News and Issues

Breast Cancer Awareness Month is nearly 30 years old this year, and Breast Cancer Action in the US has launched an new campaign, "It's an Epidemic, Stupid!"in which they are asking elected officials in the US – after three decades and billions of dollars – why is this disease still an epidemic?  

For more information about their latest campaign, visit their website.

The most recent newsletter from the Women’s Health Environments Network (WHEN) is online. Read it here!

Investigating the systemic barriers immigrant women face in Toronto's labour market and the impacts on health

This recent issue of the Ontario Women’s Health Network (OWHN) E-Bulletin gives a snapshot of Access Alliance's forthcoming report addressing the barriers that immigrant women face in the labour market in Toronto post-migration and the effects on individual and family health and well-being.

Read  the Summer EBulletin. 

Routine blood and ultrasound tests given to screen healthy women for ovarian cancer do more harm than good and should not be performed, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended this month.

According to the task force panel, these tests on healthy women do not lower the death rate from the disease, and they lead to unnecessary operations with high complication rates.

Women with known genetic mutations that increase their risk for ovarian cancer are not included in the recommendation.

Read more about  this latest U.S. recommendation:

Ovarian Cancer Screenings Are Not Effective, Panel Says (New York Times)

Ovarian cancer: To screen or not to screen? (Montreal Gazette)

AAFP, USPSTF Recommend Against Routine Screening for Ovarian Cancer (American Academy of Family Physicians)

September 12 is the first ever Global Female Condom Day, intended to help raise awareness of the female condom as an option for pregnancy and HIV prevention. The female condom is the only available woman-initiated method available that offers dual protection.

Read more Global Female Condom Day on Our Bodies, Our Blog.

PRESS RELEASE

(OTTAWA, ON) On September 6, 2012 – The Native Women’s Association of Canada’s new President, Michelle Audette, denounces Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada’s (AANDC) funding cuts and pledges to ensure that Canadian society understands how these cuts will impact everyone. 

The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) is one of five National Aboriginal Organizations that represents the interests of Aboriginal women. NWAC recently experienced severe cuts to its health portfolio with the Conservative Government’s 2012 budget, and will now have to deal with cuts to its core funding that has not been increased since 2005. “We receive a relatively small contribution from AANDC that supports core functions like administration and payroll that are necessary to maintain the organization’s basic infrastructure,” says Audette.

Read the full press release.

What if you knew you could go to prison for something you couldn't change?

Women's voices have rarely been heard on this important issue. What happens if a woman does not disclose her HIV-positive status to a sexual partner?

How does criminalization impact HIV-positive women in Canada, who are trying to live their lives in the shadow of stigma and fear? Does the law actually protect women's health? How do women feel about their experience with the criminal law with respect to HIV non-disclosure?

"Positive Women: Exposing Injustice" takes the audience into the hearts and minds of four positive women bravely speaking out on this important issue. 

Visit the film’s website.

A recent Our Bodies, Our Blog post commented on gender bias in a press release about women and unpaid work.

The press release was about a study comparing the number of hours that women and men (those who are employed outside the home and those who are not) spent on unpaid work at home.

Read the blog post: Dear Researchers, Your Gender Bias is Showing

Through the Ontario Woman Abuse Screening Project, over 150 woman abuse/sexual assault and mental health and addiction health agencies in thirteen regions, as well as women with lived experience, are collaborating to ensure woman abuse/sexual assault/trauma-informed services are available wherever women access our services. Women accessing addiction/mental health services are being routinely screened for all forms of abuse and trauma.

Read more about in the August newsletter from ECHO.

The Vancouver Sun recently published an interesting series of op-ed articles by Handel Reynolds on the mammography debate. The issues discussed include overdiagnosis, one of the most significant harms of screening, as well as the political and economic agendas that have promoted the use of mammograply.

Read them all here: