Texas health official out after study on Planned Parenthood

AUSTIN, Texas – A top Texas health official is stepping down after co-authoring a study that drew backlash from Republican leaders for suggesting cuts to Planned Parenthood are restricting access to women’s health care statewide.

Rick Allgeyer is leaving his post as director of research at the 55,000-employee Texas Health and Human Services Commission effective March 31, agency spokesman Bryan Black said Thursday.

Allgeyer, who has worked in Texas government for more than 20 years, was one of five co-authors of a study published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine.

It found fewer women in Texas have obtained long-acting birth control after the Legislature barred the nation’s largest abortion provider from a state women’s health program in 2013. Births paid for under Medicaid also increased among some women.

Black said Allgeyer broke policy by working on the study on taxpayer time.

“He should have never been putting in time on this study during the normal business day, he was paid to perform state business,” Black said in an email.

A second co-author, Imelda Flores-Vazquez, also works for Texas’ state health agency, but Black didn’t address her status.

State Sen. Jane Nelson earlier dismissed the findings as invalid, in part because the study was funded by the Susan T. Buffett Foundation, a backer of Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood said the study showed the impact of “politically motivated” decisions.