a new report is sounding the alarm on the 59 crisis pregnancy centers operating across the state the Planned Parenthood action fund of New Jersey calls them anti-abortion centers and fake Health Facilities that discourage pregnant people from getting abortion services but it also alleges the unlicensed medical locations are giving patients inaccurate information about their health that could lead to larger public health problems joining me for more on the report is Jackie Cornell executive director of Planned Parenthood New Jersey Jackie Cornell thanks for joining me you know these anti-abortion centers crisis pregnancy centers they're not new they've been around for some time and in fact uh leaders from the State Attorney General's office even issued a warning so what was the the purpose of issuing this report and doing a deep dive I'll call it on them yeah thanks so much Brian for for having me on today and uh for raising this up and Parenthood often times gets sort of pigeonholed into just of talking about abortion access which is obviously because of the fall of Row one of the big things that we that we do and that we that we tackle but there's a lot that we care about um maternal and infant mortality um cancer rates uh and and STI rates you know and so when we were looking at the increasing rates of STI and we were kind of diving into what was going on one of the things that came up was the fact that many of the anti-abortion centers or crisis pregnancy centers uh that exist here in New Jersey and as the report indicated they outnumber Planned Parenthood Health Centers uh 3 to one in the Garden State they claim to do STI testing when they're doing those testing they're not regulated facilities and to our knowledge they're not employing licensed professionals licensed medical professionals and so at a time when TI numbers are increasing it just raises a lot of concerns about public health yeah is the concern that it's misleading consumers um not just in terms of reporting accurately Public Health Data back to state and federal Regulators but also in terms of the services that they're providing because that's essentially what the Attorney General laid out in that consumer warning so the Attorney General laid out the warning saying that they often times use decep advertising um one of the things that Planned Parenthood uh Health Center staffers have talked about anecdotally for for years if not decades is the mobile Vans or units that these centers typically use and park outside of Planned Parenthood Health Centers and so those vans um oftentimes will have uh folks maybe volunteers maybe employees again no one really knows who these folks are um parked outside of Health Centers and we'll say to individuals who are walking out oh is is there a line why don't you come here and so the patient um you know who might be in a hurry maybe have kids at home you know all of the demands of the day unknowingly goes into the van thinking that it's a health care provider you know it's disruptive and it's uh it's it's it's upsetting yeah so is there a call to action through report or is it purely to raise awareness our biggest concern right now is what is happening with those STI uh tests um what is the treatment option no one knows um and the unchecked uh you know if it's not a medical professional and again if they're not licensed facilities are they licensed professionals no one knows they're essentially unregulated um and so the report really just tries to pose uh and outline what we think we know um and tries to ask regulators and stakeholders to start to examine and ask more probing questions that only the state and legislators can do Jackie Cornell is with the Planned Parenthood action fund Jackie thank you so much really appreciate it thank you again