Jacobs in the News

Susan Wood explained that in order for the label of the emergency contraceptive Plan B to be updated, the manufacturer must request a label change from FDA. She told Sarah Varney a label update would be straightforward given existing human data about the drug’s mechanism of action.

Julia Strasser provided an invited perspective on a new study that surveyed people who were considering abortions in 2017 and 2018. She explained that the findings “suggests that there will be significant implications of greater travel distance to abortion providers — a problem that will substantially escalate as states ban or restrict abortion in the coming months and travel distances increase.”

Concerns are mounting about losses in the abortion care workforce now that the Supreme Court has removed the constitutional right to abortion. "What we don't know yet is to what extent providers will either drop out of the workforce altogether, or whether they will leave a state that is restrictive and go practice in another state that is less restrictive," Julia Strasser told Will Stone.

In a blog post for Health Affairs Forefront, reprinted by the California Health Care Foundation, Julia Strasser and colleagues describe the likely effect of abortion bans on pregnancy care. "When punitive restrictions discourage providers from doing procedures to treat pregnancy loss — on the chance that they will be perceived as abortion procedures — providers will begin to lose their skills in this area," they wrote.

Julia Strasser discussed with Lisa Gillespie the ways in which a reversal of Roe v. Wade would affect training future residency trainings. 

In response to leaked draft Supreme Court opinion that overturns the constitutional right to abortion, Susan Wood explained that we don’t expect to see the kinds of “back-alley” abortions that characterized the pre-Roe v. Wade era, because medication abortion now available.

Julia Strasser discussed with Elizabeth Millard the small, and likely decreasing, supply of US abortion providers. 

Julia Strasser talked with Maria Marabito about findings from a study she and her colleagues published in JAMA Internal Medicine. They used medical claims to identify primary care providers who provided management of pregnancy loss and, based on that experience, could begin offering medication abortion and help address the insufficient supply of abortion providers.

In an op-ed for The Hill, Susan F. Wood explains that anti-abortion groups are targeting FDA commissioner nominee Dr. Robert Califf over the abortion drug mifepristone. "At this pivotal moment for the FDA, and amidst an ongoing public health emergency that already curtails access to health care, the vote for the next FDA commissioner must be based on their ability to uphold scientific decision-making," she writes.