Tag: news

Yet another study has concluded that the hoops U.S. women must currently jump through to obtain birth control are unnecessary. In “A Study of Telecontraception,” published in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers show that it can be safe to get a birth control pill prescription through online consultation and then receive the medicine.

The researchers employed “secret shoppers” to seek birth control prescriptions online, with some indicating conditions that would make it unsafe to take certain brands or, in some cases, to take any oral contraceptive at all. The study was limited—it involved seven women, nine companies, and 63 virtual visits between October 2018 and March 2019. But the results are promising.

In almost all cases—93 percent—the providers followed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines. Oral contraceptives were prescribed in just three out of 45 visits with potential red flags. That, the authors say, suggests “adherence to guidelines among telecontraception vendors may be higher than it is among clinics that provide in-person visits.”

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine letters section yesterday, the authors—Tara Jain, Eleanor B. Schwarz, and Ateev Mehrotra, all of Harvard Medical School—define telecontraception as “the provision of contraception through a website or smart-phone app” and note that it has “recently emerged as an alternative to provision at clinic visits.” Some of their findings:

Each visit lasted a mean of 7.5 minutes, during which patients completed an online  questionnaire. Two vendors provided a video call during the visit immediately after patients completed the questionnaire. In 20 visits (32%), a follow-up interaction occurred in the form of text messaging with three vendors, a phone call with two vendors, and a video call with one vendor. Three vendors did not require patient–provider interaction. A prescription was sent electronically to a local pharmacy on the same day as the visit or mailed to the patient’s home within a mean of 7 days (range, 3 to 14 days). The mean total cost (including the initial visit and any required follow-up visits) for a 12-month prescription for an uninsured patient was $313 (range, $67 to $519).

Yesterday was also “World Contraception Day,” marked by a push to make birth control pills available over-the-counter. Activists aim to “free the pill” from doctor’s visits, prescriptions, and trips to the pharmacy. It’s a policy that many medical professionals have recommended, it could go a long way toward curbing unintended pregnancies, and it could truly expand access (not just insurance coverage) when it comes to birth control.

Emergency contraception has for years been available without a prescription. But politics and bureaucracy have prevent the same from happening with regular birth control pills.

This week the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists updated its 2012 recommendation to say that not just the pill but all forms of hormonal birth control, include vaginal rings and contraceptive patches, should be available over the counter.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2neCswC
via IFTTT

The Duke-UNC Chapel Hill Consortium for Middle East Studies (CMES) is fighting to retain a federal grant after the U.S. Department of Education accused the group of displaying a disqualifying bias against Christianity and Judaism. While the department’s decision is a potential affront to free speech and academic freedom, it’s also a great example of why the federal government shouldn’t dole out such grants to anyone.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos opened an investigation in July at the behest of Rep. George Holding (R–N.C.), who alleged that a recent consortium conference, titled “Conflict Over Gaza: People, Politics, and Possibilities,” was rife with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments. Holding wanted a CMES grant revoked.

In 2018, the Office of Postsecondary Education awarded CMES a four-year grant for $235,000 as part of a program meant to train U.S. students to become global leaders. Students who participated in the program told The Daily Tar Heel that they disagree with the accusations made by Holding and the Department of Education. Maggie Barkowitz, a Jewish graduate of UNC Chapel Hill who attended several events at the CMES, said that she never encountered any anti-Semitism. The focus on Islam made sense from her vantage point, as the university’s department is called the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies⁠. She also noted that her classes weren’t biased against any particular religion.

In an August letter to the consortium, the Department of Education alleges that “most of the Duke-UNC CMES activities supported with Title VI funds are unauthorized.” The Education Department says funds should be spent only on preparing participants for roles in diplomacy, national security, international business, and education, and that the Duke-UNC Chapel Hill Consortium offers “very little serious instruction preparing individuals to understand the geopolitical challenges to U.S. national security and economic needs but quite a considerable emphasis on advancing ideological priorities.” In short, CMES is too pro-Islam.

In a letter to Robert King, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Education, the Duke-UNC CMES tried to dispel the notion that its activities disqualify it from federal assistance. “The Consortium deeply values its partnership with the Department of Education and has always been strongly committed to complying with the purposes and requirements of the Title VI program,” writes Terri Magnuson, UNC’s Vice Chancellor for Research.

Reactions have been predictably polarized. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) argues against the Department of Education. “The federal government may fairly condition the award of funds on the satisfaction of certain criteria,” FIRE wrote in a statement, “but determining how best to satisfy grant terms that involve academic or pedagogical judgments, especially those which contain ambiguity, should remain the province of the academy.” FIRE says it’s impossible for the Department of Education to accurately measure ideological “balance.”

The pro-speech group is not wrong. It is difficult to fairly measure fairness. Such judgments hinge on who is doing the judging. But if it is impossible to measure the wider social benefit of a concentrated subsidy, why are tax dollars paying for it?

We ask this question of all kinds of subsidies. Tax credits for Hollywood studios and professional sports teams are considered by economists to be a waste of money. Government subsidies for firearms manufacturers would likely offend half the country, and that’s before you take into consideration they’ve been secured by lawmakers who favor gun control! Pick a subsidy, take a poll, and you’ll find some group of people who find that subsidy offensive, useless, or otherwise objectionable.

Add our bloated national debt on top of that, and people have good reasons to question the merits of funding programs like the one run by Duke and UNC, two well-untaxed, elite universities with endowments valued at $8 billion and $5 billion respectively.

Why not do away with these grants altogether? Let the market determine which programs are actually preparing the diplomats of tomorrow and encourage philanthropists to fund the programs that can’t quantify their value. This spares taxpayers the frustration of funding policies and programs they don’t like or understand and the people at CMES and other academic institutions the awful position of justifying their existence to culture-warring bureaucrats. Government, meanwhile, can and should stick to the provision of basic services.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2lH8voH
via IFTTT

Here is the federal witness-tampering statute (18 USC 1512(b)):

Whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, … with intent to —

(1)influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding; [or]

(2)cause or induce any person to—

(A)withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

Here’s what our president said yesterday, at an event for UN staffers and their families:

So the whistleblower came out and said nothing. Said: ‘A couple of people told me he had a conversation with Ukraine.’ We’re at war. These people are sick. They’re sick. And nobody’s called it out like I do. I don’t understand. People are afraid to call it out. They’re afraid to say that the press is crooked. We have a crooked press. We have a dishonest media. So now they’re devastated, but they’ll always find something. I’m sure there’ll be something they’ll find in this report that will suit their lie.

But basically that person never saw the report, never saw the call. Never saw the call. Heard something, and decided that he or she or whoever the hell it is — sort of like, almost, a spy. I want to know who’s the person that gave the whistleblower, who’s the person that gave the whistleblower the information, because that’s close to a spy. You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? With spies and treason, right?”

I believe that his reference to “what we used to do in the old days … with spies and treason” refers to execution, which is indeed what we used to do with (convicted) spies (see, e.g., Julius and Ethel Rosenberg), though I do not believe we have executed anyone for spying since then (hence, the reference to the “old days”).

This sure looks like a prima facie case of witness tampering to me.  There is an ongoing official proceeding; we know that the whistleblower him/herself is going to be called to testify, and one can certainly expect others who were present during the July 25th call, or who had notice of the July 25 call and who might, therefore, have “[given] the whistleblower the information,” will be called to testify. The President of the United States—our chief law enforcement officer—has called these people “close to spies” and made reference to the punishment to which spies were subjected “in the old days when we were smart,” and to “treason” (a federal crime that still carries the death penalty). The effect of these comments, surely, will be to make potential witnesses think twice about providing evidence against the president (and having their identities revealed to the public and to federal prosecutors who work for the President).

The hard questions, as always in a witness-tampering case, is: Did Trump act with the “intent” to “influence” or “prevent” the testimony of these individuals? Using the ordinary (and rebuttable) presumption that a person “intends” a consequence when (a) they foresee that it will happen as a result of their conduct and (b) desire it to happen,” I think he did—though of course without more evidence (including Trump’s testimony, under oath, about what he did or did not intend, and other actions that might suggest proper, or improper, motives) one cannot be certain of that conclusion.  [That’s why it’s just a prima facie case of witness tampering at this point].

I expect, given many of the comments on my earlier postings on the Ukraine matter, that some readers will, in the face of this, continue to hold to the position that Trump has done nothing wrong. Here’s my best guess as to the arguments they will raise—and if I’ve missed any, please do set me straight in the comments.

1. “It can’t be ‘witness tampering’ under the federal criminal code, because DOJ takes the position that the president can’t be charged with any (federal) crime.”

False. First of all, the current DOJ position is that the President cannot be charged with a federal crime while in office; if Trump were no longer the president, he could be criminally charged in connection with the Ukraine affair (or anything else).  More importantly, even though a president can’t be charged with a federal crime while in office (because, as head of the DOJ, he would in effect be acting as prosecutor and defendant in such an action), he can certainly commit a federal crime while in office.  That, of course, is the whole point of an impeachment proceeding; Presidents Nixon and Clinton were both charged with the crime of obstruction of justice, though the charge was contained not in a criminal indictment but in Articles of Impeachment.

2. It’s not “witness tampering,” because nobody’s been charged with anything at this point, and therefore there aren’t any witnesses who could have been “influence[d]” or “prevent[ed]” from testifying.

Wrong again. The statute refers to “testimony … in an official proceeding.”  An impeachment inquiry is an “official proceeding” (as is, I believe, any Congressional hearing).

3. “He was just joking—chill out! He wasn’t actually saying that the whistleblower should be executed!”

Well, that’s a harder one to deal with, I admit, especially because the President’s intent is an element of the crime.  I’m a little dubious, generally, about the “it’s a joke” defense, having heard it before, when Trump invited the Russians to hack Clinton’s server (which—coincidentally enough—began, according to various federal indictments and the Mueller Report, that very day).  And listening to the audiotape of his remarks, he certainly sounds like he’s not joking.  But again—it’s just a prima facie case we’ve got here; if Trump was joking, let him come forward, under oath, to say so.

4. “He couldn’t have intended to intimidate any potential witnesses, because he was speaking at a private event, and therefore had no reason to think that the targets of the supposed intimidation would ever hear about it.”

Again, this gets a “Maybe, but …” First off, this wasn’t really a “private” event like a family dinner or a confidential briefing by a few top aides; it was an event staged for hundreds of US employees (and their families), and it seems a bit disingenuous to suggest that Trump expected that his comments would not be made public or otherwise communicated to the officials in the White House and the Intelligence Community who were being accused of spying and treason. Furthermore, because we don’t know the identity of the individuals who were the target of Trump’s ire, and we don’t know (and perhaps Trump didn’t know) for certain that none of them were in the room.  UN Ambassador Kelly Craft, for instance, was in the room, and, as a senior official with international responsibilities, might have been the source of some of the leaked information.  So this is hardly like an offhand comment to a couple of friends over dinner; as unfortunate and intemperate as such comments might be, they wouldn’t, in that case, be directed specifically at the whistleblower or any of the whistleblower’s sources.  Here, it’s a little easier to presume—again, rebuttably—that Trump knew full well and intended that word of the threats would get to the “right” people.

As I said, perhaps some readers have other possible defenses they could proffer.  Please do—but I’d appreciate it if you could avoid discussion of the many irrelevant defenses that are simply variants of the “Fake News! Hillary’s email server! The Steele Dossier! What Biden did was worse!” etc. arguments.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2ne4CrA
via IFTTT