this country are entitled to a massive premium rebate.
Facebook users beware, according to Newsweek, THE NIPPLE PATROL IS AFTER US!!Yes indeed, it seems that Facebook pays 150 people to check for porn on its site. That would be almost 18% of its staff checking Facebook content for violations of the “Fully Exposed Butt Rule, the Crack Rule and the Nipple Rule”. Really. Unfortunately last year these policies led to the removal of pictures of women breastfeeding their children because they were deemed pornographic.
And now it turns out that while breastfeeding is considered obscene, Holocaust denial is just a matter of free speech. As the folks at Tech Crunch put it so elegantly, “Jew Haters Welcome At Facebook, As Long As They Aren’t Lactating.” As their post says quite accurately, actually this has nothing to do with free speech because Facebook isn’t a public forum, it is privately owned. And one would certainly think that terms such as “Nigger faggot, Jew nosed cunt” would be a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service regarding hate speech.Or not.
Here’s hoping Facebook gets a clue and rethinks its policy because what is obscene is not knowing the basic difference between right and wrong.
The Burma Campaign UK today called for an intense diplomatic effort to secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, after she was detained in custody in Burma’s notorious Insein Jail.
