A Testosterone Filled Nothing Burger (Plus Rare Good News!)

RFK loses ACIP lawsuit; Pediatricians fight ICE; Boy Boss Documentary disappoints us (Review of Inside the Manosphere); WNBA players get a raise

March madness: Women’s tournament, men’s tournament

Fire celebration: Chaharshanbe suri

• gatherings in Iran
• Persian New Year

Fact check: Arghavan misspoke when she said the name of one of the manfluencer/boy bosses. His name is Justin, not Jeremy. 

Peds vs. ICE; ACIP Lawsuit Victory:

• Pediatricians demand children be removed from ICE detentions
• Here is the letter Drs. Patel, COzzo, and Jones sent to Kristi Noem last month
• Judge blocks RFK Jr from scaling back childhood vaccines
• Judge Murphy’s order

Review of Inside the Manosphere

• Inside the Manosphere
• HS Tikky Tokky
• Myron Gaines
• Playing the feminist card

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• WNBA players reach new agreement
• Charity Ekezie on Africa
• Charity Ekezie on Egypt
• Women’s face coverings near the Straight of Hormouz
• SNL’s MAHAspital

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Theme Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Transcript

Alyssa Burgart (00:00)
Pro tip ladies, if a random man is like, you want to ride on my Lamborghini? The answer is absolutely not, okay?

Arghavan (00:06)
Yeah,

Hey there, fellow nerds. Welcome to another episode of The Present Illness, the podcast where two physicians try to make a sense of the world around us, a world that is very fabrile and maybe heading toward palliative care, I don't know. Arghavan Salles, a surgeon scientist in your friendly neighborhood, doom scroller and resident.

Alyssa Burgart (00:27)
And I'm Alyssa Burgart an anesthesiologist and bioethicist who tracks news and health law like they're EKGs full of spikes and surprises. Present illness is where we dig into public health, politics, culture, and ethics with a scalpel in one hand and a meme in the other.

Arghavan (00:41)
Big thanks to everyone listening and shout out and extra love to those who subscribe or follow us. And a special warm welcome to anyone who just stumbled in from March Madness.

Alyssa Burgart (00:52)
are you following the basketball?

Arghavan (00:54)
⁓ not yet. ⁓ I did get forced though, to fill out a bracket at my physical therapy appointment. Yeah. Well, I know I was, ⁓ this was on Monday. I was getting ice after my treatment and they were like, here's a clipboard and a pen and a bracket, fill it out. yeah, they're now all on one of the walls in the, in the clinic is just everyone's brackets. Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (01:01)
⁓ interesting.

that's fun. Well,

⁓ my March Madness story is my first year in college. There were people who were really into basketball and they were like, you need to fill out a bracket. And I was like, what's a bracket? And they were like, it's for March Madness. And I was like, what's March Madness? So then they convinced me like I need to participate. So I fill out a bracket. I have no idea what I'm doing. I just sort of pick whatever feels, you know, I went on vibes and and then I won.

Arghavan (01:45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

That's amazing.

⁓ I bet that upset some people.

Alyssa Burgart (01:51)
⁓

it felt a little cruel for the people who actually watch basketball.

Arghavan (01:57)
Yeah, I have

in years past followed it more closely than I'm following it this year. I mean, it just started, so maybe I'll cue in. But I basically, for my bracket, went mostly based on ranking. ⁓ But a few moments here and there. I only did the women's, by the way. I only did a bracket for the women's ⁓ tournament. And I am predicting UConn But that's statistically and historically a very safe prediction. I don't know.

Alyssa Burgart (02:25)
See?

Arghavan (02:26)
necessarily this year again, I haven't been following that closely. So we will see and hope folks are enjoying that. Maybe you get a prize. The prize at my physical therapy clinic is a t-shirt. So today my physical therapist was like, it's not too late to fill out the men's bracket. It's a different t-shirt.

Alyssa Burgart (02:37)
⁓ fantastic.

⁓ Nice, ⁓ well folks listen, we're glad you're here, whatever you stumbled in from. And just as a note to our new listeners, we oftentimes talk about topics here that can be kind of intense. We do talk oftentimes about things like essay. We talk about kids who are in detention ⁓ from ICE in particular. And so if you have little ones in the car, you may want to pop in those headphones.

Arghavan (02:46)
Yeah, I deferred that one, but thank you for the opportunity.

Alyssa Burgart (03:13)
and let's get into this week's episode. Oh, you know what I've been meaning to ask you? I mean, I'm trying to be a fake Iranian here, obviously. I know Nowruz is coming up, which is a spring celebration. What are you doing to celebrate?

Arghavan (03:30)
Thank you for asking. yeah, tomorrow we're recording this on Thursday, March 19th. So the 20th in the US is when it'll be Nuruz, which literally means new day. ⁓ And it's our Persian New Year. it is, whatever folks may think of James Van Der Beek, after he unfortunately had passed, one of his videos that went

like re went viral was one that he had posted about how it makes way more sense for the first day of new year to be the first day of spring, not in the dead of winter. And I was like, ⁓ he's an honorary Persian because that's exactly what it is. The first day of spring is our new year. And most years it's a celebration. And of course this year it's different because of the war and all the terror and loss.

and concern, uncertainty that comes with that, the destruction obviously. So for folks who don't know, the Tuesday before New Year, so it doesn't matter what day of the week the New Year falls on, but it's the Tuesday night before that, the last Tuesday before the New Year, we have something called Char Chamba Suri, which is an ancient, originally I believe it was an Austrian festival, I don't know if festivals are right, it's celebration. And you have,

fire. ⁓ If you're in like outdoor space, you might have it just on the ground or you might have it like in your house in a fire pit or something. I mean not inside your house, in your yard. ⁓ In a fire pit or something like that and then you have to jump over the fire and then as you're jumping over the fire you have to say a specific, it's kind of like a, I don't know, a phrase that is basically saying that the fire is going to take

Alyssa Burgart (05:02)
Okay.

you

Arghavan (05:21)
my weakness or the bad of the last year and it's going to give me strength going into the new year. And so that happened on Tuesday night and even in Iran, ⁓ we did get videos of people, despite all the threats from the government about going out in the streets, we did see gatherings of people building fire in the street and jumping over the fire ⁓ and being in community together despite everything that's happening.

And our hospital where you and I work for the last several years has had actually a Noroo's event and ours was yesterday. So I went, it was lovely. And they did as they did last year, they have ⁓ paper fire, like it's orange and yellow pieces of paper in the shape of a fire that they put on the ground so people can jump over it and say the thing. And they have.

Alyssa Burgart (05:51)
you

Arghavan (06:13)
tea, which is, know, obviously you cannot have a person gathering without tea, and then different kinds of sweets and they had craftspeople selling like jewelry and crocheted things. And anyway, it was really nice. And I'm grateful to the folks who organize that every year. It's supported by the hospital through one of the employee resource groups, but it's really a group of Iranians who make it happen. And especially in this time, I think it was really nice. So

Persian New Year's tomorrow, means typically people get together and have a meal like any other cultural celebration across different cultures that people have. And the traditional food that we eat is called sabzi pulav mahi. Sabzi pulav is a type of rice. It's very simple. It's just rice with some herbs. And the herbs are mixed into the rice. It's not like a stew that you add onto it. And then,

The mahi is fish. it's the rice with the fish is like the traditional New Year meal. And so I'm gathering with my loved ones to do that tomorrow evening.

Alyssa Burgart (07:23)
Excellent. That sounds like a lovely, lovely way to celebrate. And I think there's something really special about trying to hang on to traditions, especially during times of so much uncertainty.

Arghavan (07:37)
Yeah, and I think it's ⁓ for many of us this year, it's maybe not, maybe celebration isn't quite the right word, right? But it's just continuing the tradition and gathering together and commemorating the moment as best we can. Yeah, with hope for something better in the new year for all of us. Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (08:00)
⁓

Well, have, I mean, I know that this is very off-brand for me, but I have two stories that are like kind of good.

You

Arghavan (08:12)
Wow! That might be like the first for our podcast. I'd love to hear something good, please.

Alyssa Burgart (08:20)
Well, so one, ⁓ I always put together some bioethics in the news for our ethics committee because I always like people who are on the ethics committee to have a good sense of sort of what's happening in the world and how does it impact our patients and our moral community. And so was looking at the 19th, which is a women's news organization, and I like to look there to see kind of what are they showing. I always look at several different news outlets. And the 19th had highlighted

three pediatricians who are demanding that children be removed from ICE custody. one, I was like, hell yeah, pediatricians, go get it. And I start reading this article and I'm like, my gosh, I know one of these women. She was a trainee. She had done her critical care training ⁓ at Stanford. name's Dr. Laura Jones. And so her, as well as two other physicians, Anita Kay Patel and Ashley Marie Cozo, I hope I'm pronouncing, ⁓

Arghavan (09:00)
Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (09:19)
physician's name correctly. The three of them put together this truly badass letter and they sent it to Kristi Noem, you know, shortly before she lost her job. ⁓ And they are doing a bunch of work trying to really mobilize a lot of people who care about kids to really try to get these kids out of detention. And so I actually thought I would just tell you about the five major demands. I'll put a link to the full ⁓ letter.

in our show notes so that people can read it. But I really want to get into the demands that these pediatricians, they got thousands of people to sign this document. And it says, our primary demand is simple. The implementation of AAPs, the American Academy of Pediatrics, medical guidance to release all children in immigration detention immediately. And so they say they want transparency and independent oversight. Now something you and I have talked about before is that

There are so many kids that are separated from their families. And if you have a child, especially a child who is too young to know their own name or to know their parents' names, the likelihood of them being able to be reconnected with their family is incredibly low. And there is over 1,000 children from the 2016 family separation that are still separated from parents and children who are still separated. Additionally, the pediatricians are saying they want independent medical exams for these kids. They want kids to have access to any sort of

care that they would need. They want publicly reported pediatric health metrics, especially infectious disease outbreaks, injuries, deaths, and any adverse events. As we mentioned before, there's a measles outbreak in the Dilley Detention Center. ⁓ Obviously, there's a lot of measles in the United States right now, so to have that in these confined spaces, you can just imagine it's going to rip through that population for really anyone who hasn't been vaccinated.

They want real-time public health transparency on nutrition, water, sanitation, etc. They want safe conditions. I mean, I don't think that there's any condition in which a child should be kept in detention, ⁓ but they do have a list of if you're going to put these kids in detention, these are absolutely things that must be accomplished or these children cannot be in these spaces. ⁓ know, safe access to hygiene, evidence-based cleaning and disease mitigation, safe occupancy levels so there isn't overcrowding.

adequate ventilation and air quality monitoring, ensuring that temperatures are within a safe range for kids. ⁓ Three, establishing and enforcing pediatric standard of care. So really just doing the basic things that any child should get in terms of basic health care and basic safety and basic access to medications. Four, remove barriers to emergency medical care. We just covered two stories recently on the show of

Arghavan (11:53)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (12:06)
little children who developed very severe respiratory illnesses who clearly had delays in receiving appropriate care and then were discharged back into these facilities without safe access to the care that they needed. ⁓ And five, ensure accountability, mandate independent investigation of every child death and serious injury in custody. Right now, we actually know nothing about any of the injuries that are taking place. It is a black box. ⁓

Homeland Security is keeping all of this out of the public eye, and I guarantee it's because bad things are happening and they know that the public would be outraged. ⁓ So anyway, I'm really proud of this group. I'm so thrilled and ⁓ honestly tickled to know one of the people who started this letter writing campaign. ⁓ I will keep you all posted as I learn more ways for all of us to do outreach to really support these kids.

and to get these kids out of detention because no child should be in these, mean, really no person should be in these conditions, but especially for children and for so many people on the right who claim to really care about children, I think ⁓ the irony is not lost of seeing what's happening to these kids. ⁓ So unfortunately, there are still many children in detention. We need to get more information about them, but on the upside, ⁓

I think this mobilization of clinicians is really important and valuable.

Arghavan (13:35)
Mm-hmm. No, I love that they did that and they take their responsibility of caring for children really seriously. And that's why they're putting their names out there, which is not without risk in this environment ⁓ and pushing for help and ⁓ better health for children who aren't in their direct care. And I think that's part of what we all should be doing as physicians is thinking more about the conditions

under which people are developing their health problems or trying to deal with their health problems or care for themselves. ⁓ That's part of why we always talk about like medicine is definitely political. You cannot extricate politics from the practice of medicine because everyone is living in this world and affected by the policies that are being made by our government. You mentioned that Kristi Noem has been

Alyssa Burgart (14:15)
Hmm. Okay.

Arghavan (14:28)
removed from her post as the head of DHS. And so this week was one of the hearings for Mark Wayne Mullen, who is the nominee to replace her. ⁓ you know, it's just fascinating to think that a person who's gotten no experience in security, ⁓ no bachelor's degree, not to be elitist, but like that seems if you're going to head a major government agency, it doesn't seem I think outrageous to expect someone to have a bachelor's degree.

⁓ And he does not. ⁓ And I don't know, I'm saying that because I don't know that things are gonna be better with him than they were with her. And I don't know what pressure can be brought to bear on our government to actually do the right thing for these children. Because even before you mentioned 2016, when you started talking about family separation, that's the first thing I thought of was like those horrific images that we saw.

Alyssa Burgart (15:07)
⁓

Yeah, no. Okay.

Arghavan (15:27)
at beginning of Trump's first term. And I understand that separations happened before that too. But I also know that the number of cases

and the number of people being detained is very different now than it was in that period or even in previous presidencies. And that's just multiplying the harm by so many times. I agree with you, we don't really know the

Alyssa Burgart (15:47)
Okay. Okay.

Arghavan (15:58)
the breath and the quantity. We just don't have enough data right now to know exactly what's going on and

how damaging everything is, but we know that this being held in detention is damaging for everyone. And as you said, especially for children who are forming, I mean, they're becoming who they're going to be. yeah, shout out to those physicians for doing that work and thank you for bringing that to us.

Alyssa Burgart (16:21)
Yeah.

Absolutely. And then, ⁓ and then we have like a big win for vaccines. ⁓

Arghavan (16:32)
Ooh, I love the

win for vaccines and science. me with it.

Alyssa Burgart (16:35)
Love a win, love a win.

Well, you know, it's interesting. There's, mean, as we say in the intro to everything, like I love a law, I love a legal case. Like I love to get, I'm not a lawyer, but I really love seeing how the law can be used in ways that can be beneficial. It's also interesting to see the ways that the law can be used in ways that are not beneficial. But as an ethicist, it's oftentimes part of my role to help connect like what is happening in the law.

Arghavan (16:46)
Okay.

Alyssa Burgart (17:04)
and what's happening at the bedside and how do we help make sure that those things, when appropriate, can be aligned. ⁓ And so, but a lot of people have said to me out in my personal life, like, well, what's the big deal about these lawsuits? Like, what difference can it make? And, you know, the AAP, the American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as the American Society of Public Health, as well as a number of other organizations all got together.

and brought a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services specifically about changes to the vaccine schedule made by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the ACIP. And you and I have talked about the shenanigans that RFK, the king of the clown car of the apocalypse, RFK Jr., ⁓ he really just kept pulling out more jemokes to put

Arghavan (18:01)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (18:01)
in charge

of the ACIP, they, you he had fired all of the standing members who were all people with ⁓ expertise and people who had been vetted, people who were qualified to be in those jobs. You know, even if you have criticisms of the ACIP and want things to be, you know, different or improved, certainly getting rid of all the people who knew what they were talking about didn't seem like the best move. ⁓ And what was even worse was, of course, when RFK Jr. then replaced

Arghavan (18:10)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (18:30)
those members initially with eight members and then now up to 13 members who have no expertise other than being anti-vaxxers. These are not people who are serious scientists. These are not immunologists. You know, they are not people who are reliable experts on vaccines. And so this lawsuit that had been brought against ⁓ RFK Jr. and his HHS, ⁓ finally just this week, we got a result from Judge Murphy who made an order that actually put

a stay on several parts of the ACIP. And what that means is that ⁓ all of those people, all of those changes that were made to the ACIP are invalid right now. They are on hold. And so none of those members are currently members. Their positions are on hold. All of the changes that have been made ⁓ since the ACIP was dismantled and then re-put together in this anti-vax way.

All of those decisions are on hold. So that means that for the time being, we have now gone back to the same CDC vaccine schedule that we had before. And part of why this is so important is because one, there's many states that rely on the CDC ⁓ recommended vaccine schedule in order to cover vaccinations in their own states. ⁓ As we've discussed before, there are many states that have become part of ⁓

vaccine alliances where they're using.

They were taking what was the CDC schedule and embedding it in there and creating their own version of it and adopting that. But there's many states that are not doing that. And then there's a bunch of states that are being run by people who share, whether or not they share an informed view of vaccination, they certainly, from a political standpoint, are in alignment with the current administration and have taken up this badge of like, quote unquote, medical freedom.

the freedom to make terrible choices that are not. ⁓

that are grounded in fear-mongering, I will say. And so this is a really important thing that has happened. I am so thrilled. I highly recommend reading ⁓ Judge Murphy's order. It is very long, so you certainly don't have to read the whole thing. ⁓ But he starts off ⁓ initially with a statement of like, vaccines, sorry, the science, it's not perfect, but it is the best we have. And it's definitely where we should be putting our efforts. And then the next line that he says is,

Procedure is to law what scientific method is to science. And so he's saying like we have to be grounded in the scientific method in order to determine what is scientifically valid or what is the best available evidence, what is the best possible outcome. that procedure is what's needed in order to do that for the law. And so if you're going to abandon all procedure, you cannot have good law. And so he goes into great detail ⁓ about

the evidence that was brought by the AAP and these other organizations, and the specious arguments that were brought by RFK Jr. and his group, the clown car, if you will.

Arghavan (21:46)
Well,

yes, and one thing I want to just point out in case it's not obvious to folks is that the grounds, from what I understand, the grounds on which the current ACIP or ACIP was invalidated was on procedural grounds. So that's why the judge is saying all that, right? That RFK Jr. and his team did not follow the predefined procedures for how you appoint a person to ACIP. And there has to be

Alyssa Burgart (22:01)
Correct.

Arghavan (22:15)
vetting of their expertise and what work they've previously done that's relevant to the committee. And it's all those steps that were skipped by RFK Jr. and his team. And so the judge is saying, you can't do that. There's a reason these procedures exist and you can't just skip them because you don't feel like doing them. And so therefore everything that you've done from that point on is invalid. And

Alyssa Burgart (22:23)
Correct.

Arghavan (22:42)
One thing that I've been thinking about a lot this week is, in particular, because of that ruling and other things that have been coming out, is how much time and effort has been wasted over the last year plus because this administration continuously does things without regard to procedure, without regard to propriety, without regard to science. And I'm not just talking about HHS, I'm saying the whole administration. And so,

Alyssa Burgart (22:43)
Okay.

Arghavan (23:11)
It's like every move they

make, there's a lawsuit because they're doing something that's not appropriate. And then people, lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants are having to spend time on those lawsuits instead of doing the work they might otherwise be doing. And I am most aware of it personally because of the lawsuits related to grant terminations, but there's no shortage of topics on which there have been lawsuits. Like even how

Alyssa Burgart (23:28)
. .

Arghavan (23:40)
DHS has handled deportations, right? Going back to that ⁓ horrific rounding up of mostly Venezuelan immigrants sent to El Salvador, which was, think, when we first really knew they

were just not gonna do anything by any rules or procedures that had been previously established, but in terms of immigration. But it's across every facet of the government, the grift

⁓ you know right now jared kushner is like some kind of middle east Envoy, but then he's also Basically getting billions of dollars from saudi arabia, but he's supposed to be like helping negotiate Relations in the middle east when he's personally benefiting from funds from one country ⁓ and it's not like small amounts like billions with a b dollars Going to his own firm. I mean there's there's like endless examples

of self-dealing that in any other administration would not have been tolerated. These are like low level for us at this point because we're dealing with human rights violations. So you're like, okay, they're making money, but like we got to get these children out of ice and we got to get people who were sent to a third country that they have nothing to do with. We got to get them return, you know, all these things. But my point was just that like this lawsuit, the AAP lawsuit and so many other lawsuits that have gone on.

Alyssa Burgart (24:40)
Mm hmm.

Arghavan (25:09)
This is an administration who said they were out to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. And not only are they clearly fraudulent and abusive, but they're abusing their powers, but they're also creating a huge amount of waste. An unthinkable, I think it's really hard for any one of us to wrap our heads around how many lawsuits there have been. And just security is a website that tracks all of them.

Alyssa Burgart (25:33)
Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (25:35)
So people

can go there and look at, haven't looked to see how many we're at now, but.

Alyssa Burgart (25:39)
you

Arghavan (25:43)
The lost productivity and contributions to humanity that we all could be making if we didn't have to every single day fight the unlawful actions of this government is deeply, deeply disturbing to me. And this is one of those examples. We should never have to, we shouldn't have to be fighting about who is on ACIP. There are established guidelines for how you nominate a person, what the requirements are, what the process is.

Alyssa Burgart (25:43)
Okay. Okay.

Arghavan (26:12)
and that's

what should be followed. the vaccine, mean, same with the vaccines, right? We talk about so many times, like, the science on the MR vaccine is quite established. That thing has been around for decades and decades. We shouldn't have to be relitigating things that have already been studied ad nauseum, and yet that's what we're spending our time doing. We're not developing new vaccines that we very much could need ⁓ because of the anti-vaccine.

Alyssa Burgart (26:18)
You you

Arghavan (26:42)
positions of this government, but also because whoever would be doing that is spending time fighting this kind of nonsense.

Alyssa Burgart (26:49)
Absolutely. And the act that you're referring to is called the Administrative Procedures Act. And so it is just being violated left and right. actually back ⁓ in April of last year, the Supreme Court actually blocked people from using the Administrative Procedure Act to halt the education grant terminations, which is really frustrating. And I think that it gives a

an insight into the Supreme Court, which has obviously become this just partisan charade. ⁓ And I'm very curious to see, so this lawsuit ⁓ related to the ACIP, I have no doubt that they are going to try to appeal this decision and try to get it all the way to the Supreme Court. I'm sure hoping that it will be the most ⁓ accepting

Arghavan (27:19)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (27:42)
⁓ and most eager to please the government ⁓ if it gets to that level. And I will be very curious to see if the people who are on the Supreme Court, many of whom are old enough to remember more people with polio than I do, and even I know people who had polio or who currently are living with consequences of things like polio, I certainly have no faith that the Supreme Court is going to help us in this regard.

Arghavan (27:55)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (28:12)
And so, I don't know, the sooner we come up with any way to delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, the better, the better.

Arghavan (28:22)
Yeah, and well, I think I agree with you. I mean the supreme court is very unreliable these days, but I will say there have been a number of lawsuits that have been decided against the Trump administration that the administration has Maybe initially appealed but then dropped the appeal or just decided they're not going to appeal ⁓ Because well, I mean i'm not in their heads, but they are losing quite a lot of the appeals They're losing the majority of the cases and then they're losing a lot of the appeals. So

It does seem like they have ⁓ made some decision that like once they get some of these decisions at least that they're not gonna fight everything. ⁓ Now this case that you're talking about obviously is something that RFK Jr. is gonna feel strongly about. So it could very well be one that they keep pursuing as long as the justice system, judicial system lets them do it. ⁓ I wouldn't be surprised, but yeah, it's been interesting to also see them backing off.

Alyssa Burgart (28:54)
.

Arghavan (29:19)
of a lot of

the things that they were trying to do because they're seeing it's not going anywhere.

Alyssa Burgart (29:20)
Yeah.

It's also, I hope you're right. I think that would be a delightfully refreshing thing if like suddenly RFK Jr. was required to reappoint all of the people to the ACIP who actually had gone through a proper vetting process, who had actually gone through all of this procedural process. ⁓ And the damage is already done. ⁓

It could be, the damage could certainly be worse. And so again, like anything we do to halt that is better. And yet, you know, even in our pre-anesthesia clinic, I mean, we are just getting calls every day with like increasingly strange questions about what people think is going to happen in terms of vaccination. They think we're going to vaccinate their kids without consent, which is something that has never been allowed. ⁓

They somehow think it's easy for me to get vaccines as an anesthesiologist. I would love to vaccinate more kids whose parents want that. I would be happy to. A lot of kids have needle phobia, but it's actually really hard right now for me to do that. ⁓ So, you know, we just have so many families who have so much fear and it's not limited to places that are, you know, quote unquote, you know, red states. We're seeing it in places that have traditionally had very high vaccine uptake.

And it's very similar, for example, to during COVID, where when you saw the anti-vaccine rhetoric really pick up, there were people who felt more afraid than they would have otherwise to do something that was likely quite safe for

Arghavan (30:58)
Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yeah, and that's the intention. That's why they're talking about all these things. Yep.

Alyssa Burgart (31:04)
Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, so I thought I would read just a very brief excerpt from Judge Murphy's orders, just because I think it's delicious. So one, he has ⁓ one of the early paragraphs. He actually uses the CDC's own language to talk about vaccines.

Arghavan (31:15)
Sure.

Alyssa Burgart (31:25)
In the words of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, vaccines are one of the greatest achievements of biomedical science and public health. Since the rise of vaccine development and usage in the early to mid 1900s, the United States of America has been one of the pioneering nations to conceptualize and implement a robust immunization system that helps the nation tackle major epidemics.

And then he said, unfortunately, the government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermines the integrity of its own actions. First, the government bypassed ACIP to change the immunization schedules,

which is both a technical procedural failure itself and a strong indication of something more fundamentally problematic, an abandonment of the technical knowledge and expertise embodied by that committee. Second, the government removed all duly appointed members of the ACIP and summarily replaced them without undertaking any of the rigorous screening that had been the hallmark of the ACIP member selection for decades. Again, this procedural failure highlights the very reasons why procedures exist

and raises a substantial likelihood that the newly appointed ACIP fails to comport with governing law.

Chef's kiss. Chef's

kiss.

Arghavan (32:38)
well, thank you ⁓ for bringing all of that to us. Was there anything else from the ACIP lawsuit that you want folks to know about?

Alyssa Burgart (32:46)
No, I think those are the highlights. I'm thrilled to have some good news to share. Off-brand.

Arghavan (32:51)
Well, I appreciate it

because I do not have good news to share.

Alyssa Burgart (32:55)
Hahaha

Listen,

I mean, I've been following the news lightly this week and there were so many things where I was like, ooh, ouch, ew.

Arghavan (33:07)
It

really has been a very difficult news week, especially for survivors of sexual assault. There's been a lot of that news out there and also reproductive justice. There's been a lot of horrific stories out there. But instead of talking about any of that, we're going to talk about The Manosphere. There's a new documentary that came out on Netflix.

Alyssa Burgart (33:14)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (33:35)
by Louis Theroux, Theroux, I don't know how you pronounce this last name, it's T-H-E-R-O-U-X, and it's called Inside the Manosphere. And so it's one episode, if you will, it's an hour and a half documentary, pretty digestible. And I guess I would say that's my main criticism of it, it's very superficial. But let me tell you about what it is. So basically, it's Inside the Manosphere is the title, right? So he interviews and follows multiple

Alyssa Burgart (33:39)
you

Arghavan (34:06)
creators, if you want to call them that, who are influential in the Manosphere.

Alyssa Burgart (34:11)
The boy bosses, if you will.

Arghavan (34:14)
Yeah, I don't know that's how they would self-identify they're like they're the they're the manly men they like define masculinity and how to be a man in the modern age. ⁓ so some of these

Alyssa Burgart (34:18)
I'm sure that they wouldn't, but that's what I will call them. Tell me about all the boy bosses that are featured.

God, sounds exhausting

being a man, to be honest.

Arghavan (34:34)
so hard, you know? And at one point actually, since you mentioned that, ⁓ one of the, so Louis is like following one of these guys and they're out in the streets and there's a bunch of fans that come up and so Louis talks to some of the fans and is like, you know, tell me why you, why this resonates for you? What do you get out of this content? And, you know, the guy's talking about how it's so hard for men in the world because, you know,

Men aren't born with value. And Louie's like, what do you mean? And he's like, well, you know, we... No, no, that's not what they mean. They mean like, you're not, you have to like earn money and earn status and you have to earn things. And then he's like, do you think women have it easy? And they're like, yeah. Women are born with their value. Women are...

Alyssa Burgart (35:09)
You mean like inherent dignity?

Hmm.

Arghavan (35:33)
have value because of their beauty or as one of the people, because of their tits and their vagina, just those are the words that were used. So in their view, women have it easier in this world because we're born with reproductive organs that I guess they can take advantage of or whatever in their view, right? Whereas men, it's just so hard to be a man because you have to

earn things. Women, they're just handed the status. I mean, at one point they're talking to this guy, Jeremy, who's one of the manfluencers, I'm going to call him. yeah, one of the boy bosses. And he's talking about how...

Alyssa Burgart (36:05)
One of the boy bosses.

You

Arghavan (36:25)
Young men, they would never just be offered a trip somewhere or a ride in a Lamborghini. Jeremy, do you have a Lamborghini? I was supposed to be impressed. Young men aren't offered those things, but a woman, she could just be offered that because she showed up and she was beautiful and she could get a trip to Europe or whatever. I was like, what?

Alyssa Burgart (36:49)
Can

we pause though?

Pro tip ladies, if a random man is like, you want to ride on my Lamborghini? The answer is absolutely not, okay? That man's a predator. That man's a predator. He thinks that you

Arghavan (36:58)
Yeah, 100%.

Alyssa Burgart (37:06)
owe him something. never get in that car girls.

Arghavan (37:10)
Absolutely not. And, like, what an idea that, like, that's what people want out of life. That a ride in some creepy guy's Lamborghini is a prize that women are offered that men aren't offered. The whole framing was just so disturbing to me because I was like, I don't, I've never, I've never once been like, if only a guy would offer me a ride in a Lamborghini, I'd have it made, like, what?

Alyssa Burgart (37:26)
WITCH

Arghavan (37:40)
You know what I'm saying? But that's what they're suggesting. I mean, I know it sounds ludicrous.

Alyssa Burgart (37:43)
Well, but you know,

but this is the other thing, right? Like I have met men like this and if you're like, no good, no bro, I'm good, then they're like, well, you're a dumb bitch. You know? I mean, it's such a false fantasy story that they put together.

Arghavan (37:51)
absolutely.

Right, like that's the be all end all is for somebody to offer me a ride in a fancy car or a trip to somewhere I don't wanna go with them. And so I saw a video, I'll just say real quick, I saw a video yesterday of this woman who is, she was about to film herself in front of the Eiffel Tower. So she had her phone out, that's why she's recording. I don't know if other people do, but I'm often wondering like, why are you recording this moment? It seems like a lot of the stuff that goes viral, I'm like.

Why was a camera on? But in this case, she actually had her phone out. You can see the Eiffel Tower behind her. She was about to either take a photo or a video. And this guy comes up to her and he's asking her to go hang out with him, like a stranger. First he asks, oh, do you want me to film you? That's his in, and she's like, no, I actually don't. And he's like.

Alyssa Burgart (38:30)
you

Also, don't

hand your phone to a stranger.

Arghavan (38:45)
Yes. And then he keeps like asking her, well, I want to hang out with you. And she's like, no. And she straight up says no. And he was like, no, but I think I could show you a really good time. And she was like, no. And he just kept going. And she was like, do you understand that no means no? And he just kept going until until she said,

Alyssa Burgart (38:52)
Is she French?

That's a complete sentence.

Arghavan (39:05)
I'm a feminist, I'm not interested. And he goes, ⁓ okay then.

And then he leaves because she pulled out the I'm a feminist card. So that's another pro tip. If somebody's bothering you, if a man is bothering you and you're a woman, just let them know you're a feminist and there's no way to get them to leave faster than that. Anyway, so.

Alyssa Burgart (39:15)
⁓ wow.

Ugh.

It's like a it's like some sort of like a it's like a humane pepper spray.

I'm a feminist.

Arghavan (39:40)
That's exactly right. Okay, so you're getting a sense, you're getting a vibe for this documentary. Basically, he contacts multiple people. So one of them is this guy, Harrison, who he goes by H-S-Tiki-Taki, that's his username. And he spends like, his name is Harrison Sullivan. So he spends, Louis spends like a day, they were supposed to spend two days together and he spends the first day with Harrison and then.

sees that somebody from Harrison's team has posted some content from that day and they're getting a lot of ⁓ feedback from his followers about this guy is gonna roast you. Like you are gonna look like, you know, like he's out to get you. And so Harrison cancels the second day, shocking. And then there's this other, and there's more to come about Harrison. And then there's this guy, Justin, who I mentioned. So Justin.

Alyssa Burgart (40:20)
Okay.

Arghavan (40:34)
Interestingly, he's like, you know, people think I hate women. I love women and ⁓ I he's got this relationship with ⁓ His the mother of his children who he says he loves her he loves his two

children They're both daughters. I'm scared for them. Anyway, ⁓ he talks about how great their relationship is he in the time they're having this conversation He and Louie are not physically in the city where his wife and daughters live

because he like has his own thing, whatever. And then he talks about how, well actually, Louis actually asked him about their relationship and he talked about it as one way monogamy. Like he goes on dates, he sleeps with women, but she doesn't do any of that. She's only there for him. That's like the parameter of their.

Relationship and he's not the only one. I think it was Myron Gaines. Myron He was by the way the one who had said that women are born with this inherent value, which is their titties and their vagina ⁓

But he had a girlfriend at the time that Louis was

interviewing him. had a girlfriend and Louis gets the girlfriend ⁓ to be part of the interview. And I think some people think this was some kind of revealing moment. I didn't find it to be that revealing, but basically Myron is one of the, he's pretty extreme in his views, at least to the extent that they're presented on this, in this documentary where he's talking about women and he says like, it doesn't matter what you fucking think.

⁓ The man is the leader, the man is the dictator of the relationship. ⁓ He also says that same line about how he's not a misogynist, he loves women, but it's just that he knows what's best for women more than they do. ⁓ anyway, his girlfriend, so when the girlfriend comes on camera, Louie's asking him about, know, what do you like about him? And she says, he's not that person off camera. So she's basically saying that this is all an act.

the cameras but he that he treats her very differently

When he's talking to Myron, Myron talks about how he wants multiple wives in the future. Like he's, again, this one-way monogamy thing, but not just relationships, but he wants multiple wives. And so when the girlfriend is there, her name's Angie, Louie's asking her like, how do you feel about that? And Myron like answers for her that she's fine with it. And she goes, well, you know, he said that before. I don't know.

Alyssa Burgart (42:46)
you Okay.

Arghavan (43:07)
you know, if we get to that point, what would happen? You know, basically like, would she even stay if that's what he really wanted? But

it's like, he didn't want, and he was very resistant to having her on camera. It's like, he didn't want her to have the ability to counter his narrative at all.

Alyssa Burgart (43:22)
Well, she's

not supposed to have thoughts, to be fair.

Arghavan (43:26)
Yes, she's supposed to be there only to serve him. And he said on his podcast, that's part of the documentary, he says to a group of women, says, you all bring the same things to the table. Because of course he's thinking only of the physicality. And Louis ⁓ did push back and he was like, well, women also bring like humor and intelligence and they're not all the same. And ⁓ Myron said,

The reason why men deal with women in the first place, deal with women in the first place is their beauty and their sexuality. So erasing anything other than our physicality, which is like, this is not surprising. You know, that's what the Manosphere content is about. It's objectifying women. We're not people. It's dehumanizing and objectifying.

Alyssa Burgart (44:10)
Yes.

Well, you know, this is I want to I want to make a call back briefly to a conversation that you and I had on one of our very early episodes.

Arghavan (44:30)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (44:32)
First of all, I did not know who Myron Gaines was, and so I guess I can never forgive you, but now I do. but I wanted to call back there. When you and I were talking about how TikTok was gonna be sold,

Arghavan (44:40)
My sincere apologies.

Alyssa Burgart (44:49)
And one of the things that you talked about was how you were concerned with how was it that the algorithms were going to change? How was the content going to change? Because TikTok has taught so many women what an abusive relationship looks like and sounds like and what are the techniques that men use? And obviously, it can go both ways. are same-sex couples that can have manipulated abusive relationships. But like all these things that you're

talking about Myron Gaines, like I dated a guy like this. Very briefly, very briefly, because I was like, he was so, so nice to me for like two weeks and then some sort of a flip switched and suddenly I was like, ⁓ I don't know what this is, but this is unacceptable. ⁓ And it took me longer than two weeks to manage to safely get out of that relationship. And so when I hear,

Arghavan (45:21)
Hmm. Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (45:45)
You know, and I was very fortunate that I was able to recognize it early. I was very fortunate that I was able to get out of that relationship. ⁓ but when I hear these things that Myron Gaines apparently felt just fine saying on camera and when I hear what his partner has said, like, I mean, these are just the hallmarks of just the Manosphere is just one big bad boyfriend.

Arghavan (45:59)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly, it's one abusive boyfriend. By the way, they're not together anymore, Angie and Myron. But But it's interesting. Okay, so yes, I agree. It's one big bad boyfriend, one big abusive boyfriend. What is, okay, one thing that stood out to me,

Alyssa Burgart (46:13)
⁓ good for her.

Arghavan (46:25)
There are lot of people talking about this documentary and I wasn't really sure why. Like when I watched it, I was like, okay, these guys are jerks. We know they're jerks and you now have them on camera saying the same things they say on their podcasts and they're still jerks. And like, why? Like what was gained from this? What was the purpose? Like I'm not trying to say that in a minimizing or derogatory way. I just was, you know, from an intellectual perspective, trying to figure out like what is

Alyssa Burgart (46:30)
Mmm.

Arghavan (46:56)
the thesis, like, you know, we think about stories. What is the story that's being told here? And the only story that I saw was a bunch of atmosphere creators are jerks. And I guess maybe that's revealing to some people. I don't know. I guess I should. OK, to be fair, I'll tell you one more thing before you react to that, which is that probably the most interesting thing to me about it was revealing the extent to which

Alyssa Burgart (47:08)
Hmm.

Arghavan (47:26)
A lot of this is like fake. Like going back to this HS tiki-taki guy, Harrison, he talks about, and also I should be clear that this is, they're not just sexist, they're also racist. They're also peddling antisemitic conspiracy theories. They're also homophobic. Like Harrison said that if he had a son who was gay, he would disown him. Harrison's like 23, like, you know, he doesn't have kids.

Alyssa Burgart (47:28)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Shut up. ⁓

Okay. you

Arghavan (47:50)
He tried to, later, he tried to defend himself in some ways. And also, especially Harrison, I saw this more in him than the other folks. It seemed like he really actually does struggle, even though he hasn't admitted it, and I don't think he's even realized it yet, but that he does struggle with what he's doing, the harm he's causing for other people, because he

would say, okay, let's talk about OnlyFans for a second. So Harrison is a part owner of an agency,

that manages OnlyFans creators. And he has like a Telegram channel that was like half a million subscribers where he advertises these OnlyFans ⁓ folks. And that's all whatever, right? That's a business, it's fine. ⁓ I mean, people have whatever their thoughts are about it, but I think it's, I don't have a big personal grievance with OnlyFans. But.

Then he talks about, with Louis, he talks about OnlyFans and that it's disgusting. And again, he says that if he had a daughter who did OnlyFans, he would disown her. And Louis is like, don't you see that as problematic that you're promoting OnlyFans and you're making money off OnlyFans and then you're sitting here saying it's disgusting. And he says, no, I don't see that as a problem at all. So that part, I don't think he's clicked.

Alyssa Burgart (48:47)
. you

Arghavan (49:13)
It's not clicked for him that he's engaging in and promoting something that he himself thinks is problematic. Or maybe on some level he does understand that, but he thinks it's worth it.

Alyssa Burgart (49:23)
He thinks his problem, what you've described is he thinks it's problematic for a person that he cares about.

Arghavan (49:30)
Yes, and he only thinks it's problematic. what I wanna say is that it's not as important that it's problematic as it is that it brings him money. It's like, that's the part that matters to him. He's kind of like, ⁓ it may not be the greatest thing, but I'm making money off of it. And so that's fine. Like I'm here for me. I mean, that was the bottom line, right? For a lot of these, they're there for themselves and making money off their audience.

Alyssa Burgart (49:39)
Absolutely.

Arghavan (49:57)
And so at one point, Louis asks him, well, why don't you just like tell people how to do the right things and how to be good people instead of talking about grift and so on. And that's Harrison says. He says, I get your question, but like, I would never be where I am now if I were doing that. No one wants to watch that content. And so even though again, I'm not sure that it's all like clicked for Harrison, he does understand

Alyssa Burgart (50:06)
No money in that.

you you

Arghavan (50:27)
that he's doing something I think some part of him understands. He's doing things that are harmful. He's just justifying it for himself because in the end what he, I mean, he's just extraordinarily selfish,

right? He thinks what the impact is for him matters more than it does for anyone else. But related to that, one point, Harrison talks about how, well, his content is not for children. And he says to Louie, you saw me, there was like a kid, I don't think this was included in the documentary, but he references some episode of a 13 or 14 year old

Alyssa Burgart (50:40)
you you

Arghavan (50:57)
coming up to Harrison saying he loves their content or his content and Harrison telling him, it's not for you.

It is not for people of your age. And Louie goes, but it is. A lot of your audience is children of that age and Harrison gets really upset. And he's like, that's not true. Because again, that's that dissonance for him that he hasn't really wrapped his mind around. It's my, maybe I'm giving him too much credit, but I felt like that bothered him, the idea that.

Alyssa Burgart (51:04)
Okay. Thank

Arghavan (51:24)
He was influencing very young people,

even though he obviously is, but he's like in some kind of denial around who is watching his content. And so I think that's how he's like justified it.

If it's other adults and they make mistakes and they lose money, by the way, he like gives investment advice. That's part of what he does. And Louis at the beginning invested 500 pounds in whatever fund Harrison was recommending.

end of a few months, it dwindled down to like 120 pounds. But anyway, so he's like giving people financial advice. I mean, in all sorts of ways, he's taking advantage of people who just want something better in this life. And they have somehow stumbled upon him and his messaging has resonated. But in the end, he's harming all of them. And he can't, he hasn't quite grappled with it yet. But it seems like some part of him understands because otherwise I have a hard time explaining why he was so angry at the suggestion that young people might be listening.

Alyssa Burgart (52:03)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sure. So.

What I'm curious though is like, you said there's like, there's really no thesis. It's like, you're just getting an inside view, I guess, but it's all publicly available stuff anyway.

Arghavan (52:34)
the

interviews aren't, but like they're not inconsistent with what you see publicly. this Harrison, I guess that part, what I was sharing, that probably he's not talked about that publicly. And he clearly, Harrison was clearly upset with Louie. Anyway, go on.

Alyssa Burgart (52:38)
Sure.

is there anything at the end that makes it so I should bother to actually watch it? Because I still have not heard anything that makes this sound like, like is there like a, here's what you can do to protect your kids against the Manosphere. If you're a man who doesn't know how bad the Manosphere is, this is what I want you to know. Like, is there anything? ⁓ okay.

Arghavan (53:01)
I don't think that, no! No!

No, there is

nothing. that's like my big beef about it, to be honest, is there's, look, I think if you had no idea these people existed and you were like, wow, I didn't know there were these corners of the internet and I'm raising children, it's important for me, like there I could see value, right? Like a friend of mine has a son who is, I think 14 now, and we were having lunch a few months back.

and somehow, I don't remember why, but red pill content, which is another term for this, came up and she wasn't as aware about it. And so she asked her son, like, are you being shown this stuff on your algorithms? And he was like, yeah. And she goes,

Alyssa Burgart (53:51)
Yeah, I'm the demographic.

Arghavan (53:54)
right. And she goes, well, how do you feel about it? He was like, how do you think I feel about it? Like he hates it, right? He's a pretty with it kid. So he was like, no, it's disgusting. But she didn't know. So for someone like that who doesn't,

Alyssa Burgart (54:02)
Sure.

Arghavan (54:07)
really know what's out there. think that maybe that's who this is for, but it's not for my personal opinion. I would love to hear from our audience, but my personal opinion is it's not really for people who already know these guys exist because I don't, I didn't need to see these specific clips of these people to know they exist and that they're putting out harmful content. I already knew that. I don't know that I learned much.

Alyssa Burgart (54:12)
Hmm.

Well, but this is actually, again, I haven't watched it

It sounds like a real disappointment though, because if you have an audience that is learning about this content for the first time, especially people who are parents, people who are raising young people where this stuff's showing up in their algorithm, that's a real missed opportunity then to be like, and here's what you can do about it, or here's what parents should know, or whatever.

Arghavan (54:47)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

That was my feeling as well. Like it was interesting enough to listen to these guys and gross obviously, but it didn't, to me it felt like it didn't go anywhere. Like where are the experts? Tell me what experts think about why this phenomenon has developed. no, none whatsoever. No, it literally is just Louie talking to these guys and showing kind of how they think and what they say.

Alyssa Burgart (55:13)
⁓ there were no, there was no like expert commentary.

But no analysis.

Arghavan (55:28)
No.

Alyssa Burgart (55:30)
whatever. I'm not watching this bullshit. Okay, well, thank you for letting me know.

Arghavan (55:32)
I mean that was honestly

that was my feeling Where were the experts on why this phenomenon has developed? Where are the experts on what do we do to stop this or what? Should you do if you're a parent and you've got a kid in this age group? Like what do we do as a society because this content is extraordinarily harmful I mean one of the guys that I didn't talk about ladies this guy's snico. He thinks the world is run by Satanists and

He's got millions of followers. He thinks the world is run by Satanists.

so these are people who are putting this stuff out with huge audiences. And so, yeah, Louie, like what are we supposed to do about it?

What is the takeaway? What is something productive that comes with this? So to me, when it ended, I was like, that's it? Like, it was just like, these guys are terrible. Yes, I knew that before. I know, if you had just given me a test beforehand, like is Myron Gaines a feminist? No. Like, is somebody named H.S. Tiki-Taki a feminist? Probably not. Like that person I hadn't heard of.

Alyssa Burgart (56:12)
Sounds like a nothing burger. A testosterone-laced nothing burger.

Arghavan (56:29)
Harrison, people. But anyway, it's interesting. think people have like, thought the moments with Angie and there's a moment or like a minute maybe with Harrison and his mom. And they think that that's like revealing that these guys kind of their facade falls apart when there's women they care about in the picture.

Alyssa Burgart (56:47)
When there's an actual

real life woman around.

Arghavan (56:50)
But yeah, that was my take. think I would have loved to have seen something like it. If somebody wants to find me to do it, let me know. But something like it, but then with sociologists and social psychologists and psychologists commentary on what does the research tell us about

Alyssa Burgart (57:05)
Yeah. Okay, well, I think what we need now is a little palate cleanser.

Arghavan (57:06)
this type of content, the impact it's having on society and what we should be doing about it because that's what I really wanted to see and it was totally missing. So I'll stop ranting there.

Alyssa Burgart (57:19)
Take two, call me in the morning. What do you prescribe for me, Argavan? And our listeners.

Arghavan (57:24)
Okay,

I have two things. One is sort of a callback to where we started the show. So the WNBA has been in negotiations over the last bit of time here between the players and the corporation basically. And the WNBA for folks who don't know has been exploding in popularity over the last few years. And yet the players are very poorly paid.

And that is why folks may remember there was a women's basketball player who got stuck in Russia for a while. Because, and people are like, why was she there? Well, she was playing there because she doesn't make enough money through the WNBA to be able to just stay here in the off season. Anyway, so they just went through this big negotiation and they negotiated a huge raise across the board. Yes, exactly. Please do applaud these women.

Alyssa Burgart (57:56)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (58:19)
I'm going to pull up the exact number. believe the new minimum salary across the league is 300,000. Whereas before, it's

Alyssa Burgart (58:26)
Hell yeah.

Arghavan (58:27)
not, you know, like for professional athletes, if you're thinking about like NBA numbers or NFL numbers, it doesn't sound like a lot, but the previous league minimum was 66,000. So that's

Alyssa Burgart (58:37)
I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I just choked on that number.

I just choked on it. 66,000? Ew.

Arghavan (58:49)
I know.

I mean, that's why, right? Like, it's not surprising. You're like, no wonder people are going to other places. Like, I will tell you that one of the early videos I saw about Iran was a ⁓ US or at least North American basketball player who was playing for the Iranian women's basketball team because that's what she needed to do to get by. And she was like, they're bombing. I'm going to go home. And so, you know, like it's really outrageous what

Alyssa Burgart (59:14)
Okay.

Arghavan (59:17)
women in sports have been forced to accept. ⁓ Anyway, so congratulations to the WNBA players who are selling out stadiums all over the country because yes indeed, everyone watches women's sports no matter what you may hear misogynists say.

Alyssa Burgart (59:25)
Okay.

I choked on that 66 K number because I just looked up the median salary in 2025 to 2026 for NBA players. And let me tell you, the median, not the average, the median. So taking into account the lowest players pay and the highest players pay.

Arghavan (59:46)
Mm-hmm.

huh.

Alyssa Burgart (59:53)
nearly five million dollars. Five million dollars! The average salary when you take into account the most highly paid players, jumps up to 10.5 million for the average. So yeah, 66,000 was bullshit.

Arghavan (59:56)
my gosh.

Indeed it was. Yes, thank you for putting it so plainly. The second thing I want to share is there's a woman named Charity Akezi who, this is going to be silly. I don't know what country in Africa she's in, but you'll understand why it's silly in a second. She responds to all sorts of ludicrous comments people make about African countries. You've seen this? I love her so much. She recently re-popped up on my feed. I don't know why I hadn't seen her in my feed for a while.

Alyssa Burgart (1:00:37)
Yes.

Arghavan (1:00:44)
And she did this compilation of different absurd things people have asked her, like, do people in Africa have combs? And then she's like, no, we don't have combs. We just go find a porcupine. And then we use the nearest porcupine. And people love to ask about Africa as a country. They forget that there's multiple countries. So she has multiple videos about how Africa is a country.

Alyssa Burgart (1:01:08)
There was.

There was

a really good one that was about how is Africa governed that was hilarious.

Arghavan (1:01:14)
Yes,

yes. And one that she, just saw that she had about ⁓ Egypt, like somebody was like, is Egypt a country? And she was like, Egypt moves around actually. Right now it's in South America and then it's gonna be in Europe. The Egyptian people are just longing for a home.

Alyssa Burgart (1:01:30)
It's a wandering

uterus of a country.

Arghavan (1:01:35)
she like she's so funny and she her delivery is just so deadpan there was one I think this was her uh that I saw a couple years back that was like how do you have internet in Africa and she was like we climb up the tree like whatever she was there was a whole it was elaborate there were women with like grass skirts it was like very complicated anyway so I will put a link to at least a couple of her videos so folks can check that out what

Alyssa Burgart (1:02:03)
Fabulous.

Arghavan (1:02:03)
What would

you recommend? What should people take to a

Alyssa Burgart (1:02:06)
Sure, Well, so first of all, as we have been joking, my algorithm is becoming more Persian by the day. Okay? More Persian by the day. ⁓ And so I came across, you know, I love ⁓ quilting and knitting and crafting and I love folk art. And so a folk art historian came up who did an analysis of around the Strait of Hormuz, which is of course very big in the news right now because of the war. ⁓

it, she presented all of this information on sort of historical and cultural dress for Shia and Sunni women in that area. And they have these like really stunning facial coverings that I had just never seen before. And they're like beautifully, there's like, one group has these like embroidered fabric ones, and they have these narrow slits for eyes, which I imagine they kind of look like the coolest sunglasses you've ever seen. ⁓

And then the other group has these sort of really interesting, it's like a metal shape that goes sort of over the nose and there's an opening where the eyes go. They just look really cool and really beautiful and I really enjoyed having ⁓ the Persian-ness and the craftiness come together in the algorithm. And I thank the podcast for that. And then the other thing, if people have not seen it,

Arghavan (1:03:25)
I love that view.

Alyssa Burgart (1:03:30)
Harry Styles was on Saturday Night Live last week and did a skit that was called Mahospital, which is all about if Maha ran a hospital. And it's, I don't know why it's really funny. It's spot on. ⁓ The patient needs protein, stat. It's just hilarious. They resuscitate a man by putting a red, like an LED light on his face. Like, feel like it's a skincare routine. ⁓ One of the quotes.

inside of it, because it's all put together as though it's a like a preview for the show and it's made to look like The Pit, which is very popular right now. And so it says, if your favorite character from The Pit was the guy who punched the nurse, you're going to love my hospital. ⁓ You know, and they say like, you know, Mary Ann Williams helped write the episode and like there's a bunch of Jillian Michaels, you know, sponsored it.

Arghavan (1:04:07)
Mm-hmm.

boy.

Alyssa Burgart (1:04:25)
It's just, it's really funny. Every single thing in it is an Easter egg for the Maha movement or for the pit and best yet put together. There's a scene where Harry Styles, who's playing like the main doctor character goes, he's talking to the, one of the nurses and it says, stay in your lane. I'm the doctor here. And the nurse responds back, excuse me, I'm a certified energy healer.

Arghavan (1:04:33)
Mm.

Yeah, I guess that takes precedent.

Alyssa Burgart (1:04:58)
Anyway, it's very funny and if you are looking for a laugh in these deep dark dystopian times, it's a good one. It's a good one.

Arghavan (1:05:10)
love it. Well,

I think that's it for this week's episode. If you didn't like what you heard, this has been the Fresh and Fit podcast. If you liked it, if you liked it, don't forget to subscribe to The Present Illness. Leave us a review if you can or a rating and tell other folks to tune in.

Alyssa Burgart (1:05:20)
⁓

We know that you like this show because you tuned into the credits. You can follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. We are at the present illness. You can stay on top of all of our TPI-related news.

Arghavan (1:05:40)
We will be back once again next week with more headlines, hot takes, and doom scrolling, hopefully wrapped in some laughs.

Alyssa Burgart (1:05:47)
Until then, agitate, hydrate, take a nap. See you next time on The Present Illness. Production by Arga von Salas and Alyssa Burghardt. Editing by Alyssa Burghardt. Social media by Arga von Salas. Original music by Joseph Uphoff. Don't take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This shows for informational purposes. It's meant to be fun, and it's certainly not medical advice. Take your medical questions to a qualified professional.