Sophie Novack
By Sophie Novack:
Four Texas Abortion Court Cases to Watch in 2019
Meet Jim Allison, Texas’ Newest Nobel Laureate (and Three-Time Cancer Survivor)
The Houston immunologist talks about growing up in small-town Texas, creationism in public schools and what it means to talk about a cure.
Just a few years ago, Jim Allison was considered something of a “snake oil salesman” by other cancer researchers. The ruddy-faced, scraggly-haired scientist from Alice is used to forging his own path. He fought his high school teachers who refused … Read More
Texas’ Uninsured Rate for Kids, Highest in the Country, Increased for the First Time in Years
More than 20 percent of all uninsured kids in the country live in Texas, according to a new report.
Even as Republicans boast of a strong economy and low unemployment, the United States has taken unprecedented steps backward in health insurance coverage for kids — and once again, Texas is among the worst offenders. For the first time in … Read More
Meet the Scientist and Autism Dad Who’s Fighting the Anti-Vaccine Movement
Peter Hotez predicts deadly measles outbreaks in Texas if the growing trend of nonmedical vaccine exemptions continues.
Peter Hotez didn’t expect the anti-vaccine movement to get so personal. Now dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Hotez has dedicated his career to developing vaccines for neglected tropical diseases. He … Read More
Trump’s Sabotage of ACA Enrollment Is Particularly Dangerous in Texas
The attacks on enrollment outreach come as Texas’ uninsured rate increased last year to more than 17 percent — the highest since 2014.
Illustration/Sunny Sone On a dreary day in late September, Ana Maria Garza Cortez stood in front of a hotel conference room full of worn-out community health workers in San Antonio, trying to get them revved up about Obamacare. Open enrollment … Read More
In the Rio Grande Valley, New Citizens Turn Out to Vote for the First Time
A nonprofit in Brownsville is seeing more immigrants signing up for citizenship classes this year, and more exercising their new right to vote.
Fifty-one-year old Sandra Cantu had never voted before today. Originally from Matamoros, Mexico, Cantu has lived for the last 30 years in Brownsville, just over a mile from the border. She finally became a citizen and registered to vote this … Read More
We Support Pre-Existing Condition Protections, Say Republicans Who’ve Repeatedly Tried to Eliminate Them
A Texas lawsuit has put the ACA’s popular pre-existing conditions provision front and center ahead of midterms, to the chagrin of Republicans who have vehemently opposed the law for years.
“Everyone agrees we’re going to protect pre-existing conditions,” Senator Ted Cruz said in a debate this month. Yes, the same Ted Cruz who forced a federal government shutdown in 2013 to try to defund the Affordable Care Act, including pre-existing … Read More
Meet Mikael Love, the OB-GYN Who Doesn’t Prescribe Birth Control
Love, who has delivered babies in the capital city for more than two decades, has a long track record of anti-abortion politics.
This summer, during a federal trial over Texas’ fetal burial law, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights set out to demonstrate the anti-abortion bias of the state’s final witness: an Austin OB-GYN named Mikeal Love. It wasn’t difficult. … Read More
Texas’ Indicted Attorney General is Barely Bothering to Campaign
This year, Ken Paxton is again running in absentia: avoiding the press, making few public appearances and refusing to debate Democratic challenger Justin Nelson.
It’s the Ken Paxton Vanishing Act, where you insert yourself in matters deeply consequential to Texans, only to then disappear — declining to comment or even show your face in public. In 2014, Paxton won a bitter GOP primary for … Read More
The Anti-Vaccine Lobby’s Revenge Candidate is Running in North Dallas
Democrats are hoping to flip a state House seat in North Dallas where even some Republicans think GOP primary voters swung too far right in their candidate choice. Lisa Luby Ryan, an interior designer, beat three-term state Representative Jason Villalba … Read More