Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Calif. Lawmakers Reject Proposed Audit Of Planned Parenthood
California legislators on Tuesday rejected a proposed audit of Planned Parenthood in the wake of a videos spotlighting the organization鈥檚 role in providing fetal tissue for medical research. The proposed audit would have examined whether Planned Parenthood, which is reimbursed by California for serving hundreds of thousands of low-income patients on Medi-Cal, has illegally sold fetal tissue to testing and research organizations. Just two lawmakers on the 14-member Joint Legislative Audit Committee, both Republicans, voted for it. (White, 8/25)
The last time the Senate Interim Committee on the Sanctity of Life met, members threatened to hold a Nixon administration official in contempt unless she produced documents identifying which hospital had a working relationship with Columbia's Planned Parenthood clinic. That became a moot point when Dept. of Health and Senior Services Dir. Gail Vasterling sent the committee a letter stating that Colleen McNicholas M.D. had received admitting privileges from University of Missouri Health Care. (Griffin, 8/25)
With a wide disparity among men and women, 48 percent of Florida voters oppose cutting off federal funding to Planned Parenthood, while 42 percent support such a move, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday. The poll, which comes amid a national controversy about Planned Parenthood, indicates that 53 percent of female voters in Florida oppose cutting off federal funding, while 36 percent support the idea. In sharp contrast, 49 percent of male voters support eliminating federal funding for the organization, while 41 percent are opposed. (8/25)
Nearly 700 University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty members have signed a letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel arguing that a bill being considered by the Legislature to ban the use of fetal tissue and cells would not only close off avenues of hope for patients, it would send a message to biomedical scientists and the biotechnology industry "that Wisconsin is no place to do business." (Herzog, 8/25)
