Two state health researchers in Texas are under fire for co-authoring a study suggesting what Republican leaders have long disputed: cuts to Planned Parenthood are restricting access to women's health care.| If one defines "women's health care" strictly as access to abortion, the study is almost certainly correct. That was the whole point of the cuts to PP. PP doesn't much of anything other than abortion and implantable birth control, so there's no other "health care" to cut... |
The study was published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prominent medical journals in the nation.
| You'll have to work hard to show that a flawed study made it through the NEJM (full disclosure: I know the editor personally). It's top-rate, and while it isn't perfect its in-house statisticians and reviewers are darned good. |
Powerful Republican state Sen. Jane Nelson dismissed the findings as invalid, in part because the research was funded by the nonprofit Susan T. Buffet Foundation, which is a major supporter of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups.
Key paragraph in the Methods:The institutional review board at the University of Texas at Austin determined that the study was exempt from human-subjects review; therefore, no informed consent was required. The authors designed the study, and the funder had no role in the analysis or interpretation of the data, the writing of the manuscript, or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. All the authors vouch for the integrity and completeness of the data and analyses. Be as angry as you want, that's a standard paragraph in these types of studies. You see the same thing with Pharma-sponsored studies. I have no reason to think that the authors are mis-communicating on this point. The good Sen. Nelson should read this paragraph. |
| Because they met the criteria for authorship as published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Two of the authors are at "the Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin", and two are at "the Texas Health and Human Services Commission". Faculty do research. The Commission? They facilitate dissemination of information. |
| Sen. Nelson is the one being political. What the good Senator simply should have done is 1) smile 2) say "precisely" and 3) move on. |
| Nor should they have... |
She and Allgeyer have not returned phone messages and emails seeking comment. The study used data from the Health and Human Services agency, where the researchers work, though the extent of their role in the study is unclear.
Gee, everyone had plenty to say just a week ago. What happened?
| Political pressure can be mis-used by both sides. You're seeing the Pub side right now. |
"The first step of a public official should be to face the facts. Not to punish those who bring the facts to them," said Schenkkan, who was lead counsel for Planned Parenthood in court over its exclusion from the state health program.
Let's see the raw data!
| First, read the study. The Texas decision did what it was supposed to do -- defund PP. The consequence was one that most anyone with a brain could have predicted: some contraception rates would go down, and birthrates in selected populations would increase. Not exactly a shocker. |
"The truth hurts. Unfortunately for Texas officials, disliking a study doesn't make it not true," said Yvonne Gutierrez, executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes.
Flores-Vazquez and Allgeyer had their names on the top of the study, along with Schenkkan and two University of Texas researchers who are analyzing the impact of women's health laws passed by the Texas Legislature in recent years. School researchers say the Buffet Foundation plays no role in their work.
| They didn't influence this manuscript, as stated in the Methods. That's not to say that the Foundation members and the researchers aren't chums... |
Texas barred Planned Parenthood from state planning services the same year that then-Gov. Rick Perry signed tough abortion restrictions that shuttered clinics across the state. Those restrictions will go before the U.S. Supreme Court next month in a major abortion rights case that will likely impact similar measures adopted in other GOP-controlled states.