News and Issues

A recent article in The Atlantic talks about the poverty gap between men and women in the US and elsewhere in developed nations.

The author looks at the data from 2008 across the OECD's 34 developed nations, and found that more women were poor than men at every age, and that, on average, there was an even wider gap in the U.S.

Read the article.

Are ad campaigns and fundraisers called "Booby Ball" or "I Love Boobies!" offensive, insensitive, and sexist?

Listen to the heated debate on last week’s CBC show The Current, about breast cancer fundraising campaigns that use the breast to titillate.

Sexy Breast Cancer campaigns: Are we saving breasts or women's lives?

A study released this week has found that exposure to some common chemicals  known as endocrine disruptors  - found in plastic bottles, cleaning products, make-up and pesticides - are associated with early menopause.

Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals Lead to Earlier Age Of Menopause:  A Cross-Sectional Study Using the US Population-Based NHANES Database, was presented this week at the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Society For Reproductive Medicine.

Linda Giudice, MD, PhD, President-elect of ASRM, noted, “Endocrine-disrupting chemicals are pervasive in our environment and we do not yet know their full impact on human health and reproduction.  Studies like this give additional reason to advise patients to take what steps they can to minimize their exposures.”

Read more about it here.

Learn more the effects of about endocrine-disrupting plastics on women's health in CWHN's recent article, Not a flower shop: Exploring breast cacner risk and gender bias.

Breast Cancer Action Montreal has launched a new campaign this year to counteract the myths about breast cancer and breast cancer campaigns that proliferate in the pink month of October.

Read about these Little Pink Lies on their website.

A report released last week shows that the rate of women, and in particular, Aboriginal women, in prisons has risen at an alarming rate in recent years. Marginalized: The Aboriginal Women's experience in Federal Corrections by The Correctional Service of Canada also finds that the rate of self-injury among Aboriginal women inmates has soared, with the biggest spike on the Prairies. The report reveals that incidents of self-inflicted injury involving Aboriginal women have risen from just 8 in 2006 to 214 last year. 

Read more about this report here:

Female native inmates on rise: Federal report sheds light on soaring rate (Winnipeg Free Press)

Prisoner self-injury on the rise in Canada (CBC)

October 11, 2012 is the world's first International Day of the Girl Child.

On this day the International Women’s Health Coalition is standing with the members of the Girls Not Brides global partnership to end early and forced marriage. 

Every year, around the world 10 million girls under the age of 18 enter into early and forced marriages. They are usually married to much older men with little or no information about their sexual and reproductive health, including contraception, safe motherhood, and preventing HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Girls who marry early also face a greater risk of experiencing domestic violence and sexual abuse.

To end child marriage, there must be action both at the local level where it affects girls the most and at the international policy level. Here are some things you can do today to help change the reality of girls and young women throughout the world.

Learn about child brides on You Tube: A Choice, A Chance: How Young Women in Cameroun are Ending Child Marriage

Read about it on Girls Not Brides.

Find out more about what’s happening in Canada on the International Day of the Girl Child:

Girlhood Studies Conference – McGIll University

Day of the Girl

Status of Women Canada

Plan Canada

During Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we recall and mourn the loss this year of Rosalie Bertell, GNSH, Ph.D, founder of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health in Toronto who died June 14, 2012 at the age of 83. An internationally recognized scientist, Dr. Bertell’s work focused on cancer research, in particular studying environmental exposures and their links to cancer. Tributes to Bertell and her work poured in from around the globe following her death, including this one from her colleague and friend, Ursula Franklin:

“Many of us have worked with Rosalie, loved her, admired her and learned from her. She was one of the outstanding examples of combining an exceptionally strong faith with an exceptionally fine scientific mind. … Our strong bonds of friendship and respect have lasted throughout the decades; I will always remember her in deep thankfulness.”

- Ursula M. Franklin, CC, FRSC, University Professor Emerita, Senior Fellow, Massey College

For the full tribute and more, please visit the Voice of Women website.

See also the website of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health 

The Positive Living Society of BC and other HIV/AIDs organizations are reacting strongly to the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling last week on criminalization of HIV non-disclosure. 

Read the rulings in full here.

Read the Positive Living BC’s position: Unjust Supreme Court ruling on criminalization of HIV a major step backwards for public health and human rights 

For more on this story, read:

HIV disclosure ruling clarified by top court (CBC)

Top court decision 'huge setback' (Xtra)

R v. Mabior, R v. DC (SLAW)

Timeline: HIV disclosure debate in Canada (Global)

The CWHN warmly congratulates Harriet Simand upon receiving the 2011-2012 Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence. In addition to her noteworthy present-day career as a teacher, Harriet also worked as a human rights litigator prior to teaching and was a founding member of the working group, Women and Health Protection. With her mother, Shirley Simand, Harriet created DES Action Canada which spawned groups across the country and raised considerable awareness about the drug, DES.

Read more about it here.

From a recent speech by Peter Gøtzsche, researcher and director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, author of “Mammography screening. Truth, lies and controversy” (Radcliffe Publishing, 2012):

"Breast cancer screening with mammography has been studied in nine randomized trials. Four of the trials are more reliable than others and these trials showed a reduction in breast cancer mortality after 13 years of 10%. The less reliable trials showed a much bigger reduction in breast cancer mortality, namely 25%. It is therefore uncertain what the true effect of screening is."

Read the full text of his speech.