Chris ChoGlueck

Better Safe than Sorry? Tylenol, Pregnancy, and Ethics : The Hastings Center for Bioethics “Don’t take Tylenol,” President Trump told pregnant women last week. Despite his claims, there is no evidence that Tylenol taken during pregnancy

Better Safe than Sorry? Tylenol, Pregnancy, and Ethics: Misinterpretation of scientific evidence is not just an issue of reporting, but one of ethics. Bioethicists must call out this misleading, fear-based rhetoric | The Hastings Center for Bioethics www.thehastingscenter.org/better-safe-...

Louisiana is already a Maternity Care Desert, and This will only make our existing problems worse, especially health gaps by race and class. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33069560/

Planned Parenthood closes Louisiana clinics after 40 years due to financial and political pressure Louisiana's only two Planned Parenthood locations have closed after 40 years. The organization says the closure Tuesday is the result of political attacks and funding woes, following President Donald ...

Back home in New Orleans, the last Planned Parenthood in our state closed. We just lost one of the largest providers of testing for STIs, birth control, cancer screenings, and ultrasounds.

The Trump Administration’s Recommendations for Managing Pregnancy Discomfort “For this reason, they are strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary. That’s, for instance, in...

Since we're back in the business of giving unsolicited pregnancy advice to "tough it out"...

ACOG reaffirms that acetaminophen is safe for managing pain and fever during pregnancy. No reputable studies support suggestions like those in HHS’s recent announcement linking acetaminophen use in pregnancy to autism; in fact, high-quality studies show no such risk. https://bit.ly/47Wxc59

Tylenol guidelines: is it safe to use paracetamol during pregnancy? The Trump administration is reportedly set to connect Tylenol, also known as paracetamol or acetaminophen, with autism, going against medical recommendations

Trump's administration is desperately looking for a smoking gun for autism. The evidence here is mixed, and we should not allow fear about fetal birth defects to shame pregnant people into not treating their pain (and causing bigger problems).

Court Rules Against Arts Endowment on Trump’s ‘Gender Ideology’ Order

Washington does not get to tell us what sex and gender are. We the people define it for ourselves.

Under Trump, FDA Seeks To Abandon Expert Reviews of New Drugs - KFF Health News Advisory committee meetings help FDA scientists make decisions and increase public understanding of drug regulation, and abandoning them doesn’t make sense, former officials said.

No more expert review? Terrible idea!

Without FDA advisory committees, there are few checks on the approval process for new drugs. The American public deserves this rigor and transparency, especially in the face of industry's profit motive.

Woowoo, 100 citations!

Trump Admin Accused Of 'Political Interference' In Decision To Review Abortion Pill The group says the timing between a Republican-backed junk science report and the FDA’s decision to review mifepristone “suggests political interference.”

This "review" will not go well. Under RFK, the FDA is likely to reinstate unnecessary restrictions that will make mail-order delivery harder, especially in states where abortion is banned.

I've been working on a paper about this, related to the evidence base amassed by abortion advocates to support this and prevent anti-abortion resistance.

States Heading Toward Constitutional Showdown Over Abortion Shield Laws

Because the FDA expanded access to medication abortion during COVID via telemedicine mail-order, abortion rates have remained steady. But Shield Laws that protect out-of-state providers are under attack. Courts decide this fall (+may affect gender-affirming care).

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/h...

‘Who Am I Without Birth Control?’

I struggle with this: Influencers are taking advantage of young birth-control users with false promises of "purity" and misinformation (the Pill does not make you bisexual!). But some of their power comes from doctors dismissing real side effects. What can we do?

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/s...

Trump cuts threaten access to birth control for millions of women Birth control is routine for many Americans and polls show it's popular across party lines. Now, the Trump administration is withholding funds that provide contraception for low income people.

With Trump's deep cuts to Medicaid and withholding of Title X funds for family planning, these will be an important part of our contraceptive toolkit moving forward.
www.npr.org/2025/08/07/n...

Birth control use is up since FDA approved over-the-counter pill A new study shows access to birth control has increased following the FDA's approval of an over-the-counter birth control pill. In the two years since the pill went on the market, there's a 31.8% perc...

ICYMI: Birth control pills are now available over-the-counter without a prescription ($50 for 3 months with no insurance coverage). Opill is progestin-based, and it has less side effects than combined pills that also have estrogen.

I want to echo the point about how understanding the true causes can reduce the unfair sense of guilt felt by parents, especially moms like the woman in the article who blamed herself for that one glass of wine, or others who fear it was their "unnecessary" or "selfish" use of meds. Fight the shame!

The World Health Organization and others put the prevalence of endometriosis at about 10% of reproductive age women and girls. The U.S. government does not produce prevalence figures, and published estimates vary greatly with the population studied. But one rigorous analysis of more than 116,000 U.S. women in the general population indicates a lifetime prevalence of 11.2%. Endometriosis research has received little support from the $48.5 billion National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest medical research funder, compared with conditions that have similar or lower estimated prevalences. NIH is currently funding 54 research project grants with “endometriosis” in their titles and 566 with titles including “breast cancer.”

Endometriosis affects 11% of American women, but only gets 0.039% of NIH funds for research.

Why? A leader in the field says that research on endometriosis “is so far behind because it affects women. And it doesn’t kill you" (see graphic below).

Great article: www.science.org/content/arti...

It's like the old timey version of the (true) popular narratives about insulin today

I want someone to write a history of how bioethics scholars were able to get themselves into science advisor positions! We need the playbook!

Gametic Politics Workshop Call for papers for social science and humanities scholars studying eggs, sperm, and gender/sex in the 21st century

Are you an Early-Career Scholar?

Gametic Politics: Eggs, Sperm, and Gender/Sex in the 21st Century
A Workshop for Early-Career Researchers organized by Rene Almeling and Sarah Richardson
April 16-17, 2026
Yale University
New Haven, CT
Details & application form: www.renealmeling.com/gametic-poli...

WSU researcher: Fund male contraceptive science as women’s health issue In a commentary, WSU’s Wei Yan calls for more support to develop a male pill as way to reduce unintended pregnancies: “I think men should share the burden.”

"If you have 10,000 pregnancies in a town, half of those pregnancies are unintended. To me, that says our current options are not sufficient."
-Wei Yan (Washington State)

I want to say "Yes!" but I wonder: Will more options reduce the number of unplanned pregnancy?

news.wsu.edu/news/2025/08...

What If We Get It Right?

Thanks. I've also been reading Anaya Elizabeth Johnson's book, which is very optimistic and hopeful: www.getitright.earth

I struggle with this, too. On the last day of class in the Spring, one of my students asked during the AMA how we can have any hope with all the terrible things happening at home and abroad. I think they might feel the pessimism even more acutely than we do.

Adultery, Cloning Still Seen as Most Immoral Behaviors Of 20 behaviors, extramarital affairs and human cloning are seen as the most morally wrong. Birth control and divorce remain the most morally acceptable.

Birth control should not be controversial: 90% of American view it as morally acceptable, including 85% of Republicans.

news.gallup.com/poll/692801/...

As Trump Administration Plans to Burn Contraceptives, Europeans Are Alarmed

Misinformation at the heart of the Trump administration's cruelty:

"The department said the contraceptives that had been flagged for destruction were 'abortifacient,' meaning that they work by inducing abortion. None of the supplies ... fit that description"

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/w...

Contraline Exercises License Option for NES/T, the First Male Contraceptive to Reach Late-Stage Development T is poised to become the first FDA-approved hormonal contraceptive for men.

The leading contender for a new male birth control now has a drug company sponsor! This is the first time for hormonal male contraception to enter into Phase III trials (which are the largest and most expensive).

www.einpresswire.com/article/8351...

How Conservative Christians Cracked a 70-Year-Old Law

Another step forward for "religious freedom"...
...and a further erosion of the separation of church and state.

(no paywall) www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/u...

After fall of Roe, anti-abortion activists take aim at birth control Earlier this year, the Trump administration scrubbed CDC guidance on birth control from government websites and froze $65 million in funding to family planning clinics that provide free or low-cost co...

Emergency Contraception ≠ Abortion!

More great PBS coverage about threats to birth control (even in the face of defunding!)

www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

Examining the facts about contraceptives as birth control misinformation spreads online The birth control pill is one of the most common forms of contraception in the U.S. But in recent years, claims of side effects of the pill have filled social media platforms, often fueled by influenc...

Side effects of birth control are real, but beware the misinformation online. I was interviewed by PBS:

"The existence of these side effects isn't evidence that these contraceptives aren't safe, but they might be evidence that we want to develop even safer means of contraception for everybody."

This is exactly why we need to get a new male contraceptive on the market!