Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to okay F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording from the Brooklyn Bunker, Folks,
Speaker 1: I want to start off today with talking about once
Speaker 1: again the importance of mental health and recognizing how the
Speaker 1: past several weeks several years have been weighing on all
Speaker 1: of us and what it is that we are doing
Speaker 1: or not doing to show up fully in our skin.
Speaker 1: And what I will say is that the past several
Speaker 1: weeks have been incredibly difficult for me. If you've been
Speaker 1: listening to the show for a considerable amount of time,
Speaker 1: you know that I will go through I don't know,
Speaker 1: waves of emotion, mostly surrounded by rage, but a lot
Speaker 1: of times what will follow the bouts of rage is exhaustion.
Speaker 1: And what I find myself exhausted, I find myself falling
Speaker 1: outside of routines that I put in place in order
Speaker 1: to really ground myself. What I'm realizing, however, is how
Speaker 1: easy it is right as many of us who anybody
Speaker 1: who's ever tried to diet, anybody who's ever tried to
Speaker 1: break bad habits or start new ones, is that when
Speaker 1: things become overwhelming, it is really easy to fall back
Speaker 1: into old patterns, and I am trying to disrupt my
Speaker 1: old patterns that have had me once again, put on
Speaker 1: weight once again, start not sleeping well, using really bad
Speaker 1: habits as a way to deal with the stress of
Speaker 1: this current moment, and how to navigate all of that,
Speaker 1: all of those things. And you know, the first thing
Speaker 1: that I will say is that if you find yourself
Speaker 1: like me in these moments of great overwhelm where you are,
Speaker 1: you know, habits that you thought that you broke are
Speaker 1: presenting themselves again, because we are creatures of habit. The
Speaker 1: first thing to do is to give yourself grace, which
Speaker 1: is what I have decided to do. My first step
Speaker 1: is to give myself grace. I am not beating myself
Speaker 1: up anymore because frankly, you know, the world beats people
Speaker 1: that look like me, love like me, exist like me
Speaker 1: up enough on a daily basis. I do not need
Speaker 1: to add to those feelings. So I start off by
Speaker 1: giving myself grace. The next thing is to recognize how
Speaker 1: am I feeling these days. I had the executive producer
Speaker 1: over Woke f and over DCP shows reached out to
Speaker 1: me and said, how are you feeling like? Honestly, like
Speaker 1: when nothing else, just like, how are you feeling? How
Speaker 1: are you doing? And what I will say is that
Speaker 1: I haven't been feeling great. I have moments of great
Speaker 1: times and joy and all of these things, but they
Speaker 1: are moments, and I find that they are fleeting. So
Speaker 1: I started to think about, well, what were the things
Speaker 1: that I was doing that I had committed to do
Speaker 1: over the last two years, new habits that I had
Speaker 1: developed because, frankly, the world shutting down provided the time
Speaker 1: to be able to do that. But now that things
Speaker 1: have opened back up, and it seems that our country
Speaker 1: has becoming increasingly by the day, more and more unstable,
Speaker 1: I'm finding myself ending each day with a cocktail, ending
Speaker 1: each day recognizing that I had sat in front of
Speaker 1: the television or on Twitter, in front of my computer
Speaker 1: for hours, hunched over, no longer going from my walks,
Speaker 1: no longer taking the breaks that I needed in order
Speaker 1: to prevent my own breakdown. I found myself working fifteen
Speaker 1: hour days again, never turning my phone off, waking up
Speaker 1: in the morning, and getting back on Twitter as soon
Speaker 1: as I opened my eyes. All of these things were
Speaker 1: habits that I had become really conscious of and very
Speaker 1: intentional about breaking and then over the past you know,
Speaker 1: six months, I would say six seven, six months plus,
Speaker 1: all of those habits have started to creep back in.
Speaker 1: And what has happened as a result of it. I
Speaker 1: find myself incredibly exhausted, on edge. My anxiety has been
Speaker 1: through the roof, not sleeping as well, and eating poorly
Speaker 1: and drinking too much. All of those are a result
Speaker 1: of allowing the stress, the frustrations, the anger to begin
Speaker 1: to consume me from the inside out all over again.
Speaker 1: Why am I bringing this up to all of you
Speaker 1: and airing out my own personal business because I know
Speaker 1: that if I have allowed myself to fall behind in
Speaker 1: my self care, if I have not put myself back
Speaker 1: on my agenda, because I am so preoccupied with how
Speaker 1: the GOP GQP is beating down this country, with how
Speaker 1: black people are being hunted, with how queer people have
Speaker 1: no safe place to go where you know, every headline
Speaker 1: is about another fucking shooting, whether it's a mass shooting
Speaker 1: or an individual and then you know the abortion fight.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it doesn't stop. It is worse
Speaker 1: than drinking from a firehost. It is worse than feeling
Speaker 1: like you are drowning. It is all of those things combined.
Speaker 1: The reality is that it's not going to stop friends,
Speaker 1: It's actually just going to get worse. And I say
Speaker 1: that not as a way to just say well, fuck
Speaker 1: at all you know and give up, but that now,
Speaker 1: more than ever, as I say this to you all,
Speaker 1: I say it to myself out loud. The world is
Speaker 1: becoming increasingly unstable, which means that we need to figure
Speaker 1: out the positive and healthy ways to stabilize ourselves, to
Speaker 1: ground ourselves so that we can deal with this storm
Speaker 1: that this country has become. The more unstable things feel,
Speaker 1: the more that we need to double down, the more
Speaker 1: that we need to look at our calendars each and
Speaker 1: every day. What is the time that I have put
Speaker 1: aside for exercise. What is the time that I've put
Speaker 1: aside for meditation? What is the time that I've put
Speaker 1: aside to connecting with friends and family that is outside
Speaker 1: of work. What is the time that I'm putting aside
Speaker 1: to say that I'm done with electronics for the day,
Speaker 1: I'm done with the television for the day, I'm done
Speaker 1: with all of those things. What is my end time?
Speaker 1: Because you see, the thing is is that if we're
Speaker 1: not instituting our own end times. There will never be
Speaker 1: a shut off, right because, as I said to the
Speaker 1: executive producer of this show, is that nothing ever stops.
Speaker 1: It's not going to stop. And so if I don't
Speaker 1: pull myself out of Twitter, if I don't pull myself
Speaker 1: out of the cable news cycle, I'm always going to
Speaker 1: be anticipating that I'm going to miss something, and the
Speaker 1: reality is, yeah, I'm going to miss something because there's
Speaker 1: just so much. There's too much to cover, there's too
Speaker 1: much going on, and it doesn't ever stop. So I
Speaker 1: have to purposefully stop, to give my self permission to
Speaker 1: take pauses and to take breaks, to take calls out
Speaker 1: on walks when I can, to institute back in healthy eating,
Speaker 1: healthy regiments. Not because I'm trying to get somebody's quote
Speaker 1: unquote summer body, but because I don't want to lose
Speaker 1: myself at a time when these people are trying to
Speaker 1: make me afraid to exist in my own body and
Speaker 1: skin and community. Again, I can't let them win. And
Speaker 1: you see, whenever I'm not sleeping, whenever I'm eating shitty,
Speaker 1: whenever I'm drinking too much, I am letting them win.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that I need to remind myself
Speaker 1: so that I make my self care intentional, because caring
Speaker 1: for myself is really about caring for you all, caring
Speaker 1: for the community, caring for our country because I can't
Speaker 1: give it the energy that it needs when I feel
Speaker 1: so depleted. And so again, friends, the first point is
Speaker 1: to give ourselves grace and understand that healing is not linear,
Speaker 1: that it vacillates, and you know, sometimes we take steps
Speaker 1: back in order to recognize how we continue to move forward.
Speaker 1: So I offered that to all of you because you
Speaker 1: know that yesterday's show didn't not go up because at
Speaker 1: the end of last week I was exhausted. I did
Speaker 1: not do Woke Wednesday because frankly, I have had burst
Speaker 1: into tears multiple times with regard to the Buffalo shooting
Speaker 1: and just in general, everything feels so fucking heavy and
Speaker 1: there are times when I need to give myself a
Speaker 1: break and say I just can't do it, and that
Speaker 1: be okay. So you know I want us and I
Speaker 1: will try, and I hope that you all will hold
Speaker 1: me accountable to being more mindful and intentional about how
Speaker 1: I am taking care of myself so that I can
Speaker 1: deliver you guys, the best content that you need at
Speaker 1: this time so that you can feel connected and involved
Speaker 1: and engaged. So let's redouble our efforts in being in
Speaker 1: community and healthy community and healthy communion with ourselves and
Speaker 1: one another. Coming up next, friends, a conversation with Elizabeth Finley.
Speaker 1: And Elizabeth Finley is the director of Communications for the
Speaker 1: National Coalition of STD Directors. And what we are going
Speaker 1: to talk about is how the impending reversal of Robi
Speaker 1: Wade is going to erode and threaten to disrupt and
Speaker 1: undermine all of what it means to have a healthy
Speaker 1: reproductive systems. What does it mean when all of the
Speaker 1: smaller facilities that provide regular screening STD screening testing, all
Speaker 1: of these things are shut down because they're too closely
Speaker 1: associated with abortion, and now people are too afraid to
Speaker 1: go and receive the type of care that they need. Well,
Speaker 1: as Elizabeth will tell us, we have an STD crisis
Speaker 1: on the hand on our hands to add to everything else,
Speaker 1: and how that came about, at how things had deterred
Speaker 1: at the beginning of COVID and then those numbers of
Speaker 1: gonorrhea and chlamydia and all of these things skyrocketed, and
Speaker 1: what we can do about that moving forward and what
Speaker 1: we need to be paying attention to during this incredible,
Speaker 1: incredibly crazy fucking time that we are living in. But
Speaker 1: I think that this is a really important conversation because
Speaker 1: Elizabeth opened my mind to so many things that I
Speaker 1: did not think about that are connected to the overturning
Speaker 1: of Rob Wade, and of course what the GQP couldn't
Speaker 1: give a fuck to think about, but that Democrats are
Speaker 1: not using as they build up some type of campaign
Speaker 1: let's hope to fight back against the Republicans come midterms.
Speaker 1: So coming up now, my conversation with Elizabeth Finlay. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm David. Plots of Slights Political Gadfest. As another election
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Speaker 1: Ricci on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe
Speaker 1: so you never miss a new episode. Folks, I am
Speaker 1: very happy to welcome to okay F for the very
Speaker 1: first time, Elizabeth Finley, who is the director of Communications
Speaker 1: for the National Coalition of STDs. Elizabeth, there is an alarming,
Speaker 1: alarming trend that has been happening that we don't hear
Speaker 1: about on the news. I've seen a couple of articles
Speaker 1: about the rise and STDs and the rise and STIs
Speaker 1: and the fact that there are cases of syphilis that
Speaker 1: are being reported, and I could have sworn that we
Speaker 1: eradicated syphilis in this country and that has been making
Speaker 1: a comeback. All of this kind of had a catastrophic
Speaker 1: intertwining or explosion during the pandemic, when in fact I
Speaker 1: thought that we were all locked at home. So what
Speaker 1: has can you tell us when this trend, this surge began,
Speaker 1: and how we got to the moment that we're in
Speaker 1: and why folks need to be paying attention. Sure, so
Speaker 1: we've seen a rise in some of the most common
Speaker 1: sexually transmitted infections over about the last twenty years we've
Speaker 1: seen so those are things like gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis. The
Speaker 1: one that's really alarming to folks is congenital syphilis, so
Speaker 1: syphilis in babies when the mother has syphilis and it's
Speaker 1: not treated in pregnancy and so the baby's born with syphilis.
Speaker 1: That's a public health issue that had been completely eradicated
Speaker 1: ten years ago and in the past five years has
Speaker 1: grown by more than two hundred and thirty percent. So
Speaker 1: those rates are skyrocketing they were before the pandemic, and
Speaker 1: we just got the latest data from the CDC about
Speaker 1: a month ago, and it showed that those rates continued
Speaker 1: to climb in the pandemic. Oh my god, a two
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty some odd increase in cases in women.
Speaker 1: And what I read and so you clarify for me,
Speaker 1: is that oftentimes, particularly around syphilis, you don't necessarily have symptoms, right,
Speaker 1: so you may not then know that you have contracted this.
Speaker 1: Now you're pregnant, you have a baby, and now recognize
Speaker 1: that this has happened. Why are we seeing this surge?
Speaker 1: And has something happened with our screening, you know, with
Speaker 1: regular O, B, G, Y N check ins and particularly
Speaker 1: for women, why we are seeing this rise? Right? So
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right that the screening that happens during obstetric
Speaker 1: care during pregnancy is the way that we catch this.
Speaker 1: And what the folks I work would say is anytime
Speaker 1: you see a clime in adult syphilis, you see this
Speaker 1: clime in congenital syphilis. And what really happened during the
Speaker 1: pandemic is women women were doing more telehealth, They weren't
Speaker 1: going in quite as frequently for in person care. You know,
Speaker 1: states screen for congenital syphilis or syphilis, and pregnant women
Speaker 1: in the first trimester, and some states screen in the
Speaker 1: third trimester, and so if women missed those first trimester
Speaker 1: appointments in the pandemic or just did a telehealth appointment instead,
Speaker 1: they weren't getting those screenings and same deal in the
Speaker 1: third trimester. I think we also see with syphilis, especially
Speaker 1: it intersects with some other health and political issues. So
Speaker 1: syphilis spreads really easily among people who use drugs, and
Speaker 1: we see in places where drug use, especially in pregnancy,
Speaker 1: is heavily criminalized. You know, if if you're afraid that
Speaker 1: you're going to be incarcerated or arrested or have your
Speaker 1: baby taken away, like that's a pretty good reason not
Speaker 1: to go seek obstetric care, and so then you don't
Speaker 1: get screened and you don't get treated. We also saw
Speaker 1: big rises in syphilis among you know, women who are
Speaker 1: categorized as Hispanic in the government data. And we know
Speaker 1: from from lots and lots of places in sexual healthcare
Speaker 1: and reproductive healthcare that if you're afraid of talking about
Speaker 1: your documentation status in healthcare or you know, you're less
Speaker 1: likely to go in and so so it's just this
Speaker 1: sort of massive convergence of issues. The lack of access
Speaker 1: to care in general, which we've seen clime for years,
Speaker 1: and especially during the pandemic. The intersection, especially with the
Speaker 1: opioid epidemic, issues around population and immigration, all of these
Speaker 1: things kind of come together, and public health really thinks
Speaker 1: of congenital syphilis as this bellweather issue, right Like, in
Speaker 1: an ideal situation, we're testing for sexually transmitted infections regularly
Speaker 1: and maybe it gets caught that way. And separately, folks
Speaker 1: who work on maternal health need to get people in
Speaker 1: for those prenatal visits, you know. So folks in public
Speaker 1: health are thinking about this congenital syphilis issue as just
Speaker 1: a real collapse, right because it means that our sexually
Speaker 1: transmitted infection screening protocols are falling apart. It means that
Speaker 1: prenatal care is falling apart, and those were both heavily
Speaker 1: exacerbated by the pandemic. What does this look like, this
Speaker 1: trend that we are seeing that is happening in the
Speaker 1: wrong direction. How does the overturning, rescinding, erasing of Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade play into this rise in STDs and STIs what
Speaker 1: happens next? Can you paint that picture for us? Right? So,
Speaker 1: we're interested in talking about this issue because obviously the
Speaker 1: most immediate concern is access to abortion and abortion care,
Speaker 1: and we don't want to minimize that at all. But
Speaker 1: we think as people are talking about this, they're missing
Speaker 1: how this is going to cascade into other areas of healthcare.
Speaker 1: And when we think about how people get tested and
Speaker 1: treated for sexually transmitted infections and really like that that's
Speaker 1: the core of prevention. People like really quickly think, oh,
Speaker 1: you wear a condom and you don't get a sexually
Speaker 1: transmitted infection. But really the most important part of this
Speaker 1: puzzle is testing and treatment. And when we think about
Speaker 1: what testing and treatment looks like, access is a huge
Speaker 1: issue and stigma is a huge issue. And so with
Speaker 1: the fall of Row, we worry about the number of
Speaker 1: clinics they're going to be available. The folks who provide
Speaker 1: sexual and reproductive healthcare are so important in the work
Speaker 1: to address sexually transmitted infections. They're comfortable talking about sex.
Speaker 1: You're going into a clinic knowing that that's what you're
Speaker 1: going to talk about. We still see a lot of
Speaker 1: hesitancy from primary care providers. You know, if you're just
Speaker 1: going in for your annual physical you know, how comfortable
Speaker 1: is that person talking about sex? How comfortable are you
Speaker 1: talking about sex with that person? And so these sexual
Speaker 1: healthcare providers that also provide family planning services, abortion services,
Speaker 1: they're just a really important piece of our puzzle. And
Speaker 1: so we worry about what happens when those providers go away,
Speaker 1: both as centers where people can get healthcare and also
Speaker 1: just as advocates in their community. Is safe spaces in
Speaker 1: their community where folks know that they can go, you know,
Speaker 1: And then there's this stigma piece, right, There's always been
Speaker 1: stigma around sexual health. We know that it exists. We
Speaker 1: work with our members and our networks to try to
Speaker 1: reduce that stigma. But in this time when they are
Speaker 1: all of these forces talking about criminalizing and reproductive healthcare,
Speaker 1: you know, and just more broader in a cultural sense,
Speaker 1: the attacks on transfolks that don't say gay bill. It's
Speaker 1: just this moment of cultural contraption. And what does that
Speaker 1: do in terms of allowing people to go get the
Speaker 1: sexual and reproductive healthcare they need? And are we entering
Speaker 1: this sort of darker period where people can't do that
Speaker 1: safely or even worse, are we going to see more
Speaker 1: of these court precedents fall that allow people to have privacy,
Speaker 1: which is really the bedrock of all sexual and reproductive healthcare.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm thinking and follow me for a minute
Speaker 1: while you're speaking, and I'm thinking to myself, we have
Speaker 1: states right now that have criminalized abortion, criminalized abortion care,
Speaker 1: have put together, like Texas and other copycat red states,
Speaker 1: vigilante laws that are in place to prosecute women and
Speaker 1: any people with uteruses and anyone that seeks to aid them.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, if congenial syphilis is on the rise, is
Speaker 1: this something that could then become potentially a criminal issue
Speaker 1: on you know, on those that oppose abortion care, Like,
Speaker 1: are we looking at other ways in which people with
Speaker 1: uterus is and who are having children can be prosecuted?
Speaker 1: And it all comes back to lack of education, lack
Speaker 1: of care, lack of services, all of these. But then
Speaker 1: but then the bad outcomes then become the problem of
Speaker 1: that of that pregnant person. Absolutely, absolutely, we already see
Speaker 1: states where where people are criminalized for drug use in pregnancy.
Speaker 1: That's part of why they don't seek care and don't
Speaker 1: get treatment for that syphilis. Um, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: big problem. We need folks to feel safe when they
Speaker 1: go get healthcare, and when we listen to legal analysts
Speaker 1: talk about what's next, you know, what laws do folks challenge.
Speaker 1: We have come to take for granted that we get
Speaker 1: to make decisions about our own bodies beyond abortion, right
Speaker 1: like how do we protect ourselves from pregnancy? How do
Speaker 1: we protect ourselves from HIV? With things like prep, how
Speaker 1: do we protect ourselves from sexually transmitted infections? And beyond that?
Speaker 1: You know, one of the cases that legal analysts talk
Speaker 1: about is lawrence, So what kinds of sex are we
Speaker 1: allowed to have? Who are we allowed to have sex with?
Speaker 1: You know, if you can't go into your doctor and
Speaker 1: talk in your sexual health screening about what it is
Speaker 1: you're doing and with whom and what kind of care
Speaker 1: you need, then then providers have no way of protecting
Speaker 1: you from a pregnancy that you don't want, HIV that
Speaker 1: you don't want, a sexually transmitted infection that you don't want.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just think of about how terrifying of
Speaker 1: a climate that we are creating right now, that we
Speaker 1: are allowing to happen and not really thinking about the
Speaker 1: cascading effects. Like you said with regard to what it
Speaker 1: looks like when people are not able to comfortably and
Speaker 1: openly speak about what has happened, whether that be a miscarriage,
Speaker 1: whether that be an infection, to be able to get
Speaker 1: to the core of the needs that they have. If
Speaker 1: you feel like then the provider that you're speaking to,
Speaker 1: by virtue of your state law, can pick up the
Speaker 1: phone and call the authorities like what I mean, can
Speaker 1: you talk about, like how do we battle stigma in
Speaker 1: a climate that has become increasingly hostile to everyone gets
Speaker 1: it gets really hard. I think one wonderful thing that
Speaker 1: reproductive health and rights organizations are doing right now is
Speaker 1: just reminding people the reality that abortion is still available.
Speaker 1: You know, we are talking about some real, real potential
Speaker 1: for a dystopian future, and we're not there quite yet,
Speaker 1: you know. So it is important for folks to understand
Speaker 1: the care that they can get right now and that
Speaker 1: and some of that varies by who you are and
Speaker 1: by state, um, but I think it's important for people
Speaker 1: to know that we're not quite there yet, and we
Speaker 1: need to push back on what this looks like. One
Speaker 1: thing that's really interesting when we look at the data
Speaker 1: on sexually transmitted infections is that more than half of
Speaker 1: sexually transmitted infections right now are in young people, and
Speaker 1: so those are people who already have a higher level
Speaker 1: of fear around privacy. And before coming to NCSD, I
Speaker 1: worked on young people's sexual health, and so what we
Speaker 1: saw over and Regan is young people who were afraid
Speaker 1: to seek care because they didn't understand the privacy protections
Speaker 1: that already exist in the same way an adult might,
Speaker 1: you know, like maybe they've heard of hip hop, but
Speaker 1: they look at a clinic, especially for people who live
Speaker 1: in smaller towns, in rural areas, they're like, all right,
Speaker 1: this person at the front desk checking me into my appointment,
Speaker 1: goes to church with my grandma, or like as a
Speaker 1: person that my mom sees the supermarket, you know, like
Speaker 1: are they going to go tell that I'm here or
Speaker 1: what I'm here for? So this gives us a window
Speaker 1: to see what it looks like when people aren't sure
Speaker 1: that they can get safe and private healthcare. And we
Speaker 1: see that in these rates of sexually transmitted infections in
Speaker 1: young people that are far higher than they are in adults.
Speaker 1: Can you provide some just a picture of where are
Speaker 1: you seeing the rise? Are there particular states, particular regions
Speaker 1: where we should be paying attention and using them, using
Speaker 1: those particular areas and states as like a testing ground
Speaker 1: for what we need to do in preparation for this
Speaker 1: dystopian future. But how you can help people right now?
Speaker 1: Is it just read states? Is it low income states?
Speaker 1: What does it What does it look like in terms
Speaker 1: of where we're seeing these surges? You know, it really
Speaker 1: does vary, and this is a nationwide problem, and it
Speaker 1: frankly varies by infection, you know. So so some of
Speaker 1: the states we see that have higher syphilis rates are
Speaker 1: not necessarily the same states that um that we see
Speaker 1: have the higher Gunner rearrates for example. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: so what this means for us is that we need
Speaker 1: a better nationwide network for dealing with this. The nation
Speaker 1: has a federally funded family planning program, but there's not
Speaker 1: an equivalent for sexually transmitted infections. We're really relying on
Speaker 1: those family planning clinics or um or primary care providers
Speaker 1: to step up and do that testing. And we really
Speaker 1: do have this need for a national response and a
Speaker 1: national network of clinics. You know, for us working at
Speaker 1: the national level, it's not as cut and dry as
Speaker 1: something like maternal mortality. You know where we look at
Speaker 1: the South and we see like, these are the parts
Speaker 1: of the country. These are the states where women and
Speaker 1: especially women of color, are dying at much higher rates
Speaker 1: from pregnancy related causes. And so when those states automatically
Speaker 1: ban abortion, that's going to get much worse. It's it's
Speaker 1: not as clear picture with STDs, and so what you're
Speaker 1: going to see happen is is those gaps between how
Speaker 1: healthy people are in states where abortion is banned is
Speaker 1: going to get worse and and they're going to in
Speaker 1: some cases maybe have to go seek care in other
Speaker 1: states or just just for go care altogether. One thing
Speaker 1: that we know about sexually transmitted infections is a lot
Speaker 1: of them are asymptomatic. And so part of the reason
Speaker 1: you saw the big rise during the pandemic is you know,
Speaker 1: people were going to get care if they had symptoms
Speaker 1: of a sexually transmitted infection, but they weren't going in
Speaker 1: for like the routine visit where somebody's going to say, like, okay,
Speaker 1: while you're here, will do a chlamydius screening. Like that's
Speaker 1: that's where we really missed a lot of cases. And
Speaker 1: so like if nobody's screening you for that asymptomatic infection
Speaker 1: in your red state where your clinic has closed, Like,
Speaker 1: it's just not going to get caught, right, and it's
Speaker 1: not going to get treated. And we know that for
Speaker 1: some of these sexually transmitted infections, one of the long
Speaker 1: term impacts is a higher rate of ectopic pregnancies, you know,
Speaker 1: So it becomes it's going to become this cycle, right,
Speaker 1: Women in some states won't get treated for their sexually
Speaker 1: transmitted infections because they're not going to get tested, and
Speaker 1: then they're going to have health challenges in the long term,
Speaker 1: including pregnancy complications, and then they can't get treated for those.
Speaker 1: Last question for you, Elizabeth, is this, when we are
Speaker 1: all as patients going in, whether it is for an
Speaker 1: obg I end check up or our regular physicals, should
Speaker 1: we be asking and how do we ask for this
Speaker 1: type of screening that I'm assuming is covered under many
Speaker 1: people's insurances, but I'm sure that depends on what kind
Speaker 1: of insurance and what state you live in, on the
Speaker 1: all of those things. But how should we as patients
Speaker 1: be advocating for ourselves in our care right now? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: ask for those tests from from your provider. Ideally what
Speaker 1: would happen is your provider would ask about about what
Speaker 1: you need and what you're doing and what kind of
Speaker 1: sex u you know, sexual health needs, sexual health practices
Speaker 1: you have, and then offer up screening based on that.
Speaker 1: It is okay to say and I want to be
Speaker 1: screened for STIs, you know, just like ask upfront and
Speaker 1: they will most likely like run the tests while you're there.
Speaker 1: And that's a great thing to do every year or
Speaker 1: more frequently if you're sexually active and have different sex partners.
Speaker 1: That's just a good a good health practice. So definitely
Speaker 1: ask for those tests and ideally your provider will will
Speaker 1: bring it up for you do. Elizabeth, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for the work that you are doing for coming
Speaker 1: on Woke app and essentially raising the alarm on an
Speaker 1: issue that we have not talked about on the show
Speaker 1: before and is inextricably tied to the conversations that we
Speaker 1: are having on the attacks against abortion and repro health
Speaker 1: in general. So we appreciate you and your time. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Get a behind the scenes look at
Speaker 1: Comedy Central's The Daily Show. Beyond the Scenes, an original
Speaker 1: podcast from the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week,
Speaker 1: host Roy Wood Junior goes deeper with the notable guests
Speaker 1: and experts from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they
Speaker 1: use comedy to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun
Speaker 1: laws and take a closer look at how and why
Speaker 1: these topics matter. Listen to Beyond the Scenes from The
Speaker 1: Daily Show with Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Speaker 1: Podcast or wherever you get your podcast, New episodes every Tuesday.
Speaker 1: That is it for Me today, Dear friends, on this
Speaker 1: Woke a f as always, Power to the people and
Speaker 1: to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke
Speaker 1: as fun. Get a behind the scenes look at Comedy
Speaker 1: Central's The Daily Show on Beyond the Scenes, an original
Speaker 1: podcast from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week,
Speaker 1: host Roy Wood Junior goes deeper with the notable guests
Speaker 1: and experts from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they
Speaker 1: use comedy to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun
Speaker 1: laws and take a closer look at how and why
Speaker 1: these topics matter. Listen to Beyond the Scenes from the
Speaker 1: Daily Show with Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Speaker 1: Podcast or wherever you get your podcast, new episodes every Tuesday.