women’s birth control – Memphis Flyer

Pandia Health, an online birth control delivery service, has just expanded to Tennessee. The women-founded, women-led, and doctor-led company offers free delivery for the patch, the pill, and the ring. All that’s needed is an active prescription, plus no copay with insurance or as low as $15 per pack without insurance.

For those who need a new prescription, Pandia also has a team of medical doctors, who can prescribe birth control and answer any follow-up questions for a $20 yearly fee. In this case, the patient provides a few documents (like a government ID and health insurance card) and fills out a 20-question questionnaire that asks about health history and concerns, and a doctor will prescribe the birth control that best fits the patient’s profile. (In Tennessee, anyone of any age, including minors, can consent to the prevention of pregnancy through contraception.)

While the prescription service is asynchronous, without a doctor-patient face-to-face interaction, CEO and founder Dr. Sophia Yen assures that it is safe, though it does not replace regular doctor visits and check-ups. As a doctor-led company, she says, Pandia is HIPAA-compliant, implements only evidence-based and science-backed practices, and keeps up with all the latest research. “American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which is the number-one trusted national organization of OB-GYNs, has stated that birth control is safe and should go over the counter, and women can decide if it’s okay for them, given these 20 questions,” she adds. “So we’ve taken these 20 questions, turned it into a questionnaire, and added a protective layer of a doctor’s oversight looking at your questionnaire plus your medical history.”

Dr. Sophia Yen(Photo courtesy Pandia Health)

Yen, who also lectures as a clinical associate professor at Stanford Medical School, says, “One of the top reasons that women don’t take their birth control is that they don’t have it in their hand.” And this fact inspired her to found Pandia in 2016 with friends Perla Ni and Elliott Blatt to combat what she has coined “pill anxiety,” the anxiety that arises when someone runs out of their birth control without the next packet in hand. “We thought, we’ll just ship women their birth control and keep shipping it until they tell us to stop.”

But birth control isn’t just about pregnancy prevention; it can also help with hormonal acne and regulate periods — two points that Pandia has expanded its mission to include. The company’s #PeriodsOptional campaign promotes awareness that periods can be intentionally skipped for an extended period of time through the use of birth control, as early as two years after a first period. “The number-one cause of missed school and work for women under age 25 is a bad, evil period,” Yen says, and so she views Pandia and its ability to regulate menstruation as an equalizer that can free those with uteri from menstrual pains and the inconveniences and worries that can come with a period. Also, according to Yen, going period-free can decrease the risk of endometriosis, PCOS, anemia, and ovarian and endometrial cancer among other positive side effects, although the effects of going period-free long-term have yet to be studied conclusively.

“We’re here to make women’s lives better,” Yen continues, “and we will only tell you what’s best for your health, even if it affects our bottom line.”

For more information, visit pandiahealth.com. Pandia Health also offers educational material that is free and accessible to anyone via their online blog, YouTube, and Facebook.

Greg Cravens

About Tommy Volinchak’s letter to the editor on female birth control …

Tommy Volinchak’s letter seemed to take issue with “liberals” equating pregnancy with health care: Did you print that in the name of fairness or was it a Jerry Springer moment?

Maybe Volinchak wrote his letter as a form of black humor, using gross insensitivity and exaggerated ignorance to parody those Bible-thumping wingnuts who actually believe this crap. Otherwise, he would be one of them. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

We all know that if tomorrow men became the gender that got pregnant, there would be no debates — free, easily accessible birth control would be the law of the land immediately.

It is difficult to determine these days whether such public expressions of opinion are really sincerely held delusions or merely cynical, manipulative posturing to shock, entertain, or influence the gullible. It has become such a zoo out there.

Richard Owen

About the city’s use of out-of-state contractors …

I hate to talk trash about something so petty as the limbs that have been sitting on my curb for seven weeks, but the city’s difficulties in picking up yard waste point out a larger problem: Paying out-of-state contractors to work in Memphis, thus catapulting our tax money out of the grasp of local citizens and the local economy.

At a time when the city’s resources are so strained, it is a no-brainer that we keep our tax money inside our community. Instead, in the case of curbside pickup, we contracted with an outfit in Texas for $4.25 million, of which half or more will go to Austin for “overhead, profit, and administrative costs.”

Memphis elected officials and our geniuses at Legislative Plaza in Nashville have adopted this insane policy to sell out to outsiders who will take our money and run, while giving us worse results than we had before. The charter school mania is another example, as we hire entities from California and Arizona to come into our communities. Keep our tax money in the hands of local people and businesses, and we will all have less waste to deal with.

Gary Moore

About Toby Sells’ story, “Hidden Cameras Catch Illegal Dumpers” …

Here’s an idea. How about increasing the county services budget and expanding trash service. If the service was appreciable there would be no reason to illegally dump! Since the county is spending money finding ways to criminalize their citizens!

Tee Toe

Whatever happened to just taking your trash to the nearest fast food dumpster?

Natalya1299

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Letter from the Editor on “rebooting” local politics …

Sadly, it seems that there are many voters who don’t read, don’t research, and don’t give a damn about the candidates’ behavior, in or out of the public office. They vote for the name and/or race of the candidate. I appreciate the information that Jackson Baker and the CA reporters have researched to provide us, the voters. I learned quite a bit about some of these candidates I didn’t know before. It’s a great help when going to the polls.

Pamela Cates

I look forward to the election postmortem, especially for the local Democratic Party. If once again they are swept by the local GOP for the county executive positions, there will need to be some serious soul searching.

My current guess is that there will be more votes in the Democratic Primary than the GOP Primary for Shelby County. I highly doubt that a case can be made for Republicans voting in a Democratic Primary due to the Alexander vs. Carr match-up. I believe the most recent early voting numbers showed 52 percent of voters voting in the Democratic Primary.

Charlie Eppes

Hate never gets you anything. And pandering to hate will only work so long as folks hold onto it. There already is a reboot in progress, but a lot of the older generation can’t see it.

OakTree