Stephanie Nolen

When Adoption Promises Are Broken Many birth mothers hope to maintain contact with their child. But their agreements with adoptive parents can be fragile.

If you want to understand open adoption, it makes sense to start with birth parents—yet studies of them are few. 2+ yrs ago, I began talking w/ birth mothers to try to understand what living in an open adoption is like for them, and what rights or options they might have if challenges were to arise.

Birth Control Among US Therapies Most At Risk From Trump’s 250% Tariff Threat US President Donald Trump’s threat of imposing tariffs as high as 250% on pharmaceutical imports is putting cheap supplies from Indian drugmakers at risk, with commonly prescribed oral contraceptives ...

Birth Control Among US Therapies Most At Risk From Trump’s 250% Tariff Threat

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

How the Pygmy Sea Horse Lost Its Snout

Cutest, interestingest story you'll read today -- pygmy seahorses!! more genetic mystery magic from @carlzimmer.com www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/s...

Trump Budget Office Is Withholding H.I.V. Funds That Congress Appropriated

"The Trump administration is ignoring a directive from Congress and refusing to fully fund a landmark H.I.V. program [PEPFAR] that is widely credited with saving millions of lives over the past two decades."

Stephanie Nolen / NYT

Congo Has Astronomical Rates of Sexual Violence. Now Victims Have Lost Access to Care.

More than 20 years after I first wrote about mass sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I set out to report a story about how care for victims has improved but the impunity that drives the crisis is unchanged.
Then, care fell apart, too.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/h...

Trump Budget Office Is Withholding H.I.V. Funds That Congress Appropriated

@stephanienolen.bsky.social got the scoop: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/h...

Vought is blocking release of #PEPFAR funding, flagrantly defying Congress, which fully funded PEPFAR through the FY25 Continuing Resolution AND rejected Vought's move to rescind $400m in FY25 PEPFAR funding in July >> 2

The Trump administration is ignoring a directive from Congress and refusing to fully fund a landmark H.I.V. program that is widely credited with saving millions of lives over the past two decades. Story by @stephanienolen.bsky.social Gift link: nyti.ms/461Vrxg

Peace Changed the Village Where War Changed Me

Can't say enough about this piece by my colleague and pal, photographer João Silva, about his return to the Afghan village where he lost his legs to a landmine.
If you read one thing today ... www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/w...

A Debilitating Virus Surges Globally as Mosquitoes Move With Warming Climate. Chikungunya, which can disable victims for years, is spreading rapidly, to places that have not seen it before. Rarely, Chikungunya can kill children and adults. @stephanienolen.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/h...

A Debilitating Virus Surges Globally as Mosquitoes Move With Warming Climate

🦟" #Chikungunya: A Debilitating #Virus Surges Globally as #Mosquitoes Move With Warming #Climate" by @stephanienolen.bsky.social @nytimes.com

#WorldMosquitoDay

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/h...

A Cancer Patient Chose Assisted Death. That Wasn’t the Last Hard Choice.

A Cancer Patient Chose Assisted Death. That Wasn’t the Last Hard Choice.

Tatiana Andia knew Colombia would permit her a medically assisted death. She took her country with her on the journey to dying. @stephanienolen.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/h...

As Trump Administration Plans to Burn Contraceptives, Europeans Are Alarmed The U.S. government intends to incinerate $9.7 million in already-purchased birth control in Belgium after U.S.A.I.D shut down. Destruction may have already started.

🚨 “Women are going to die because they’ve not had access to those contraceptives.”

Our Advocacy Director, Sarah Shaw, spoke to
@stephanienolen.bsky.social & @jeannasmialek.bsky.social at the New York Times about the US plan to destroy $9.7 million worth of life-saving contraception:
bit.ly/4m3TExg

A Cancer Patient Chose Assisted Death. That Wasn’t the Last Hard Choice. Tatiana Andia knew Colombia would permit her a medically assisted death. She took her country with her on the journey to dying.

Tatiana Andia, a professor and former Colombian health official with terminal cancer, decided that after a career of fighting for health care, she wanted to make herself an example to help Colombians embrace a better way of dying. She would bring the country with her and have the death she wanted.

I know NYT gets a lot of shit these days, but articles like this are why I’m still a subscriber. Absolutely gorgeous and touching story.

Yet another thought-provoking and important piece on assisted dying by @stephanienolen.bsky.social .

A Cancer Patient Chose Assisted Death. That Wasn’t the Last Hard Choice.

I was privileged to spend time with Tatiana Andia over a year as she made the hardest decisions.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/h...

Includes the immortal phrase "tick dick pic" FTW!

Devastating Effects From PEPFAR, USAID Cuts Are Hitting Africa, Experts Say The last-minute save of PEPFAR is welcome but doesn't undo the damage that occurred, one noted

PEPFAR news: "The impacts are already clear and devastating." www.medpagetoday.com/spotlight/hi... And despite a last-minute reprieve from the Senate, @stephanienolen.bsky.social reports that the Trump administration is making plans to shut it down. Gift link: nyti.ms/4o2zzZX

Screenshot of the third and fourth paragraphs of the article, with the fourth paragraph highlighted.

👀"U.S. Quietly Drafts Plan to End Program That Saved Millions From AIDS - #PEPFAR, the campaign to end H.I.V. globally, would morph into an effort to detect disease outbreaks and sell American products"
via @stephanienolen.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/h...

U.S. Quietly Drafts Plan to End Program That Saved Millions From AIDS

PEPFAR, the American H.I.V. response, earned a reprieve when Congress voted to restore $400 m in funding. But that may be short-lived: Officials at the State Department have been mapping out a plan to shut it down -- exiting some countries in as little as 2 years.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/h...

U.S. Quietly Drafts Plan to End Program That Saved Millions From AIDS

US quietly drafts plan to drop programme that saved millions from AIDS, reveals @stephanienolen.bsky.social @nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/h...

that's the dek I should have written. pithy. accurate.

A Venerable AIDS Activist Returns to Battle

Following reduced US support, renewed activism in South Africa to improve care for HIV+ individuals and support HIV prevention. Nice article by @stephanienolen.bsky.social.

A Venerable AIDS Activist Returns to Battle

Faced with US funding cuts and a South African government that has defaulted to some of its old indifference, Zackie Achmat is back in harness. A deftly turned piece from Steph Nolen, who knows this terrain better than any other international reporter.

A Venerable AIDS Activist Returns to Battle

Zackie Achmat, a Venerable AIDS Activist Returns to Battle www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/h...

South African AIDS Activist Pushes for H.I.V. Treatment Access After U.S.-Aid Cuts Zackie Achmat, once at the center of South Africa’s push for lifesaving H.I.V. treatment, has come out of retirement as U.S. funding cuts and his own government’s inertia revive old fears.

Zackie Achmat, an activist once at the center of South Africa’s push for lifesaving HIV treatment, has come out of retirement as U.S. funding cuts and his own government’s inertia revive old fears.

A Venerable AIDS Activist Returns to Battle

It was surreal, and heart-breaking, to see Zackie reluctantly return to the trenches, along side some of the women who were the backbone of the TAC, all of them haunted by the ghost of the years their own government denied them life-saving care.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/h...

A Venerable AIDS Activist Returns to Battle

The first time I interviewed Zackie Achmat, in 2002, he was desperately ill, deep in in his drug strike -- before the Treatment Action Campaign fought for and won the most critical changes in the new South Africa.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/h...

I'm a reporter at WIRED, and I'm wondering if anyone out there initially hesitated to vaccinate their kid against measles but has changed their mind during the current outbreak. I'd love to speak with you for a possible story: emily_mullin@wired.com or emullin.06 on Signal.

Promise of Victory Over H.I.V. Fades as U.S. Withdraws Support

The fight to end the HIV faces it's biggest threat in many decades. It's hard to feel optimistic about what prevention with Lenacapavir can accomplish when so many other fronts of the fight have been crippled. Excellent reporting by @stephanienolen.bsky.social
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/h...