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2 Texas Researchers Under Fire for Planned Parenthood Study
Source: Associated Press
2 Texas Researchers Under Fire for Planned Parenthood Study
By PAUL J. WEBER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN, Texas — Feb 10, 2016, 2:29 PM ET
Two state health researchers in Texas are under fire for a co-authoring a study suggesting something Republican leaders have long disputed: cuts to Planned Parenthood are restricting access to women's health care.
Texas Health Commissioner Chris Traylor has not said whether the researchers, one a high-level director with more than 20 years in state government, will be disciplined. But a spokesman made it clear that the agency agrees with outraged Republicans over the researchers' contributions to a study that the GOP sees as flawed and biased.
The study was published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prominent medical journals in the nation. It found that fewer women in Texas have obtained long-acting birth control, such as intrauterine devices, after the GOP-controlled Legislature booted Planned Parenthood from a state women's health program in 2013. Births paid for under Medicaid also increased among some women.
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.
She also questions why two state health employees were among the study's five co-authors.
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By PAUL J. WEBER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN, Texas — Feb 10, 2016, 2:29 PM ET
Two state health researchers in Texas are under fire for a co-authoring a study suggesting something Republican leaders have long disputed: cuts to Planned Parenthood are restricting access to women's health care.
Texas Health Commissioner Chris Traylor has not said whether the researchers, one a high-level director with more than 20 years in state government, will be disciplined. But a spokesman made it clear that the agency agrees with outraged Republicans over the researchers' contributions to a study that the GOP sees as flawed and biased.
The study was published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prominent medical journals in the nation. It found that fewer women in Texas have obtained long-acting birth control, such as intrauterine devices, after the GOP-controlled Legislature booted Planned Parenthood from a state women's health program in 2013. Births paid for under Medicaid also increased among some women.
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.
She also questions why two state health employees were among the study's five co-authors.
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/texas-researchers-fire-planned-parenthood-study-36837762
