Author

Sarah Varney
‘Abortion trafficking’ now a crime for Idaho minors who need healthcare
By: Sarah Varney - May 15, 2023
MOSCOW, Idaho — Mackenzie Davidson grew up in a Mormon household and sheepishly admits she knew little about pregnancy. “This is embarrassing,” she said, sitting outside a café along a street thronged with students in this college town. “But I didn’t know that you had to have sex to have kids until I was 13 […]
HIV care is supposed to be free, so why are insurance companies still billing for it?
By: Sarah Varney - March 13, 2023
Anthony Cantu, 31, counsels patients at a San Antonio health clinic about a daily pill shown to prevent HIV infection. Last summer, he started taking the medication himself, an approach called preexposure prophylaxis, better known as PrEP. The regimen requires laboratory tests every three months to ensure the powerful drug does not harm his kidneys […]
After Dobbs, contraceptive failures carry bigger stakes
By: Sarah Varney - November 12, 2022
“No one walks into my office and says, ‘I plan on missing a pill,’” said obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Mitchell Creinin. “There is no such thing as perfect use, we are all real-life users,” said Creinin, a professor at the University of California-Davis who wrote a widely used textbook that details contraceptive failure rates. Even when the […]
Abortion bans skirt a medical reality: For many teens, childbirth is a dangerous undertaking
By: Sarah Varney - October 15, 2022
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Maryanna’s eyes widened as the waitress delivered dessert, a plate-sized chocolate chip cookie topped with hot fudge and ice cream. Sitting in a booth at a Cheddar’s in Little Rock, Maryanna, 16, wasn’t sure of the last time she’d been to a sit-down restaurant. With two children — a daughter she […]
Which companies aren’t exiting Russia? Big pharma
By: Sarah Varney - March 12, 2022
Even as the war in Ukraine has prompted an exodus of international companies — from fast-food chains and oil producers to luxury retailers — from Russia, U.S. and global drug companies said they would continue manufacturing and selling their products there. Airlines, automakers, banks, and technology giants — at least 320 companies by one count […]
COVID strikes super-vaxxed Vermont and packs far less punch
By: Sarah Varney - February 5, 2022
Even Eden, a snow-covered paradise in northern Vermont, is poisoned by omicron. The nearly vertical ascent of new coronavirus cases in recent weeks, before peaking in mid-January, affected nearly every mountain hamlet, every shuttered factory town, every frozen bucolic college campus in this state despite its near-perfect vaccination record. Of all the states, Vermont appeared […]