Sarah Fentem
ReporterSarah Fentem reports on sickness and health as part of St. Louis Public Radio’s news team. She previously spent five years reporting for different NPR stations in Indiana, immersing herself deep, deep into an insurance policy beat from which she may never fully recover. A longitme NPR listener, she grew up hearing WQUB in Quincy, Illinois, which is now owned by STLPR. She lives in the Kingshighway Hills neighborhood, and in her spare time likes to watch old sitcoms, meticulously clean and organize her home and go on outdoor adventures with her fiancé Elliot. She has a cat, Lil Rock, and a dog, Ginger.
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Andrew Bailey's lawsuit, filed in Cole County Circuit Court, claims that Planned Parenthood is downplaying the safety issues of mifepristone. Planned Parenthood responded that Bailey has repeatedly "spread lies and disinformation to push his own anti-abortion agenda." -
Planned Parenthood Great Rivers opened its books for patients to make abortion appointments starting next week. It's the latest in a saga over abortion access after Missouri voters passed Amendment 3 last November. -
Both Missouri and Kansas have banned hormone therapy and other gender-affirming care for transgender youth under age 18. A conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar law on Wednesday, which local advocates say is "devastating." -
Republican lawmakers put a measure on the 2026 ballot that would not just cement an abortion ban in the Missouri Constitution, but would also prevent transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming health care. -
Newly elected Pope Leo XIV lived in St. Louis, Missouri, in the 1970s while studying to become a priest. He was in a parish near what is today the medical campus of St. Louis University -
Dozens of people in the St. Louis region became sick after eating at catered events late last year. Lawsuits seek to tie the poisoning to a national vegetable company. -
Two dozen states, but not Missouri, have filed suit to block the federal cuts to immunization and other public health programs. -
Planned Parenthood has asked a judge to overturn the Missouri health department’s newly published emergency rule governing complication plans for medication abortions. The organization also sued Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey over his cease and desist order. -
Planned Parenthood announced Friday that staff had begun offering surgical abortions in St. Louis, but the Missouri health department had rejected a plan that would allow doctors to dispense abortion medications — even though it was similar to what was approved before. -
The researchers at Washington University in St. Louis say the device could keep farmers from having to cull their flocks when they detect the contagious virus, which has affected more than 5 million birds in Missouri since 2022.
