Abortion has no effect on long-term mental health; Clinton's likely priorities as Secretary of State; allergic reactions to Gardasil uncommon; what effect would HHS conscience regulations have?

Abortion Has No Effect on Long-Term

Mental Health

A New Zealand study claiming to link poor mental health outcomes with

abortion has made the rounds on anti-choice blogs and websites over the past

few weeks (stay tuned for a more complete debunking in the coming days), but in

the mean time, Reuters

reminds us that "No high-quality study done to date can document that

having an abortion causes psychological distress, or a ‘post-abortion

syndrome,’ and efforts to show it does occur appear to be politically

motivated, U.S. researchers said on Thursday." How do they know?

A team at Johns

Hopkins University

in Baltimore

reviewed 21 studies involving more than 150,000 women and found the

high-quality studies showed no significant differences in long-term mental

health between women who choose to abort a pregnancy and others.

Guttmacher Institute has also produced an advisory following the thorough American Psychological Association report that concluded that there was no link between mental health outcomes and abortion.

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Clinton’s Likely Priorities as

Secretary of State

On WorldChanging,

leaders of international family planning organizations express their expectations

for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s priorities as Secretary of State. Writes Ben Block, "Although

Clinton’s agenda will likely be dominated by the diplomatic challenges of a

global war on terror, she is expected to restore U.S. leadership on issues of

population, human rights, and environmental enforcement if the Congress

approves her nomination."

Allergic Reactions to Gardasil

Uncommon

A study published in the British Medical Journal concludes that "Allergic

reactions to Gardasil, the humanpapilloma virus…are uncommon and most

schoolgirls can tolerate further doses," CNN

Money reports. "Researchers at the

Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, tested

25 schoolgirls with suspected allergic reactions to Gardasil after more than

380,000 vaccine doses were administered in schools" but "[t]he researchers found

that only three of the 25 schoolgirls had probable hypersensitivity to Gardasil

and concluded that true hypersensitivity is uncommon."

What

Effects Would HHS Conscience Regulation Have?

Reporting on the Bush administration’s plan to promulgate expansive "provider

conscience" protections, the Baltimore

Sun writes,