So far this year, GOP lawmakers in Arkansas and North Dakota have practically tripped over each other to see which state can introduce more anti-abortion legislation. Among other abortion restrictions, each state is currently advancing a “fetal pain” measure to outlaw abortion procedures after 20 weeks of pregnancy — based on the scientifically disputed notion that fetuses can feel pain at that point — despite the fact that similar laws have been blocked in court for running afoul of the reproductive rights granted under Roe v. Wade.

On Monday, state senators in both Arkansas and North Dakota approved 20-week abortion bans. Neither measure makes an exception for the health of the woman, despite the fact that women who seek late-term abortions often do so because they discover unexpected health issues or fatal fetal abnormalities. Arkansas’ measure does include narrow exceptions to allow abortion services in the cases of rape, incest, or to save the woman’s life — but North Dakota’s abortion ban doesn’t even make the narrowest exceptions for rape or incest.

Nebraska was the first state to pass a 20-week abortion ban under the specious logic that fetuses can feel pain during the second trimester of pregnancy. Since then, seven other states have passed similar laws, and two fetal pain measures in Georgia and Arizona are currently being blocked from taking effect.

But the possibility of an impending court challenge won’t stop anti-choice lawmakers who are insistent on slowly chipping away at women’s constitutional right to reproductive health services. Both Arkansas and North Dakota have also proposed more extreme abortion measures — a “heartbeat ban” in Arkansas that would outlaw abortion after just 12 weeks, and a “personhood” measure in North Dakota that could ban all abortions and even some forms of contraception — that go even further to circumvent Roe, which guarantees women’s right to a legal abortion until the point of viability, around 24 weeks of pregnancy.

An Oklahoma state Senate committee rejected a measure that “would have repealed a 1987 law that prevents cities and towns from enacting tobacco use restrictions stricter than that of the state” by a 2-6 vote on Monday — drawing sharp rebukes from public health advocates who see the legislation’s failure as a political concession to Big Tobacco, and even drawing the ire of the state’s GOP Gov. Mary Fallin, who has called on lawmakers to pass legislation aimed at curbing Oklahoma’s smoking-related public health care costs.

“This is a victory for tobacco lobbyists and the tobacco industry,” said Alex Weintz, Fallin’s communications director. “It’s a defeat for the state of Oklahoma and anyone who cares about improving our health.”

As OKNews reports, the debate over SB 36 revealed a clear correlation between the state senators’ votes and the amount of money they received from the tobacco lobby:

The debate on the measure turned into a showdown between Sen. Frank Simpson, R-Ardmore, the only senator to sign a pledge to refuse all contributions, meals and gifts from the tobacco industry, and Sen. Rob Johnson, who is listed as the No. 1 recipient on a website that tracks legislators receiving money from tobacco lobbyists.

Johnson, R-Yukon, received about $11,295 in campaign contributions and gifts from those who were identified as tobacco lobbyists since 2006, according to the website tobaccomoney.com, which was started last year by Doug Matheny, the former director of tobacco prevention at the state Health Department. [...]

“From the tobacco companies themselves, I don’t think I’ve received that much comparatively to other interests,” he said. “It has absolutely nothing to do with it. I’ve taken max contributions from somebody and completely have been opposed to an idea they’ve had.”

Johnson and his fellow reform opponents implied that SB 36 would be a burden on businesses, since it would discourage Oklahoma residents from patronizing establishments that don’t allow smoking. But that logic completely ignores the very real — and very significant — costs of the state’s smoking epidemic. National smoking-related medical costs amount to $200 billion in preventable spending every year, and studies have confirmed that states making small investments in smoking cessation policies see massive economic returns. In Oklahoma specifically, where about 5,800 people die each year from smoking, every household pays an estimated $556 annually in state and federal taxes to cover smoking-caused medical costs.

Ultimately, the measure’s defeat is a reminder of the outsized influence that Big Tobacco continues to enjoy. Fallin has vowed to continue her fight to encourage anti-smoking efforts in Oklahoma, and will potentially call for a popular referendum on SB 36 — but if she does, the people of Oklahoma can expect a titanic statewide lobbying campaign by the tobacco industry.

In a debate over whether to prevent college students from carrying concealed weapons on campus on Friday, Colorado Rep. Joe Salazar (D) suggested that female students are too paranoid to responsibly use a firearm. According to the state lawmaker, women may not be able to tell whether or not they’re actually in danger and end up pulling the trigger on an innocent person:

SALAZAR: It’s why we have call boxes, it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop a round at somebody.

Gun advocates often attempt to frame concealed carry permits as a women’s issue, claiming that women need the added protection of a firearm to fight back against attempted incidents of sexual assault. Domestic violence counselors vehemently oppose the policy, pointing out that hidden guns on campus won’t actually help address rape culture, particularly since an estimated two-thirds of sexual assaults occur between people who already know each other. But suggesting that women are too emotional to be able to identify sexual violence — and implying that paranoid women may sometimes “feel like” they’re in trouble when they “may actually not be” — doesn’t help address pervasive issues of rape culture, either.

Salazar apologized for his remarks today. “I’m sorry if I offended anyone,” his statement read. “That was not my intention. We were having a public policy debate on whether or not guns makes people safer on campus. I don’t believe they do. That was the point I was trying to make.”

Insensitive comments about rape certainly know no party lines. But concrete policies to address issues of sexual assault have unfortunately become more partisan in recent months. The federal Violence Against Women Act, which has strengthened systems to help survivors of sexual violence for the past 18 years — and which specifically impacts college students, since it helps fund campus programs to address dating violence — has been locked in a political battle in Congress ever since GOP lawmakers balked at adding expanding protections for diverse communities. Republicans in Congress actually let it expire for the first time ever during the last legislative session.

The next time you feel the lure of the “last call” at the bar, you might want to keep this in mind: alcohol consumption causes over 20,000 cancer-related deaths in America ever year, making it a significant preventable risk factor for the disease.

As CBS News reports, the World Health Organization already classifies alcohol as the world’s third largest risk factor for disease burden. But its link with cancer is “not widely appreciated by the public and remains underemphasized even by physicians,” the study’s author, Dr. Timothy Naimi of the Boston University School of Medicine, explained in a press release.

The report’s authors hope to combat that ignorance with their findings, which conclude that alcohol causes as many as 3.7 percent of all American cancer-related deaths annually — and drinking alcohol increases risk factors for “cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, liver, colon, rectum and breast:”

Researchers determined that alcohol-related cancer death took away an average of 18 potential years from a person’s life. Average consumption for the group was 1.5 drinks a day or less, and those drinkers made up 30 percent of the reported deaths. Larger amounts of alcohol led to higher risks of dying from cancer. Forty-eight to 60 percent of the deaths were attributed to people who drank three or more drinks a day.

“When it comes to alcohol consumption and cancers, clearly excessive drinking is the riskiest type of drinking,” Naimi said to CBS station WBZ in Boston. “But when it comes to cancer, there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.”

In addition to figuring out how many cancer deaths were related to alcohol, researchers also determined that breast cancer was the most common type of drinking-related deaths in women. This form of cancer alone made up 15 percent of the alcohol-related deaths, amounting to 6,000 women annually.

For men, mouth, throat and esophageal cancers were the most common alcohol-associated deaths, making up about 6,000 deaths annually.

All told, the combined costs of lost productivity from criminal justice proceedings, missed work, and medical care related to drinking alcohol adds up to $223 billion in health expenditures every year. That number might actually be even bigger, considering that it likely does not incorporate the full breadth of cancer-related costs caused by alcohol.

The findings also underscore the disproportionate toll that alcohol advertising targeting America’s youth may have on the black population. In general, alcohol advertising targets young, black Americans, a group that also tends to be more susceptible to both getting cancer and dying from cancer than other racial demographics.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a 75-year-old soybean farmer’s appeal against biotech giant Monsanto, in a case that could permanently reshape the genetically modified (GM) crop industry. Victor “Hugh” Bowman has been battling the corporation since 2007, when Monsanto sued him for violating their patent protection by purchasing second-generation GM seeds from a grain elevator. An appeals court ruled in favor of Monsanto, and despite the Obama administration’s urging to let the decision stand, the nine justices will hear Bowman make his case today.

Monsanto is notorious among farmers for the company’s aggressive investigations and pursuit of farmers they believe have infringed on Monsanto’s patents. In the past 13 years, Monsanto has sued 410 farmers and 56 small farm businesses, almost always settling out of court (the few farmers that can afford to go to trial are always defeated). These farmers were usually sued for saving second-generation seeds for the next harvest — a basic farming practice rendered illegal because seeds generated by GM crops contain Monsanto’s patented genes.

Monsanto’s winning streak hinges on a controversial Supreme Court decision from 1981, which ruled on a 5-4 split that living organisms could be patented as private property. As a result of that decision, every new generation of GM seeds — and their self-replicating technology — is considered Monsanto’s property.

Unfortunately, second- and third-generation seeds are very hard to track, which may explain why Monsanto devotes $10 million a year and 75 staffers to investigating farmers for possible patent violations. Seeds are easily carried by birds or blown by the wind into fields of non-GM seeds, exposing farmers who have never bought seeds from Monsanto to lawsuits. Organic and conventional seeds are fast becoming extinct — 93 percent of soybeans, 88 percent of cotton, and 86 percent of corn in the US are grown from Monsanto’s patented seeds. A recent study discovered that at least half of the organic seeds in the US are contaminated with some genetically modified material.

Bowman’s appeal gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to determine whether or not Monsanto is using patent enforcement to control their monopoly on a vital resource. As GM seeds become more ubiquitous, farmers who want to avoid Monsanto’s strict patents have few alternatives. As a recently released Center for Food Safety report notes, the concentration of market power among Monsanto and a handful of other companies has led to skyrocketing seed prices and less innovation by smaller firms:

USDA data show that since the introduction of GE seed, the average cost of soybean seed to plant one acre has risen by a dramatic 325 percent, from $13.32 to $56.58. Similar trends exist for corn and cotton seeds: cotton seeds spiked 516 percent from 1995-2011 and corn seed costs rose 259 percent over the same period.
[...] USDA economists have found that seed industry consolidation has reduced research and likely resulted in fewer crop varieties on offer: “Those companies that survived seed industry consolidation appear to be sponsoring less research relative to the size of their individual markets than when more companies were involved… Also, fewer companies developing crops and marketing seeds may translate into fewer varieties offered.”

Furthermore, emerging evidence indicates that Monsanto has hardly perfected the technology. A core argument for GM seeds in the 1990s claimed they would reduce chemical pesticide use because the plants themselves would repel pests and weeds. But studies have confirmed the spread of so-called “superweeds” that have developed a resistance to Monsanto’s gene, leading farmers to deploy even heavier doses of herbicides like Monsanto’s own product, Roundup. Another new report debunked the company’s argument that GM seeds would have higher yields; in fact, two of Monsanto’s most popular genes caused yields to drop.

Despite the mounting evidence against their products, the biotech industry enjoys a cozy relationship with government regulators. In December, the Justice Department abruptly dropped their investigation into anti-competitive practices in the industry without so much as a press release. The stalled Farm Bill also contains generous provisions that would allow these companies to put their products on the market with cursory or no review by the USDA.

Today’s oral argument is a study in these intertwined interests: the Obama administration is presenting their own defense of Monsanto, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was once a Monsanto lawyer (but will not recuse himself from Bowman’s case). Still, the same high court that enabled the current state of American agriculture in 1981 now finds itself in a position to check Monsanto’s power — or help them tighten their hold on the industry.

This past Friday was the final deadline for governors to decide whether they will take some ownership over setting up a state-level health insurance exchange, as stipulated by the Affordable Care Act. But even though the Republican Party typically resists handing over any power to the federal government, the vast majority of GOP governors have decided to cede control over their own insurance marketplaces to federal officials — an uncharacteristic move that’s out of step with GOP ideals.

As stubborn Obamacare opponents continue to resist implementing the health care reform law, most governors have refused to do any work to set up an insurance marketplace. But those GOP-led states’ refusal won’t actually bring health reform to a grinding halt; instead, it has invited the federal government to step in and do the work for them. Altogether, the federal government will run health exchanges in 26 states, and partner with state officials in an additional seven states to help them set up their marketplaces:

Even though you wouldn’t know it from looking at the partisan breakdown in the chart above, state-run health exchanges are actually a conservative idea. Democratic proponents of reform initially advocated for a nationally-run insurance marketplace, but the final version of the health reform law gave more control to states in order to compromise with conservatives. Republican governors are now largely refusing to take advantage of the power that the law affords to them.

Ironically, as Wonkblog’s Sarah Kliff points out, GOP leaders’ refusal to set up their own exchanges means they’re defaulting to a more liberal version of health care reform. Some members of the Republican Party have already recognized this — but their attempts to convince their colleagues to implement Obamacare on a state level haven’t been met with much success, since the facts don’t matter to the partisan lawmakers who will stop at nothing to oppose the health reform law.

Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin have singled out Planned Parenthood in their crusade against women’s reproductive health — a popular anti-choice tactic that states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona have also employed over the past year. And now that Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-WI) budget has stripped over a million dollars of funding from the women’s health organization, it will be forced to close four of its rural health clinics within the next several months.

“Closing these centers is a direct result of the budget cuts from last cycle, when the Republicans kicked Planned Parenthood out of the budget,” Nicole Safar, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin’s public policy director, explained to RH Reality Check. And since the four clinics that will be forced to close their doors are located in rural areas, Planned Parenthood officials warn that the low-income women who used to rely on them will now be forced to travel up to an hour to visit a clinic in another county:

“They weren’t reimbursements for patient services directly,” said Nicole Safar, director of public policy for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. “None of these centers provided abortion services…In these communities, there is nowhere else for low-income women to get these services. These centers focused on preventing unplanned pregnancies and reducing the need for abortions.”

The centers provided 11,400 health care services a year. Officials said they worry that the closings will mean that about 2,000 people in the affected communities won’t be getting checkups or treatment, putting patients at risk of cancer and other illnesses.

“The women who come in to see me every day don’t care if their legislators are Republicans or Democrats,” said Deb Lidbury, a nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood. “What they care about is having access to screenings, birth control and having access to someone who can answer their immediate concerns and questions. Many of the patients I see may skip their annual exam or go without getting a lump check.”

Walker’s 2011-2013 budget stripped funding from health organizations that are affiliated with abortion services, which disproportionately impacted the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics. State and federal laws already prohibit federal funds from going toward abortion — so none of the organization’s locations were using that money to fund abortion services in the first place.

Unfortunately, attacks on Planned Parenthood clinics are hardly the only anti-choice policies that Wisconsin women have to worry about. The top Republican lawmakers in the state confirmed last week that mandating an invasive transvaginal ultrasound for women seeking abortion is a “priority” for them. And new restrictions on medication-induced abortions are already forcing women’s health clinics in Wisconsin to stop offering medicine abortion services for the women who want to terminate a pregnancy during the first trimester.

Confirming similar studies that have found that mental health problems are not correlated with violence, a new National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) paper concludes that there is no statistical link between violent crime and people who suffered from depression as teenagers.

While opponents of gun violence legislation have tried to shift the gun violence prevention debate to focus on the mentally ill, the reality is that the victims of mental illness-related violence tend to be the patients themselves. And depression specifically is one of the most widespread mental health concerns in the world. As the report states, “depression is the leading cause of disability and the fourth leading contributor to the global burden of disease,” and mental illnesses is prevalent among young Americans, with “8.1 percent of 2 million adolescents aged 12-17 experienced at least one major depressive episode in 2009.”

Although the NBER report found “little evidence that adolescent depression influences the likelihood of engaging in violent crime or the selling of illicit drugs,” it did conclude that such depression was a significant predictor for future property crimes, costing hundreds of millions of dollars per year in damages and underscoring the economic costs that exacerbate the social costs of mental illness on the public.

That makes early detection efforts and community support systems geared towards addressing mental health in children vital to public health and preventing certain future crimes — and some lawmakers are taking action to do just that. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) recently introduced the Mental Health In Schools Act in an effort to “allow schools to collaborate with mental health providers, law enforcement, and other community-based organizations to provide expanded access to mental health care for their students” and “support schools in training staff and volunteers to spot warning signs in kids and to refer them to the appropriate services.”

(HT: Wonkblog)