A Texas health regulator sought to distance itself from a controversial study that concluded that cuts to Planned Parenthood are hurting women’s health in the state.
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission found the study, published earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine, “strongly misleading” and sought to have its name removed from it.
The decision comes as Planned Parenthood is under scrutiny by Congress and several states due to a series of undercover videos detailing the harvesting and donation of aborted fetal body parts. Several states have cut Medicaid funding to the women’s nonprofit because of the videos, including Ohio, whose governor, Republican presidential candidate John Kasich, signed a law last month to strip the group of $1 million in funds.
In 2013, Texas excluded Planned Parenthood affiliates from a state-funded Medicaid program that helps pay for health screenings, birth control and other health needs for low-income women.
The study looked at the number of Medicaid claims for contraception from 2011 through 2014 to determine any changes.
Researchers, including one from the commission, found a 35-percent reduction in the number of claims for contraceptives from 2011 to 2014. There was a 31-percent reduction in claims for long-acting injectable contraceptives, according to the study.
The study set off a furor in the state, with several Republican leaders criticizing it and asking why the Texas Health Commission’s director of research helped write it, according to a report in the Associated Press.
The director, Richard Allgeyer, resigned last month, the Associated Press reported.
Now in a Feb. 26 letter to a state senator opposing the study, the Texas health commissioner said the study didn’t give “an accurate picture of women’s health care in Texas,” the Houston Chronicle reported.
It focused only on Texas Women’s Health Program and not other programs in the state, the commissioner said. The letter adds that the commission didn’t know about the study or the authors’ involvement.
The commissioner asked the New England Journal of Medicine and the University of Texas to remove the commission’s name from the study.
