TN: Shelby Co. finally awards Title X money to private agency....not PP ...last of the TN counties....

Did Shelby County and Yvonne Madlock just blink??? Commercial Appeal writes 

[Shelby] County government leaders have decided not to contract with the local Planned Parenthood organization to provide family planning services for low-income people. Instead, Christ Community Health Services has been chosen for the $397,900 contract, Shelby County Health Department director Yvonne Madlock confirmed Tuesday.

The contract must still be approved by the County Commission. Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell hopes to have it before that board by the end of September.

This is the Title X monies from the federal govt. for family planning services. You may recall that previous to this announcement, Shelby County was the only hold out with Madlock  stating she did not have the capacity to provide these services and would outsource it  not ruling out PP who routinely got this $$ in the past.. She acknowledged the controversy generated around this but the mayor insists that the decision was not politics. 

PP does not have immediate comment.  Their Facebook is mum on this as well and they are concentrating on repairing their brand and having friendlies express their indignation via comments insinuating that Memphis will not be served with this new arrangement. However as one commenter states:

A Moment of Truth writes
CCHS has 7 clinics in Memphis all in underserved parts of Memphis. This will make these much needed services much more accessible to the residents that desperately need them. This decision is a win/win for our city and its residents.

They are also focusing on the $75 K they got funneled to them Shelby County Health Dept. to do STD  testing . Shelby county was awarded the grant by  CDC because it  ranked fifteenth of all counties in the U.S. for symptomatic syphilis. Shelby County has the highest number of newly-diagnosed syphilis cases in Tennessee, and the infection rate for all stages of syphilis is five times higher in Shelby County than in the U.S. overall. Of course, PP mocks abstinence education but their past efforts at sex ed and  family planning certainly cannot be declared successful with the STD and teen pregnancy rate garnering national attention.

PP free for TN...sounds like a good slogan for us.

Influential F.D.A. commissioner dies..first to express concern about safety of bc pills

New York Times run a piece on Dr. Charles C. Edwards. He was the first to express concerns about whether the products actually worked and was concerned about their safety. Does the benefits outweigh the risks? Notice how Planned Parenthood objected to even warnings??

New legislation required the F.D.A. to determine for the first time not only if drugs were safe, but also if they actually worked. Dr. Edwards, who had been appointed commissioner by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969, ordered the review of hundreds of thousands of prescription and over-the-counter drugs. A particularly visible action concerned birth control pills, which were revolutionizing sexual behavior but seemed to be causing worrisome side effects.

He ordered that a message be inserted in each package discussing the pills’ benefits and hazards, including the possibility of blood clots and breast cancer. It was the boldest step yet taken under a 1966 law requiring accurate labeling.

Planned Parenthood objected to the warnings because it believed that the pills’ benefits far outweighed what it said were unproved dangers. At the same time, doctors complained that the action encroached on their role of instructing and guiding patients. Later, Dr. Edwards ordered that two brands of birth control pills be removed from the market as unsafe.

Photo: AP taken in 1970
Dr. Edwards

CDC $$ to Memphis for project outsourced to Planned Parenthood

Centers for Disease Control selects Shelby County (Memphis)  to receive  a grant  for 75K to test for syphilis.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chose Shelby County as a funding site for the project because of the high rates of syphilis transmission in our community. In 2009, Shelby County ranked fifteenth of all counties in the U.S. for symptomatic syphilis. Shelby County has the highest number of newly-diagnosed syphilis cases in Tennessee, and the infection rate for all stages of syphilis is five times higher in Shelby County than in the U.S. overall.

So what does the Shelby County Health Dept. do...they outsource it to Planned Parenthood. 

You may remember that Yvonne Madlock, the Director of Shelby County Health Dept. was the only one out of 95 counties in TN that would not take on the responsibility of family planning services with the Title X money from the govt.  Madock wrote her "conditions"  to TN Health Commissioner Susan Cooper in a letter stating she would accept  the $1.345MM on a month to month basis and will not rule out subbing it out to Planned Parenthood.  Planned Parenthood was to be defunded. That was the intent of the legislature. Some stealth  tactics or antics were used to circumvent what the legislators clearly thought they voted on.


Shelby County  continues to "friend" Planned Parenthood to the tune of 75K instead of doing the work. Madlock disses the Commissioner of Health, the state legislature and continues to  pick and chooses her assignments. 

Now she has the audacity to award a grant from CDC to Planned Parenthood/Memphis because of their "stellar record."

And let us not forget  how  Memphis PP distinguished  themselves....

First they say they won't and now they say they will...release abortion stats

Daily Caller writes that the CDC, in a departure of a 40 yr. history did not  publish  the Abortion Surveillance Report. When questioned they and DC publicly wondered if the administration was intentionally "hiding the ball" the CDC reversed itself with a convoluted excuse of needing to make sure the stats were correctly interpreted and said that the next monthly report would have the data pending the no publishing issues.