{"id":1641,"date":"2005-06-22T00:12:26","date_gmt":"2005-06-22T07:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/06\/21\/two-articles-from-planned-parenthood\/"},"modified":"2005-06-22T00:12:26","modified_gmt":"2005-06-22T07:12:26","slug":"two-articles-from-planned-parenthood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1641","title":{"rendered":"Two articles from Planned Parenthood"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first one is some good news about the situation with pharmacists refusing to dispense with female contraception and all that stupidity. The American Medical Association has decided to challenge these pharmacist refusal clauses, that allows pharmacists to turn away women trying to have their contraception prescriptions refilled.<\/strong><\/a> Then these pharmacists go on the merry little way to refill Viagra<\/em>, Cialis<\/em>, and Levitra<\/em> prescriptions without any “moral objections.”<\/p>\n

The AMA Takes on Pharmacist Refusals<\/strong><\/p>\n

The American Medical Association (AMA) is standing up for women’s health and against pharmacist refusals. Monday, during its annual meeting, the AMA resolved to use its influence as the largest physicians’ group in the United States to press pharmacies to fill legal and valid prescriptions.<\/p>\n

The AMA made the resolution in response to growing concerns that pharmacies are blocking women’s access to vital health care such as emergency contraception and other birth control methods. “Our position is on behalf of the patient,” Dr. Peter Carmel, an AMA board member, told The Chicago Tribune. “The AMA strongly believes patients have to have access to their medications.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Could this be true? A large medical organization giving two shits about<\/del> caring for women’s reproductive rights? It’s about time that such an organization take on this hysteria within pharmacies, that either possess a bias against women having control over their reproductive destinies, or would rather let their employees enjoy imposing their ideological views on women by not refilling their contraceptive prescriptions, then make a profit. Hopefully the A.M.A. has enough influence to encourage certain pharmacies to make some very important policy changes.<\/p>\n

The second one is about sex between Lesbian couples and sexually active Bisexual women, and the importance of learning about STIs, getting tested, and being honest with your partner.<\/strong> <\/a>There are a lot of myths out there about woman-woman sexual intimacy (mostly because some believe that “it isn’t really sex” so you can’t get any STIs from it–which is not true), some of which can lead to women being infected with very dangerous STIs, unless they inform themselves with the facts.<\/p>\n

Who, Me?: STIs and Women Who Have Sex with Women<\/strong><\/p>\n

In general, lesbian and bisexual women have the same health needs as all women. But certain assumptions about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) … namely, who is at risk and why … may mean that women who have sex with women are not getting the best health care possible.<\/p>\n

In fact, research has shown that women who have sex with women often underestimate their risk for sexually transmitted infections and so are less likely to practice safer sex or get tested for infections than heterosexual women. A recent study from the University of Washington found that lesbian and bisexual women are not familiar with the infections that most commonly affect them. Dr. Jeanne M. Marrazzo, lead author of the study and a top expert on STIs, says her findings disprove a common myth … that women who have sex with women are not at risk for STIs.<\/p>\n

Just the Facts<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is true that women who exclusively have sex with women have a relatively lower risk for certain infections such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, or HIV. Other infections, however, are quite common, including<\/p>\n

bacterial vaginosis (BV)<\/p>\n

hepatitis<\/p>\n

herpes<\/p>\n

human papilloma virus (HPV)<\/p>\n

trichomoniasis.(“trich”)<\/p>\n

Statistics Are Scarce<\/strong><\/p>\n

[…] Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledges that women can pass infections such as HPV or herpes to one another through sex play, the organization keeps no statistics on infection rates among women who have sex with women.<\/p>\n

This is compounded by the fact that women who exclusively have sex with women rarely get tested.[…]<\/p>\n

Making Assumptions<\/strong><\/p>\n

[…]Some women also say that health care providers do not understand their needs as lesbian or bisexual women. Anne, 30, from Chicago, describes her doctor’s reaction to her disclosure that she was a having sex with a woman as “no penis, no problem.”<\/p>\n

That assumption can be dangerous. Santa Cruz, CA, gynecologist Nancy Thorner runs a practice that includes more than 100 client women who have sex with women. Among them, Thorner says, HPV is probably the most common infection … including some strains of HPV that are associated with cervical cancer.[…]<\/p>\n

Removing Barriers<\/strong><\/p>\n

To better serve her lesbian and bisexual clients, Thorner created an intake form that takes into account sexual identity but focuses more on sexual practices that might put a woman at risk for infection. Other lesbian- and bi-friendly health care providers are doing the same.<\/p>\n

Gynecologists’ questions must be complex and detailed, says Amari Pearson-Fields, deputy director and research director for the Mautner Project, a national lesbian health organization.<\/p>\n

The Mautner Project runs “Removing the Barriers: Providing Culturally Competent Care to Lesbians and Women Who Partner with Women,” a training workshop for health care providers that teaches them how to talk to lesbians about safer sex.[…]<\/p>\n

The Next Level<\/strong><\/p>\n

Educating providers is just one step in the right direction. Dr. Marrazzo, who in addition to her work at the University of Washington runs the Web site LesbianSTD.com, recommends public information campaigns aimed at women who have sex with women which deal directly with infection. The messages, she believes, should advocate personal responsibility, care for a partner’s well-being, and healthy sexuality.<\/p>\n

“My fantasy is that we will have an L Word episode that deals with HPV and cervical cancer,” Marrazzo said of the popular Showtime drama centered on a group of lesbians. “That’s one of the few venues we have that a lot of women watch and where they would be receptive to hearing it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well since a lot of people get some of their knowledge from television–sure why not. Since the L Word<\/em><\/a><\/strong> is a show centuring around the lives of Lesbian women perhaps it would emphasize the importance of Lesbians and even Bisexual women taking steps to inform themselves about STIs and lowering their risk of contracting them while being intimate with their partner(s). And getting tested and being honest with your partner is also very important.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first one is some good news about the situation with pharmacists refusing to dispense with female contraception and all that stupidity. The American Medical Association has decided to challenge these pharmacist refusal clauses, that allows pharmacists to turn away … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-contraceptivesec-zaniness","category-lesbian-gay-bi-trans-and-queer-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}