CPCs and the Risk of HPV

New information from The Guardian reveals just how dangerous unregulated clinics like Crisis Pregnancy Centers or Pregnancy Resource Centers can be. EXCERPTS below.

Until five years ago, Kentucky was one of the few states that did regulate pregnancy centers, but that changed in 2018 when legislators passed a law that erased the licensing requirements as part of a broader push to make it easier for hospitals to expand. Now in Kentucky, as in most of the country, pregnancy centers don’t have to be directly licensed, instead providing medical services under the professional licenses of their staff and volunteers.

Rames first got an inkling that ALC wasn’t being as careful as it should be when she said she noticed that staff weren’t using the right type of lubricant gel on the probe that was inserted into a client’s vagina. Instead, they were using gel meant for external abdominal ultrasounds and squirting it from refillable containers that, according to ultrasound industry guidelines, might not be sterile enough for transvaginal procedures.

Then, at home, Rames said she made yet another disturbing discovery. MetriCide OPA Plus wasn’t the right disinfectant for the pregnancy center’s purposes. A special report from the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine warned that ortho-phthalaldehyde, MetriCide’s active ingredient, has “virtually no efficacy against” HPV.

First, she went to the state, but the Kentucky cabinet for health and family services no longer had the authority to investigate her allegations against ALC because of the 2018 law that eliminated licensing requirements for pregnancy centers.

The medical board closed the case without disciplinary action. Neither the board nor Kotheimer returned Reveal’s messages for comment.

But the boards’ failure to take action against ALC’s medical director and nurse manager doesn’t mean Rames’s concerns weren’t valid, health policy experts said. Teneille Brown, a law professor and bioethicist at the University of Utah, noted that institution-wide problems, such as sloppy infection control or poor maintenance of medical equipment, can’t be addressed by only regulating staff and volunteers.

“Imagine that a popular restaurant had an outbreak of food poisoning. The state wouldn’t hold an individual server accountable. It would hold the entire restaurant accountable,” Brown said. “It’s the same in medicine. But if the clinic is not regulated or required to have a license, good luck deterring risky practice by putting pressure on individuals.”

After months of trying to get authorities to act, Rames said she felt deflated by the fact that ALC would continue to operate without external oversight.