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Health

Pregnant Girls Might Obtain Covid Vaccines Safely, W.H.O. Says

The World Health Organization on Friday changed its guidelines for pregnant women considering a Covid-19 vaccine and abandoned opposition to immunization for most expectant mothers unless they were at high risk.

The change came after an outcry from WHO’s previous stance that the organization “did not recommend vaccinating pregnant women with the vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna”.

Several experts expressed their disappointment with the WHO’s earlier position on Thursday. The experts found that this was inconsistent with the guidelines of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the same topic and would confuse pregnant women who are looking for clear advice.

The vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have not been tested on pregnant women, but have not shown any harmful effects in animal studies. According to experts, the technology used in the vaccines is generally known to be safe.

The WHO’s new wording reflects this information:

“Based on what we know about this type of vaccine, we have no particular reason to believe that there are any specific risks that would outweigh the benefits of vaccination for pregnant women.” The recommendation is now closely aligned with the position of the CDC.

Experts praised the postponement and welcomed the agreement between the world’s leading public health organizations on this important issue.

“I was very pleased to see that WHO has changed its guidelines for offering the Covid-19 vaccine to pregnant women,” said Dr. Denise Jamieson, an obstetrician at Emory University and a member of the Covid Expert Group at the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The association was among the many women’s health organizations that urged Pfizer and Moderna to speed up vaccine testing in pregnant women.

“The WHO’s more permissive language is an important opportunity for pregnant women to get vaccinated and protect themselves from the serious risks of Covid-19,” said Dr. Jamieson. “This impressively rapid overhaul by WHO is good news for pregnant women and their babies.”

Pregnant women have traditionally been excluded from clinical trials, so there is a lack of scientific data on the safety of drugs and vaccines in women and their unborn children. Vaccines are generally considered safe, and pregnant women have been encouraged to get immunized against influenza and other diseases since the 1960s, even though rigorous clinical studies have not been conducted to test them.

Pfizer will test its vaccine in pregnant women over the next few months, according to a company spokeswoman. And Moderna plans to set up a registry to monitor side effects in women who have been immunized with the vaccine.

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Health

Pregnant Girls Get Conflicting Recommendation on Covid-19 Vaccines

Schwangere, die nach Leitlinien für Covid-19-Impfstoffe suchen, sind mit der Art von Verwirrung konfrontiert, die die Pandemie von Anfang an verfolgt hat: Die weltweit führenden Organisationen für öffentliche Gesundheit – die US-amerikanischen Zentren für die Kontrolle und Prävention von Krankheiten und die Weltgesundheitsorganisation – bieten widersprüchliche Angebote Rat.

Keine der Organisationen verbietet oder fördert ausdrücklich die Immunisierung schwangerer Frauen. Sie wägen jedoch dieselben begrenzten Studien ab und geben unterschiedliche Empfehlungen.

Das Beratungsgremium der CDC forderte schwangere Frauen auf, sich vor dem Hochkrempeln mit ihren Ärzten zu beraten – eine Entscheidung, die von mehreren Frauengesundheitsorganisationen begrüßt wurde, da die Entscheidungsfindung weiterhin in den Händen der werdenden Mütter lag.

Die WHO empfahl schwangeren Frauen, den Impfstoff nicht zu erhalten, es sei denn, sie hatten aufgrund von Arbeitsexpositionen oder chronischen Erkrankungen ein hohes Risiko für Covid. Am Dienstag gab es Leitlinien zum Moderna-Impfstoff heraus, die bei Frauen und Ärzten in den sozialen Medien für Unsicherheit sorgten. (Anfang dieses Monats wurden ähnliche Leitlinien zum Pfizer-BioNTech-Impfstoff veröffentlicht.)

Mehrere Experten äußerten sich bestürzt über die Haltung der WHO und sagten, die Risiken für schwangere Frauen aus Covid seien weitaus größer als jeder theoretische Schaden durch die Impfstoffe.

“Es gibt keine dokumentierten Risiken für den Fötus, es gibt keine theoretischen Risiken, es gibt kein Risiko in Tierstudien”, sagte Dr. Anne Lyerly, Bioethikerin an der Universität von North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “Je mehr ich darüber nachdenke, desto enttäuschter und trauriger fühle ich mich darüber.”

Die Meinungsverschiedenheit zwischen der CDC und der WHO beruht nicht auf wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen, sondern auf deren Fehlen: Schwangeren wurde die Teilnahme an klinischen Studien mit den Impfstoffen verwehrt, eine Entscheidung, die einer langen Tradition des Ausschlusses schwangerer Frauen entspricht biomedizinische Forschung, aber eine, die jetzt in Frage gestellt wird.

Während das Ziel angeblich darin besteht, Frauen und ihre ungeborenen Kinder zu schützen, drängt das Ausschließen schwangerer Frauen von Studien das Risiko aus dem sorgfältig kontrollierten Umfeld einer klinischen Studie in die reale Welt. Die Praxis hat Patienten und Anbieter gezwungen, sensible, besorgniserregende Probleme mit wenig harten Daten über Sicherheit oder Wirksamkeit abzuwägen.

Impfstoffe gelten im Allgemeinen als sicher, und schwangere Frauen werden seit den 1960er Jahren aufgefordert, sich gegen Influenza und andere Krankheiten immunisieren zu lassen, auch wenn keine strengen klinischen Studien durchgeführt wurden, um sie zu testen.

“Als Geburtshelfer stehen wir häufig vor schwierigen Entscheidungen über die Verwendung von Interventionen in der Schwangerschaft, die in der Schwangerschaft nicht ordnungsgemäß getestet wurden”, sagte Dr. Denise Jamieson, Geburtshelferin an der Emory University in Atlanta und Mitglied der Covid-Expertengruppe am American College für Geburtshilfe und Gynäkologen. Das College befürwortete nachdrücklich die Einbeziehung schwangerer und stillender Frauen in die Impfstoffstudien.

“Was viele Menschen vermissen, ist, dass es Risiken gibt, nichts zu tun”, sagte Dr. Jamieson. “Es ist keine kluge Strategie, schwangeren Frauen die Möglichkeit zu bieten, sich impfen zu lassen und sich selbst zu schützen, wenn bekannte und schwerwiegende Risiken für Covid durch die Schwangerschaft bestehen.”

Die Unsicherheit ist nicht auf Covid-Impfstoffe beschränkt: Viele, wenn nicht die meisten Medikamente, einschließlich weit verbreiteter Medikamente, wurden noch nie bei schwangeren Frauen getestet. Es kann Jahre oder Jahrzehnte dauern, bis unerwünschte Nebenwirkungen auftreten, wenn keine Studie mit einer Kontrollgruppe zum Vergleich vorliegt.

“Dies ist keine Geschichte über die WHO oder andere Personen, die von einer Impfung in der Schwangerschaft abraten”, sagte Carleigh Krubiner, Policy Fellow am Center for Global Development und Hauptforscher für das Projekt “Schwangerschaftsforschungsethik für Impfstoffe, Epidemien und neue Technologien” (VERHINDERN). “Es ist eine Geschichte über das Versäumnis, schwangere Frauen rechtzeitig und angemessen in Impfstudien einzubeziehen.”

Dr. Krubiner erklärte, sie verstehe die Verpflichtung der WHO und anderer Beratungsgremien, sich auf wissenschaftliche Studien zu stützen, und fügte hinzu: „Die Realität ist, dass wir noch keine Daten zu diesen Impfungen in der Schwangerschaft haben und es ohne diese Daten sehr schwierig ist Komm raus und gib eine umfassende Empfehlung zur Unterstützung ab. “

Die CDC und die WHO haben im Verlauf der Pandemie viele Male dissonante Ratschläge gegeben – insbesondere zur Nützlichkeit von Masken und zur Möglichkeit, dass das Virus in Innenräumen mit dem Flugzeug fliegt.

In einer Erklärung sagte die CDC am Donnerstag, dass aufgrund der Wirkungsweise der Impfstoffe Pfizer-BioNTech und Moderna „es unwahrscheinlich ist, dass sie ein spezifisches Risiko für schwangere Frauen darstellen“.

Die Empfehlung der CDC könnte für die USA sinnvoll sein, wo Frauen möglicherweise leicht ihre Gesundheitsdienstleister konsultieren können, sagte Joachim Hombach, ein Gesundheitsberater der WHO zu Impfungen. Die WHO berät jedoch viele Länder mit niedrigem und mittlerem Einkommen, in denen Frauen keinen Zugang zu Ärzten oder Krankenschwestern haben.

Die Empfehlung der WHO wurde auch “im Zusammenhang mit der begrenzten Versorgung” der Impfstoffe abgegeben, sagte Dr. Hombach. “Ich denke nicht, dass die Sprache entmutigend ist, aber die Sprache gibt die Fakten an.”

Pfizer bezog schwangere Frauen nicht in seine ersten klinischen Studien ein, da es die von der Food and Drug Administration festgelegten Richtlinien befolgte, um zunächst Studien zur Entwicklungstoxizität und Reproduktionstoxizität durchzuführen, sagte Jerica Pitts, eine Sprecherin des Unternehmens. Pfizer und Moderna übermittelten der FDA im Dezember Ergebnisse aus Toxizitätsstudien an trächtigen Ratten.

Pfizer plant, im ersten Halbjahr 2021 eine klinische Studie an schwangeren Frauen zu beginnen, sagte Frau Pitts. Laut Colleen Hussey, einer Sprecherin des Unternehmens, richtet Moderna ein Register ein, um die Ergebnisse schwangerer Frauen zu erfassen, die den Impfstoff erhalten.

Kritiker der Entscheidung der Unternehmen, schwangere Frauen von Studien auszuschließen, sagen, dass die Studien zur Reproduktionstoxizität viel früher hätten durchgeführt werden können – sobald vielversprechende Impfstoffkandidaten identifiziert wurden. Die Unternehmen hätten ein Protokoll zur Registrierung schwangerer Frauen hinzufügen sollen, sobald klar war, dass die Vorteile der Impfstoffe den potenziellen Schaden überwogen, sagte Dr. Krubiner.

“Es ist schwer zu verstehen, warum diese Verzögerung auftritt und warum sie nicht früher eingeleitet wurde”, sagte sie. “Das größere Problem ist, dass wir Monate verloren haben, wenn sie anfangen.”

Akiko Iwasaki, ein Immunologe an der Yale University, der Impfungen für schwangere Frauen befürwortet hat, stellte das zugrunde liegende Problem in Frage, das zur Entscheidung der WHO führte.

“Was auch immer es ist, ich wünschte, die WHO wäre transparenter in ihren Gründen für diese Empfehlung”, sagte sie. “Das Leben von Frauen hängt davon ab.”

Covid19 Impfungen >

Antworten auf Ihre Impfstofffragen

Bin ich in meinem Bundesstaat für den Covid-Impfstoff berechtigt?

Derzeit können mehr als 150 Millionen Menschen – fast die Hälfte der Bevölkerung – geimpft werden. Aber jeder Staat trifft die endgültige Entscheidung darüber, wer zuerst geht. Die 21 Millionen Beschäftigten im Gesundheitswesen des Landes und drei Millionen Einwohner von Langzeitpflegeeinrichtungen waren die ersten, die sich qualifizierten. Mitte Januar forderten Bundesbeamte alle Bundesstaaten auf, die Berechtigung für alle über 65-Jährigen und für Erwachsene jeden Alters mit Erkrankungen zu öffnen, bei denen ein hohes Risiko besteht, dass sie schwer krank werden oder an Covid-19 sterben. Erwachsene in der Allgemeinbevölkerung stehen am Ende der Reihe. Wenn Gesundheitsbehörden von Bund und Ländern Engpässe bei der Verteilung von Impfstoffen beseitigen können, sind alle ab 16 Jahren bereits im Frühjahr oder Frühsommer förderfähig. Der Impfstoff wurde bei Kindern nicht zugelassen, obwohl derzeit Studien durchgeführt werden. Es kann Monate dauern, bis ein Impfstoff für Personen unter 16 Jahren verfügbar ist. Aktuelle Informationen zu den Impfrichtlinien in Ihrer Region finden Sie auf Ihrer staatlichen Gesundheitswebsite

Ist der Impfstoff frei?

Sie sollten nichts aus eigener Tasche bezahlen müssen, um den Impfstoff zu erhalten, obwohl Sie nach Versicherungsinformationen gefragt werden. Wenn Sie nicht versichert sind, sollten Sie den Impfstoff trotzdem kostenlos erhalten. Der Kongress hat in diesem Frühjahr ein Gesetz verabschiedet, das es Versicherern verbietet, eine Kostenteilung wie eine Zuzahlung oder einen Selbstbehalt anzuwenden. Es bestand aus zusätzlichen Schutzmaßnahmen, die es Apotheken, Ärzten und Krankenhäusern untersagten, Patienten, einschließlich nicht versicherter Patienten, in Rechnung zu stellen. Trotzdem befürchten Gesundheitsexperten, dass Patienten in Schlupflöcher geraten, die sie für Überraschungsrechnungen anfällig machen. Dies kann bei Personen der Fall sein, denen zusammen mit ihrem Impfstoff eine Arztbesuchsgebühr berechnet wird, oder bei Amerikanern, die bestimmte Arten der Krankenversicherung haben, die nicht unter die neuen Vorschriften fallen. Wenn Sie Ihren Impfstoff von einer Arztpraxis oder einer Notfallklinik erhalten, sprechen Sie mit ihnen über mögliche versteckte Kosten. Um sicherzugehen, dass Sie keine Überraschungsrechnung erhalten, ist es am besten, wenn Sie Ihren Impfstoff an einer Impfstelle des Gesundheitsministeriums oder in einer örtlichen Apotheke erhalten, sobald die Aufnahmen breiter verfügbar sind.

Kann ich wählen, welchen Impfstoff ich bekomme?Wie lange hält der Impfstoff? Brauche ich nächstes Jahr noch einen?

Das ist zu bestimmen. Es ist möglich, dass Covid-19-Impfungen genau wie die Grippeimpfung zu einem jährlichen Ereignis werden. Oder es kann sein, dass der Nutzen des Impfstoffs länger als ein Jahr anhält. Wir müssen abwarten, wie dauerhaft der Schutz vor den Impfstoffen ist. Um dies festzustellen, werden Forscher geimpfte Menschen aufspüren, um nach „Durchbruchsfällen“ zu suchen – jenen Menschen, die trotz Impfung an Covid-19 erkranken. Dies ist ein Zeichen für eine Schwächung des Schutzes und gibt Forschern Hinweise darauf, wie lange der Impfstoff hält. Sie werden auch die Spiegel von Antikörpern und T-Zellen im Blut geimpfter Personen überwachen, um festzustellen, ob und wann ein Auffrischungsschuss erforderlich sein könnte. Es ist denkbar, dass Menschen alle paar Monate, einmal im Jahr oder nur alle paar Jahre Booster benötigen. Es geht nur darum, auf die Daten zu warten.

Benötigt mein Arbeitgeber Impfungen?Wo kann ich mehr erfahren?

Die von Pfizer und Moderna im Dezember veröffentlichten Toxizitätsdaten ergaben keine schädlichen Auswirkungen der Impfstoffe auf trächtige Ratten – Beweise, die von der WHO in ihren Leitlinien angeführt wurden.

Eine extreme Folge eines konservativen Ansatzes für Impfstoffe während der Ebola-Epidemie in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo, als Gesundheitspersonal allen Mitarbeitern an vorderster Front einen Impfstoff gegen die Krankheit anbot und Kontakte von Personen bestätigten, dass sie diese hatten – außer wenn sie schwanger waren oder Stillen. Ohne den Impfstoff starben 98 Prozent der schwangeren Frauen, die mit dem Ebola-Virus infiziert waren.

Die Regeln wurden nach einem öffentlichen Aufschrei geändert, aber bis dahin waren viele schwangere Frauen gestorben, sagte Dr. Lyerly.

Covid-19 hat sich auch für schwangere Frauen als gefährlich erwiesen. Eine große CDC-Studie, die im November veröffentlicht wurde, ergab, dass schwangere Frauen mit Covid, die symptomatisch waren, signifikant häufiger ins Krankenhaus eingeliefert wurden oder starben als nicht schwangere Frauen, die ebenfalls Covid-Symptome hatten.

Die Beweise veranlassten Beamte der Behörde, eine Schwangerschaft in die Liste der Erkrankungen aufzunehmen, die das Risiko schwerer Krankheiten und des Todes durch Covid erhöhen.

Die CDC hat eine Smartphone-Anwendung namens v-safe eingerichtet, um Berichte über Nebenwirkungen von immunisierten Personen zu erhalten. Bislang haben sich rund 15.000 schwangere Frauen in das Register eingetragen, berichtete das Impfkomitee der Agentur am Mittwoch.

“Ich denke, das ist unsere beste Chance, schnell Sicherheitsdaten zu erhalten”, sagte Dr. Jamieson.

Großbritannien empfahl zunächst dringend, Covid-Impfstoffe für schwangere Frauen zu verwenden, hat jedoch seitdem seine Leitlinien überarbeitet, um die Impfung schwangerer Frauen zuzulassen, die an vorderster Front arbeiten oder anderweitig einem hohen Risiko ausgesetzt sind. “Ich hoffe, die WHO wird es auch noch einmal überdenken”, sagte Dr. Jamieson.

Einige Experten sagten, die Empfehlungen seien nicht so unterschiedlich, wie sie auf den ersten Blick erscheinen könnten. “Die CDC ist eher geneigt zu sagen, dass schwangere Frauen Zugang zum Impfstoff haben sollten, aber ihre Umstände mit ihren Anbietern besprechen sollten”, sagte Dr. Ana Langer, eine Expertin für reproduktive Gesundheit, die die Frauen- und Gesundheitsinitiative an der TH Chan School in Harvard leitet der öffentlichen Gesundheit. „Die vorläufige Empfehlung der WHO besagt, dass Frauen, bei denen ein besonders hohes Risiko besteht, exponiert zu werden oder Covid zu bekommen, den Impfstoff erhalten sollten. Wo ist hier der große Unterschied? “

Denise Grady trug zur Berichterstattung bei.

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Entertainment

Salt-N-Pepa, Hip-Hop Duo That Spoke Up for Girls, Inform Their Personal Story

While selling washing machine warranties from a Sears call center in Queens, friends Cheryl James and Sandra Denton came together as a hip-hop duo called Super Nature with the 1985 staccato track “The Show Stoppa (Is Stupid Fresh)”. When they first heard it on the radio, they were dancing together on a car. It was just the beginning: James became Salt and Denton became Pepa; The group changed their name and scored 10 hits on the Hot 100, including the 80s dance classic “Push It” and the 90s sex anthem “Shoop,” which became one of the few female superstar acts in male-dominated hip -Hop-Golden became epoch.

The two, who have played on the I Love the 90s tour in recent years, tell their story in a new Lifetime biopic, “Salt-N-Pepa,” which was released on Saturday and both the onslaught of world tours and Capturing the conflicts that have erupted, the group’s longtime DJ Spinderella is also a character in the film, but the biopic doesn’t cover their unsuccessful lawsuit against the duo, filed in 2019. The film – which they co-produced with Executive Queen Latifah and others – begins and ends on a note of unity, showing their reunion in 2005 for a VH1 event.

“It was something I and Pep bought,” Salt said. “Pep called and said, ‘Girl, we have to do our film before someone else does it.’” Latifah, an old friend, attended meetings where they met the director (Mario Van Peebles) and the screenwriter (Abdul Williams from “The Bobby” chose Brown Story ”).

The duo-style partnership “Laverne & Shirley” – Salt calm and precise, Pepa relaxed and exuberant – continues despite a dispute with the man who helped them, their start, abuse, divorce and simple old conflicts between Salt and to reach Pepa. “We can tell a 36-year life in two and a half hours,” Pepa said in a group Zoom interview. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

For a film about the journey of two women, your producer and manager Hurby Azor, known as “Luv Bug”, plays a major role as a decisive creative force, especially at the beginning. How much did you come to terms with the decision to emphasize his character?

SALT Well the truth is the truth. And Hurby was our type. He started to be my friend. Being an artist was something that he embodied and transferred to us. My mother took me to all the Broadway plays, and I took singing and dancing lessons, and I did productions for my aunts at home with my cousins. But I didn’t know how to sing. I didn’t play an instrument. When hip hop came along, it was an opportunity to do something that got me excited – and that was through Hurby.

In an early scene, we see Hurby (played by Cleveland Berto) boring Pepa (played by Laila Odom) to rap without her Jamaican accent, and Salt (played by GG Townson) trapped in the middle. How frustrating were those early days?

PEPA For me, hip-hop was a way of life – we had those parking jams where the turntables draw power from the light poles. When Hurby felt that I was who Pepa was going to be, I was thrown into the studio. Hurby had his vision. He wanted it to be said, done – this way and no other way. In the beginning I had a difficult time jumping to the beat. I finally got it.

SALT Pep always says, “Hurby is our third,” and the chemistry between the three of us was explosive on so many levels. Pep and Hurby fought like cats and dogs. It was just an explosion of creativity, passion, drama that resonated in a sound, a music, a movement.

The part of you portrayed in the film that attracts opposites is based on reality?

PEPA One hundred percent.

SALT I am an introvert and a little lonely. What I love about the artist is the creative process. I love taking something out of nowhere and making it a reality, I love the audience reaction, but I don’t necessarily love everything that comes with it – the attention and the chatter. But Pep loves everything.

PEPA I’m an extra-extra extrovert.

SALT When we first met someone asked us what fascinated us about each other. What interested her in me is that she thought, “Who is this girl who doesn’t pay any attention to me?”

PEPA When we were in college I came into the dining room and was talking crazy and I saw Cheryl in the corner and noticed her. It was a chemistry. I was drawn to her.

How much did you both write for the script and did you work separately or together?

PEPA Separately.

SALT Many changes have been made. What I found frustrating – I’m just keeping it real – there were some limitations with making a movie that I wasn’t ready for.

PEPA Keep it real, salt!

SALT Legal restrictions that violate other people’s rights that people had to sign off, budget restrictions. What became important in the end was the story of two women in a male-dominated industry who were first friends, became business partners, who struggled with many difficulties to be heard, to be taken seriously – from the record company to our producer Hurby. We had problems in our relationships and kept picking the wrong men.

PEPA We can take her back to college when it all started and we’re making $ 200 a show.

SALT And split it up.

There was a long time after Salt-N-Pepa’s greatest hits and before Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, when the route for women in hip-hop was limited. How much did you pay attention to it?

SALT I remember this question was asked many times when there was a big empty room with no women. I have no idea why, other than this is a male dominated music and business genre and we had to get through a hurby. There was a time when you had to vouch for a camp – a men’s camp. That is starting to change with social media and all the ways people have to stand up there without belonging to a Jay-Z or whoever.

How many of the original “Push It” video eight-ball jackets, originally designed by your friend Christopher Martin (Play of Kid ‘n Play), do you each own?

PEPA The original was stolen during a performance backstage.

SALT I remember it was Brixton in London and someone broke in the back door of our dressing room. We came in and the door was open and the jackets were gone.

PEPA Everything else remained – the paperbacks, everything.

In the film, Salt says at the time of the breakup: “I have to work out a space that has nothing to do with you.”

SALT Absolutely. When I left I had to deal with many of my own problems, my own demons. It is healthy when you are in a group so that you can also preserve your individuality. We’d been doing this since we were 18, 19, and I didn’t get a chance to find out who I was but Salt-N-Pepa. After a while, I felt a lot of separation, a lot of resentment, a lot of anger from Pep, whom I didn’t understand. I felt like I was in a spiral trying to prove myself to her: “Girl, I have your back. Girl i’m here for you “Nothing I did or said could remedy what she was feeling. I feel like there was a lot of miscommunication.

PEPA [vigorously playing with her hair] The point is, you and I have never spoken to each other – you keep telling me how I feel and say and think. When did you and I talk?

SALT I feel upset with you. And your answer –

PEPA It feels like I never had to talk to her. It’s all her feeling with everything. I have to do with your friend being the manager! I also go through a whole situation. We were there together. When you feel all of this, I feel it too.

How uniform is Salt-N-Pepa these days?

SALT Relationships go through different phases. I know one thing: I love Sandy, and I know Sandy loves me. It is difficult to be friends and business partners, and anyone in this position can relate to it. Sometimes we’ll be married and sometimes we’ll raise the brand together and sometimes I’ll sleep on the couch.

PEPA However, communication is the key to all successful relationships.

Categories
Health

Seoul’s Recommendation to Pregnant Girls: Prepare dinner, Clear and Keep Enticing

According to a 2017 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the gender pay gap in South Korea is the highest of its 37 member countries. Working women earn nearly 40 percent less than men, and many stop working when they have children, which is often pressured by their families and jobs.

Other countries in the region, including Japan, which also has an aging population and low birth rate, have large gender gaps, especially when it comes to pregnancy. In Japan, the term “matahara” (short for harassment by motherhood) caught on when a woman’s allegations of workplace bullying after she was born were brought before the country’s Supreme Court in 2014.

These declining populations pose a threat to countries’ economies. It is therefore all the more important that governments act cautiously to encourage women to have children.

Last year, South Korea’s population declined by nearly 21,000 for the first time in its history. Births fell by more than 10.5 percent and deaths by 3 percent. The Department of Home Affairs and Security acknowledged the alarming impact and said that “with the birth rate falling rapidly, the government needs to make fundamental changes to its policies”.

Although the Seoul government may have fiddled with advice, the backlash, as some have said, has proven that attitudes have changed.

“This is just outdated advice,” said Adele Vitale, a birth doula and Italian expatriate who has lived in Busan, a port city on the country’s southeast coast, for a decade.

Ms. Vitale, who works primarily with foreign women married to Korean men, said that while Korean society has traditionally viewed pregnant women as “incapacitated,” their husbands have increasingly held egalitarian views on childbirth and child-rearing.

“The family dynamic has evolved,” she said. “Women are no longer willing to be treated like that.”

Categories
Entertainment

Suzi Analogue Desires Black Girls in Experimental Music to By no means Compromise

The 2020 Black Lives Matter protests put renewed pressure on the music industry to question its long-troubled relationship with race. It’s a business that has relied on black talent on stage without investing in black executives behind the scenes. a space where black artists were nudged into specific genres and ways of creation; A place where women and LGBT people were marginalized even further.

None of this was new to Suzi Analogue. 33-year-old Miami-based producer and label owner Maya Shipman has spent most of her career going her own way – offering alternatives to others who want to avoid being boxed.

Analogue chatted from her multimedia studio, filled with widescreen monitors, cassette decks, and keyboards, at the Faena Forum, where she works as an artist-in-residence. It didn’t take long for Analogue to formulate the core of their mission: “Access to capital is a must for black music in the future, especially for creative and cultural organizers who happen to be women who happen to be queer,” she said in the first of two long video interviews. (It just happens to be both.) In this vast, sunlit space, Analogue creates electronic dance music that centers high-speed drums and obscure audio samples – an idiosyncratic sound that is both current and trend-setting.

“When I hear their music, it’s the first time I feel in Tokyo,” said producer Ringgo Ancheta, a well known figure in the underground beat scene known as Mndsgn. “It has the same glamor as raw glamor. It’s like Sun Ra was a woman who dropped a lot of acid and went to raves. “

Because it makes distinctive music in spaces historically reserved for white men, Analogue still flies below the mainstream radar despite a stacked résumé – a decades-long list of critically acclaimed mixtapes and collaborative albums. Not only does she release her own hard-to-describe work with Never Normal Records, the imprint she created in 2013, but it also provides a platform for other like-minded artists to do the same.

In the mainstream industry, “there isn’t much room to find your own creative direction,” said Analogue. “People will say, ‘Oh, we don’t know how to market this.’ This is a collective term for discrimination and racism in the music business. “

Analog interest in music began early and arose in several regions on the east coast. Her family moved from Baltimore to Quincy, Massachusetts as a toddler, and after their parents separated, she and her mother moved to Prince George, Virginia, 30 minutes south of Richmond. Your father is from the Bronx; She visited him there in the summer months and was exposed to the hip hop culture first hand. “When I was growing up, listening to music from everywhere was nothing,” she said.

In elementary school, she made friends with the military children who had moved to Prince George from countries like Japan or Germany, and they introduced her to their local music. As a second grader, she and several other girls shared a love of R&B trio TLC and “started a small music group and sang at our class meeting at the end of the year,” said Analogue. “I think we sang Boyz II Men. But it was me, I put it together. “

As a child she knew that she didn’t just want to be a singer or a producer: “I think I always felt like I was doing more, like, ‘I don’t just want to sing someone’s song, I will sing my own song. “During the day she sang R&B and opera; At night she listened to local rap on the FM radio.

Analog was a teenager when two other Virginia residents, Missy Elliott and Timbaland, started making waves. Other early influences were locals like Teddy Riley (who moved from Harlem to Virginia Beach) and Pharrell Williams; They all did advanced R&B and flourished commercially, despite living outside of the big cities known as funnels to the industry.

After high school, Analogue went to Temple University in Philadelphia; Lured by the community there, which had grown out of the website and message board Okayplayer, she wanted to connect with like-minded creators outside of the south. She started making beats after friends gave her music production software and later adopted a stage name that is a nod to RZA’s alter ego, Bobby Digital.

“They knew I made songs mostly for school and church,” said Analogue. “I would just do what I could with the download. I remember downloading speeches like Malcolm X speeches from Napster. And I would try to get a little jazz sample to do it. “

That was her first foray into the patchwork production style she is known for today. Analogue created a Myspace account and started sharing their music online, which caught the attention of Glenn Boothe (known as Knxwledge), then a Philly upstart who had become one of the most popular beatmakers in underground music. The two became quick friends. “We were just trying to find our own waves,” said Analog. “I secretly got my own apartment because as an only child I couldn’t make the dormitory. It was good because I could have the crib that people could get through and train in. “

Ancheta lived in southern New Jersey; He traveled to Philadelphia to make music with Knxwledge and Analogue in a collective called Klipmode after talking to her online. “Suzi’s music had these crazy chord progressions,” said Ancheta. “Everything had this strange mixture of organic textures; there was something going on and not there. “

Analogs Sound has always had a global flair and appealed to listeners overseas – its fancy time signatures and stacked drums are well suited for dance floors in West or East Africa – and in her early twenties she published works on international labels. But she never connected with industry at home.

“I never tried to get a big US deal when I started releasing tracks for many reasons, but a big one was that the music I was making was more valued outside of the country it was from “said Analogue. “Some were sniffing around, but I couldn’t mean it, waiting for them to get it.”

She started Never Normal Records out of necessity: “I would say that many of my musical male colleagues before me have received help with the release of music. When I saw that, I just kept building what I was working on. “As a result, their label is a safe place for musicians to defy industry ideas of what their work should be. Acts like multidisciplinary artist Khx05 and EDM producer No Eyes have a free hand to be themselves.

“It could be jungle, gabber, ghetto house, trap, anything. It’s all black music, black heritage, black culture and black traditions, ”said Analog. Despite these black roots in many types of dance music, Analogue said it had been discriminated against in the genre. “Electronic music is heavily whitewashed,” she said. “Anyone who doesn’t know is treated like an anomaly.”

The distortions go beyond colored lines. “We all go through this as women,” said experimental producer Jennifer Hernandez, who records as JWords and released her EP “Sín Sénal” on Analogues’ label last year. “In the beginning I was on these bills and all of these guys were a little uncomfortable,” she said.

While their label has upgraded their profile, Analogue knows their job is far from over. This year she is starting a project that brings producers from the African diaspora together with beatmakers in Africa to create new tracks. She also plans to release new music and visual art from other unconventional black creators while teaching music education workshops in Ghana as a cultural diplomat for the U.S. Department of State.

“Music was always about people,” she said. “It has always been an instrument of connection.” As a black woman, Analog added, she knows exactly what it feels like to “feel like there is no place for me. I want to show other artists that there will always be a place for you. “

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Health

Kim Chernin, Who Wrote About Ladies, Weight and Id, Dies at 80

Kim Chernin, a feminist writer and counselor who wrote compassionately about female body dysmorphism and its cultural causes, and about her own upbringing as the daughter of a fiery communist organizer incarcerated for her belief, died on December 17 in a Marin County hospital , California. She was 80 years old.

Your wife, Renate Stendahl, said the cause was Covid-19.

Ms. Chernin’s mother was Rose Chernin, a labor organizer and Communist Party leader who was convicted with others during the McCarthy era for attempting to overthrow the government (the government would also try twice to deport her to her native Russia) . In a landmark case in 1957, the Supreme Court overturned the convictions and ruled that it was not a crime to merely encourage people to believe a certain doctrine.

It was a seismic moment for the country and for Rose’s daughter, who struggled to define herself in relation to her mother – the “Red Leader,” as the newspapers liked to call Rose – and instilled a lifelong dislike for the younger Mrs. Chernin Advertising.

In 1980, Ms. Chernin was an unpublished poet when Ticknor & Fields purchased her book The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness. The seven-year manuscript was rejected by 13 publishers.

Anorexia and bulimia were little discussed diseases at the time; However, there was an emerging crisis among young women on the college campus, and when Ms. Chernin’s book appeared she became a sought-after speaker on television and on the college campus. The book, which had a limited edition, sold out quickly.

“Obsession” was the first of a trilogy about women’s appetite and identity. In it, Ms. Chernin wrote about her own obsession with weight and her attempts to equate food with care. She used a variety of lenses – cultural, feminist, anthropological, spiritual, and metaphorical – to discover why so many women felt alienated from their bodies.

“Many of the emotions in life – from loneliness to anger, from love for life to falling in love – can be experienced as appetites,” she wrote. “And some would explain the obsession with weight in these simple, familiar terms. But there are deeper levels of understanding to guide. That night, for example, when I was standing in front of the refrigerator, I realized that my hunger was for bigger things, for identity, for creativity, for power and for a meaningful place in society. The hunger that most women experience, which leads them to eat more than they need, is satisfied through self-development and expression. “

She argued that the physical ideal for an American woman was a man’s body – lean and wiry, not soft and round – and if so, she asked what did that say about society?

Updated

Jan. 3, 2021, 5:36 p.m. ET

“There is a poetic truth at the heart of ‘The Obsession’,” wrote Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in his 1981 New York Times review of the book. “Eloquently written, passionate in its rhetoric and consistently receptive, it becomes a seemingly trivial subject from the inside out to uncover unconfirmed attitudes and prejudices. We Americans are probably far too worried about fat and its appearance. Perhaps Miss Chernin is right, when she argues that the problem is not the superficiality of our perceptions, but the depth of our feelings. “

Elaine Kusnitz, known as Kim, was born in the Bronx on May 7, 1940. Her father, Paul Kusnitz, was a civil engineer trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her mother, Rose Chernin Kusnitz, using her maiden name, had graduated from high school early and worked in a factory to support her parents and sisters.

Both of Kim’s parents were Russian-born Jews and committed Marxists. Before Kim was born, they returned to Russia for some time, where Mr. Kusnitz was working on plans for the Moscow subway.

When Kim was 4 years old, her older sister and carer Nina died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Rose moved the family to Los Angeles and began working as an organizer to advocate farm labor and housing rights for their black and Latin American neighbors.

Kim grew up attending Communist Party rallies, initially in her stroller. From a young age she read Marx, Lenin, and reports on the trial of the Scottsboro Boys, the nine black teenagers falsely accused of rape in Alabama. Kim fought bitterly with her mother, who she also adored.

At the Yiddish school, which was sponsored by a left-wing Jewish organization, which she visited briefly, Kim quacked like a duck when she was spoken to in that language. But when her mother was imprisoned for five months at the age of eleven, she was desolate. And when she wrote her memoir “In My Mother’s House” in 1983, in which she interwoven her own story with that of her mother, she recorded her mother’s unmistakable, Yiddish-influenced voice: “You want to fly? Grow wings. Don’t like things the way they are? To tell a story.”

Ms. Chernin studied English at the University of California at Berkeley, where she met David Netboy. The two were married, had a daughter, Larissa, who she survived, and soon divorced. Her marriage to Robert Cantor also ended in divorce. After that, she took her mother’s maiden name as her own, as did Larissa.

Ms. Chernin met Ms. Stendhal, a journalist and author, in a café in Paris. They married together since 1985 in 2014. They were, among other things, collaborators and editors of each other’s letter and co-authors of “Lesbian Marriage: A Love & Sex Forever Kit”.

After “Obsession,” Ms. Chernin published nearly 20 books, but her aversion to advertising and marketing increased with age, Ms. Stendhal said, and her latest writings were donated directly to her archive in the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University.

Ms. Chernin, who was in psychoanalysis for 25 years and began counseling women with eating disorders after the publication of “Obsession”, did her doctorate in spiritual psychology, as did Ms. Stendhal, in the mid-1990s, which combines the spiritual teachings of all creeds with conventional psychotherapy .

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Health

Dr. Fauci says Covid vaccine trials on pregnant ladies and younger children might start in January

Drug makers and U.S. regulators plan to start clinical trials in January testing the safety of Covid-19 vaccines in pregnant women and young children, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases.

These two groups were excluded from the initial clinical trials of Covid-19 vaccines until researchers were able to determine that the vaccine was relatively safe in healthy adults before testing in more susceptible populations.

Fauci noted on Thursday in a discussion sponsored by Columbia University on Thursday that pregnant women have not been included in clinical trials of Covid vaccines. It is not clear whether the omission means that pregnant women cannot receive an approved vaccine until further safety data are collected.

Studies on pregnant women will be done in later studies, he said.

“It won’t necessarily concern efficacy, but we will be investigating safety and immunogenicity to bridge efficacy in the adult non-pregnant population,” he said at Columbia University’s Grand Rounds 2020 event. “The same goes for the pediatric population. These studies are expected to begin in mid-to-late January.”

Doctors have noted an increased risk of complications in pregnant women who contract Covid-19, said Aron Hall, chief of Covid at the CDC.

“The first indication is that there may be a higher risk of premature delivery,” he said Thursday on the FDA’s Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biological Products.

While young children are less likely to die of Covid-19 when they get it, there is an increased risk of developing what is known as multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, researchers have found. It is an inflammatory disease that can affect several organ systems throughout the body, including the heart, lungs, and brain.

Fauci’s comments came as the FDA’s Vaccine Advisory Board is weighing whether to recommend Pfizer’s emergency approval of the Covid vaccine.

Data on Pfizer’s vaccine has shown it to be remarkably effective in preventing disease among study participants, and the FDA is expected to approve emergency use as early as Friday.

The UK drug and health products regulator, which last week approved Pfizer’s vaccine for wide use in adults, warned against giving it to pregnant or breastfeeding women.

Dr. Doran Fink, associate director of the FDA’s vaccines and related products division, said Thursday there was “very limited data on use in pregnancy”.

“We recognize that among the groups first prioritized for vaccine use under an EEA, there will be many women of childbearing potential, including women who are knowingly or unknowingly pregnant,” he said on the Meet on Thursday afternoon. “We really do not have any data that suggest any specific risks to pregnant women or the fetus, but neither do we have any data that would justify a contraindication to use in pregnancy at this time.”

He added that pregnant women and women of childbearing age are “free to make their own choice” under what is known as an emergency permit.

The FDA advised manufacturers, including Pfizer, to conduct DART studies or developmental and reproductive toxicity studies before including pregnant women and “women of childbearing potential who do not actively avoid pregnancy” in vaccine studies, Pfizer said – Speaker Jerica Pitts CNBC. DART studies are done in animals to assess the potential risks of a vaccine to a developing fetus.

“Pfizer recognizes that the development of a potential SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for wide use is critical to halting the pandemic, including potential use in pregnant women,” Pitts said in a statement. “Pfizer is currently conducting DART studies and plans to provide available data to the agency.”

Pfizer admitted at the FDA’s vaccine meeting Thursday that according to a presentation there was no information about the effects of the vaccine on pregnant women. Company officials told the advisory board that they expected preliminary results from its DART studies by mid-December.

The company also noted that there is also a lack of information on the effects of the vaccine in children and adolescents under the age of 16. The FDA advisory panel will vote on its non-binding recommendation later Thursday, and the FDA is expected to do so soon.

– CNBC’s Amanda Macias contributed to this report.

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World News

Girls are very important to attaining world ‘monetary inclusion’

Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, during the discussion “Innovation Potential in Africa, in Berlin, Germany.

Image Alliance | Getty Images

Women are vital to making sure finance – and financial education – gets to other parts of society, said billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates.

Governments and corporations serious about giving all members of society access to financial services should focus their resources on women, the Microsoft co-founder said at the Singapore FinTech Festival on Tuesday.

“It’s absolutely critical,” notes Gates, noting that women are usually responsible for family support finances.

“The benefits of getting the money under their control mean that it is more likely to be used for nutrition and education and for things that lift this family out of poverty,” he said at this year’s virtual conference.

Global improvement in inclusivity

Financial inclusivity, which refers to giving more people access to financial services, remains a key challenge for communities around the world.

Only 35% of people in low-income countries have access to a bank account. According to the World Economic Forum, this is 58% to 73% in higher to lower middle income countries and 94% in high income countries. These values ​​are lower in women.

It is important to remember how far we are from universal financial inclusion.

Bill Gates

Founder, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The pandemic has only made this shortage apparent as governments struggled to provide financial aid to those most in need while in lockdown across the country.

“You know, it’s important to remember how far we are from universal financial inclusion,” said Gates.

Invest in digital solutions

Through his nonprofit, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates has worked with governments and central banks for several years to improve financial inclusion in developing countries.

In particular, this included the introduction of digital solutions, which Gates says can help such countries catch up with or possibly overtake advanced countries with existing legacy systems.

“We spend a lot of our time with central bankers making sure they see what the pioneers did,” said Gates.

There is almost an easy way they can connect their citizens.

Bill Gates

Founder, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

To that end, the foundation is funding digital identity solutions such as MOSIP in India, an openly accessible software that allows governments to create digital identities for their citizens to help distribute resources. According to Gates, the acceptance of such technologies has so far been high in countries from Nigeria and Ethiopia to Indonesia.

“We believe that most central banks will say in the next five years that they can do this because most of the building blocks are accessible and it is almost easy to connect their citizens,” he said.

Gates said his foundation aims to fund two-thirds of the world’s population within a decade.