Barbara Rodriguez

A few Republican lawmakers have tried to frame the Medicaid cuts as targeting men. The data tells a different story. 19thnews.org/2025/05/medi...

‘Adiós, Milwaukee’: A family uprooted, a hole left behind Yessenia Ruano's long fight against deportation, fueled by her Milwaukee community, ended last month under orders from ICE.

In May, The 19th wrote about Ruano’s fight to remain in the country despite a pending order of deportation.

Last month her fight against deportation, fueled by her Milwaukee community, ended under orders from ICE.

Vaccine support isn’t as controversial as it seems A new poll shows support is shared across political party lines — and comes as Health and Human Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. could reshape the future of vaccines.

As a key vaccine panel (made up now of members picked by RFK Jr.) meets for the first time this morning, a new poll shows support for routine childhood vaccines is widely supported across political party lines. My latest for @19thnews.org: 19thnews.org/2025/06/vacc...

How doctors are preparing for RFK Jr.’s shifts on vaccine policy After Kennedy gutted a key vaccine advisory panel, physicians are figuring out how they can share guidance to keep patients healthy.

There is a lot going on right now with vaccine policy in America. Here's how doctors are responding, and what they want parents to know about their efforts to stick with evidence-based science. My latest for @19thnews.org: 19thnews.org/2025/06/rfk-...

How doctors are preparing for RFK Jr.’s shifts on vaccine policy After Kennedy gutted a key vaccine advisory panel, physicians are figuring out how they can share guidance to keep patients healthy.

There is a lot going on right now with vaccine policy in America. Here's how doctors are responding, and what they want parents to know about their efforts to stick with evidence-based science. My latest for @19thnews.org: 19thnews.org/2025/06/rfk-...

Deadly shootings in Minnesota have shaken abortion providers The suspected shooter had a list of targets that included abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood affiliates and employees.

"Political violence is being normalized for us as an organization."

After Saturday's shootings — and the reports that abortion providers were on Vance Boelter's list of possible targets — clinics in Minnesota and around the country are tightening security & figuring out how to move forward.

How Trump’s ‘one, big, beautiful’ tax bill could impact programs for women and children House Republicans approved a sweeping package early Thursday morning that contained deep cuts to programs assisting low-income Americans, including Medicaid and SNAP food stamp eligibility.

This bill would limit coverage of gender-affirming care as an essential benefit under Affordable Care Act plans and prohibit Medicaid & CHIP from covering the treatment.

Earlier drafts limited this prohibition to care for minors; the approved bill extends it to care for all ages.

No proof of work could mean no Medicaid — and women stand to lose the most Congressional Republicans want to impose work requirements aimed at “able-bodied” adults. But data shows it would actually target poor middle-aged women who have left the workforce.

As Republicans in Congress try to tie the face of Medicaid work requirements to able-bodied people — including young men — there is data that shows many of these people are actually poor middle-aged women. My latest for @19thnews.org: 19thnews.org/2025/05/medi...

Fourteen years in America. A one-way ticket to El Salvador. Yessenia Ruano worked to build a life in Milwaukee with her family, a teaching career and church community. Now she’s fighting to stop it from being uprooted.

Yessenia Ruano has been in the U.S. for 14 years. She's had twins, become an integral part of the school where she works and her church, bought a home, and checked in with ICE 17 times. Now she has a one-way ticket to El Salvador that she's still hoping not to use. 19thnews.org/2025/05/upro...

Political tension and fears of violence may have depressed voter turnout in 2024 While voters overwhelmingly felt safe, women and gender-nonconforming people were more likely to skip going to the polls due to safety concerns, a new report says.

While voters overwhelmingly felt safe, women and gender-nonconforming people were more likely to skip going to the polls due to safety concerns, a new report says.

‘She’ll fall through the cracks’: Parents of kids with disabilities brace for new reality Cuts to Medicaid and the Department of Education could have detrimental impacts on keeping kids with complex medical needs healthy and educated.

Parents of children with complex medical needs and disabilities are navigating uncertainty over key pillars of their kids’ lives — Medicaid and the Department of Education — as the Trump administration considers major changes. My latest with @nadrakn.bsky.social: 19thnews.org/2025/05/kids...

With Medicaid cuts, Republicans target men in the name of protecting women But cuts purporting to address "able-bodied men" using Medicaid would be detrimental to women, children and caregivers, experts say.

In the fight over Medicaid, House Speaker Mike Johnson has targeted "able-bodied" men in the name of protecting women and others. But the changes he's talking about could reduce services for the very people he says he wants to protect. My latest for @19thnews.org: 19thnews.org/2025/05/medi...

Administration condemns gender-affirming care for youth in report that finds “sparse” evidence of harm The report, from the Department of Health and Human Services, stems from an executive order condemning medical treatment for trans youth.

HHS says its new report on gender-affirming care proves that science doesn't support the care & that its risks are too great.

But the report doesn't really support that blanket statement. It found “sparse” to no evidence of harm and evidence about the benefits of gender-affirming care.

First thing we’re discussing on Monday! 💕

Marty has a great role in the first episode of The Studio!

RFK Jr. says he wants to curb measles. His former nonprofit keeps undermining his message. The Children’s Health Defense has inserted itself into the outbreak with a media operation that repeatedly disputes the MMR vaccine.

RFK Jr. is trying to respond to growing cases of measles in several states, in part by promoting vaccination — but that message is being undermined by his former nonprofit. My latest for @19thnews.org: 19thnews.org/2025/04/rfk-...

Cameron 17-year-old from Connecticut On why he’s moving abroad: People say to me, “Trump says he’s going to do this, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to do it. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to get passed through.” And I know that. Access to medical care is not the leading factor to wanting to move somewhere else that’s safer. The leading factor is being able to travel or leave, really, outside of my town without having to worry about the wrong people finding out that I’m trans. Listen to Cameron tell his story:

@msjpauly.bsky.social and I spent the last three months speaking to seven parents of trans kids and three trans teens.

one 17-year-old told me that he was leaving the country: “Having to choose my safety over staying with my family at a young age is a really frustrating place to be in.”

Jewish Americans feel echoes of history in transgender passport restrictions Many transgender Americans now hold passports that out them as being trans. LGBTQ+ Jewish people see this as part of a familiar playbook from the Holocaust.

As the Trump administration targets migrants and transgender people, Jewish Americans increasingly feel that history is in danger of repeating itself.

Trans passport restrictions & hinderances on traveling freely, without harassment, are a key concern. Read more in my latest story for @19thnews.org

She was tracking post-Roe abortions. The government just pulled her funding. Diana Greene Foster, who was behind the landmark Turnaway Study, wanted to study the health and economic impacts of the loss of abortion access.

News: Diana Greene Foster, the MacArthur-winning author of the Turnaway Study, learned her NIH grant — funding a multi-year study on Dobbs' impact — has been pulled. She was told its bc the govt won't study "gender identity."

Her work has shaped our understanding of abortion bans' consequences.

Parents are receiving mixed messages about measles from RFK Jr. Medical experts say that while Kennedy is showing more direct support for the measles vaccine, he’s also sharing information about debunked remedies.

While RFK Jr. is promoting vaccines against measles ... he's also highlighting treatments that medical experts say do not prevent or treat the virus. My latest for @19thnews.org looks at the mixed messaging for parents and caregivers: 19thnews.org/2025/04/rfk-...

Parents are receiving mixed messages about measles from RFK Jr. Medical experts say that while Kennedy is showing more direct support for the measles vaccine, he’s also sharing information about debunked remedies.

RFK Jr. is showing more direct support for the measles vaccine following the death of a 2nd unvaccinated child, but medical experts note he’s also sharing info about unproven remedies. My latest for @19thnews.org looks at the mixed messaging for parents and caregivers: 19thnews.org/2025/04/rfk-...

Exclusive | Ousted Vaccine Chief Says RFK Jr.’s Team Sought Data to Justify Anti-Science Stance Dr. Peter Marks says the new health secretary’s team wants to show vaccines aren’t safe while promoting dangerous and unproven treatments.

"The outgoing official said he was speaking out to encourage parents to vaccinate their children against measles, as cases mount in Texas and New Mexico." www.wsj.com/health/healt...

Five years after the height of COVID, nurses are still fighting for their rights Registered nurses from the nation’s largest union for the profession spoke with The 19th about the first days of the pandemic, and how it’s shaped their ongoing efforts for job protections.

There's too much news, but I took a moment this week to think about the nurses who are reflecting on the impact of COVID and their union power — and what might come next. My latest for @19thnews.org: 19thnews.org/2025/04/nurs...

FDA Layoffs Could Raise Drug Costs and Erode Food Safety (Gift Article) Trump cutbacks were supposedly aimed at administrators. But scientists in food and drug-testing labs and policy experts who advance generic drug approvals were also dismissed.

Who lost their jobs at the FDA?

The people who determine if a costly drug is ready to be a generic

The people who test food and drugs for contaminants and deadly bacteria in several labs were let go

The people talking to overseas drug safety regulators to get ahead of foodborne illness & deaths

I recently asked @katybkoz.bsky.social what it meant not to be able to access PRAMS, even temporarily:

“It’s hard to imagine getting toward a future where fewer moms die giving birth in this country, because the tools we had to imagine that are not available.”

It’s hard to see how that changes now

One canceled grant was for investigating “Health and economic consequences of changing federal and state policies on reproductive health” — a topic that maybe has some significance after the past few years of abortion policy shifts

What happens to health research when 'women' is a banned word? Trump's federal funding cuts are shutting down studies on Alzheimer’s care, uterine fibroids and pregnancy risks — all because they focus on gender.

Trump's federal funding cuts are shutting down a range of studies — all because they focus on gender. For @19thnews.org, @shefali.bsky.social and I looked at the implications for the decades-long effort to better study the health of women and queer people: 19thnews.org/2025/03/wome...

Trump orders an overhaul of how elections are run, inviting a likely legal challenge The order could be used to justify canceling a future election, one Democratic official warned. “It’s very methodical, and very, very dangerous.”

The entire @votebeat.org staff tore Trump's executive order on elections apart to explain it to you. Here it is. I promise you it's the most detailed article on this you'll find on the internet right now. www.votebeat.org/2025/03/25/t...

What RFK Jr.’s plans for baby formula mean for parents Advocates and public health officials say there is room for improvement in formula regulation — though some question that execution amid food safety oversight cuts.

The news that RFK Jr. and the FDA will be looking into baby formula — its access, ingredients and safety — made me curious about what that really means for parents. My latest for
@19thnews.org tries to provide context as we wait for more policy decisions: 19thnews.org/2025/03/baby...

From Stonewall to now: LGBTQ+ elders on navigating fear in dark times LGBTQ+ elders share what survival looks like under a hostile political regime and their advice to young people on taking action, even when they're afraid.

LGBTQ+ elders share what survival looks like under a hostile political regime and their advice to young people right now. By @oriion.bsky.social for @19thnews.org: 19thnews.org/2025/03/trum...