The Present Illness

Pediatrician Dr. Lara Jones discusses advocating to free children from ICE detention facilities. Follow her @AskLaDoctora.

Kids in ICE Detention

• The 19th: These pediatrician moms have a shared message: Release all children in immigration detention
• Letter to DHS
• The Marshall Project April 2026: Data on child detention
• Families describe conditions at Dilley
• More on Drs. Jones, Patel and Cozzo
• Core Civic: the private prison company raking in cash running ICE detention facilities
• Find out if your representatives have taken cash from the companies fueling ICE’s mass deportation efforts
• Check out our previous episodes (E20 & E25)

Get kids out of ICE detention

• Call your representatives (202)-224-3121. Public pressure really works and has led to recent releases of children and congressional hearings on this issue! 
• Text “GO ESH” TO 50409 to send your congress members a letter telling them to end child detention
• Sign Ms Rachel's petition
• Find pre-written advocacy letters by the team on Chili to help organize collective action on child detention
• Donate to commissary funds for families in Dilley (Each Step Home)
• Talk to one person you know about this. Remain curious and center the children.
• Are you a local organizer? Bring your ideas to us let us know how we can support you locally in the community

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Dr. Jones goes on a walk with her toddler
• Dr. Burgart talks about seeing a Giant Sea Bass in Catalina - they can grow to up to 7.5 feet long and 560 lbs!

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Credits

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

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Crossing our fingers to avoid nuclear war; Pentagon goes after the pope; Artemis sends back dope pictures of the moon and earth

Iran

• Trump violates international law, says unhinged stuff
• Iranian government offers citizen sacrifice
• 23% Americans support Trump on Iran
• US bombs Pasteur Institute, Sharif University
• Israel bombs Lebanon

Sampler of Bad Things

• Nazi Kanye West
• Grocery, fuel prices
• Insider trading
• Pentagon threatens Pope (Avignon Papacy)
• ICE denies/delays medical care
• JD Vance for Orban

Sampler of Good Stuff

• Dems call for impeachment/25th amendment
• Election wins
• Driscoll fights Hegseth
• Arghavan’s post with Jim Lovell’s comments and video of the Artemis II crew naming Carroll

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning

• Artemis II mobile wallpapers, Flickr
• Eddie is not a morning dog
• Unicorn Day

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

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Credits

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

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

IOC resumes harmful sex gene testing; forced c-sections with zoom court rooms; The Lancet profiles our host!; A woman goes to the moon; Alyssa recommends bioethics books

The Lancet profiles Arghavan!

Sally Ride, 100 tampons (song)

IOC sex testing

• International Olympic Committee’s new policy 
• Andrew Sinclair’s essay 
• Tested podcast 
• Caster Semenya
• Imane Khelif
• Eero Mäntyranta
• Steven van de Velde allowed to compete in 2024
• Fact Check: The Namibian runner is Christine, not Christina, Mboma. Also, astronaut Victor Glover is the first Black person to reach the moon!

Forced C-sections

• Court ordered C-sections & hearings
• Rinat Dray
• Refusal of Medically Recommended Treatment During Pregnancy

Book recommendations

• Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography 
• Policing the Womb
• Medical Bondage
• Radical Reproductive Justice
• Fatal Invention 
• Killing the Black Body 
• Medical Apartheid

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Dogs
• Kit Kat heist
• Geese migration
• Steller Sea Lions

Text us!

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
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Mayo medical student’s videos go viral in the bad way; medical misogyny; Match Day memories; ICE at the airports; husbands learn about pelvic exams

Mayo Medical Student:

• Dr. Chloe Nazra Lee on Nick Baumel and medical misogyny
• Gynogirl on DSM5
• Dr. Shannon Clark
• Dr. Jenn Lincoln
• Feminist Midwife on pelvic care
• Dr. Milhouse’s video
• Lindsey Shelton’s video
• Alyssa’s Ethics Consult
• Men trying to understand stirrups

ICE in America's Airports:

• SAVE America Act
• The Brennan Center puts the SAVE America act into context
• Longest TSA wait times in history
• Woman detained by ICE at SFO
• Project 2025
• Arghavan’s round-up on ICE at airports (including Steve Bannon’s comments)
• Tragic LaGuardia accident
• Travel tips in the ICE era
• ACLU’s summary of your rights dealing with ICE at the airport
• Information on our rights from the National Immigration Law Center
• Summary of changes to USPS that could affect mail-in voting
• Trump’s crusade against mail-in voting

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Druski’s Erika Kirk video
• Druski’s NASCAR/redneck video
• Unicorn Day origin story and what it’s like

Fact check: Michael Flynn is being paid $1.25 million, not $1.5 million

Text us!

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
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

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

Text us!

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
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Stryker cyber attack by Handala Hackers; Iran’s new supreme leader - is he even alive?; DOGE dummy Justin Fox can’t explain DEI; Timmy Chalamet messes with the wrong opera house

DOGE & DEI:

• Arghavan’s video about the DOGE bro who can’t even define DEI

Stryker Attack:

• Ransomware Attacks and Data Breaches in US Health Care Systems
• Al Jazeera reporting
• How ‘Handala’ Became the Face of Iran’s Hacker Counterattacks
• Cybercrime integration in Iran’s government

Iran Power:

• Summary of Mojtaba Khamenei’s statement
• English translation of Mojtaba Khamenei’s full statement
• Overview of Mojtaba Khamenei via NYT
• Summary of Iranian women’s soccer team situation
• Iranian women’s soccer team lands in Malaysia
• Arghavan’s video about the Iranian women’s soccer team
• Khamenei senior had expressly stated in the past he did not want his son to succeed him because that goes against the Islamic revolution, part of which was to end hereditary succession.
• Trump had said appointing Mojtaba was “unacceptable” to him, which may have further incentivized the Islamic Republic of Iran to choose him.

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Smiling Kokaka (quokka eating a leaf)
• Rodent eating peas in a pod
• Summary of Timothée Chalamet’s ballet and opera controversy
• Seattle Opera’s Timothee promo
• Metropolitan Opera’s post
• Antarctica Dive
• Rescued Marine Veterinarian

Text us!

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
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Our first guest is Dr. Kaveh Hoda of The House of Pod! Persian Tarof culture; a new supreme leader in Iran; the US can't decide on its war messaging; a disagreement over favorite Persian foods.

• Iran episode on The House of Pod
• Israeli oil strikes in Tehran
• All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
• Iranian women's soccer players labeled traitors
• Churchill’s Hiccup/ Winston's Sneeze
• Samin Nosrat’s top 10 Persian recipes

Text us!

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
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Overnight war with Iran; Casey Means’ confirmation hearings; Newsom sucks

• Hillary & Bill Clinton
• Newsom diminishes trans people
• Kansas revokes trans people’s driver’s licenses

War in Iran

• Iranians celebrate
• School bombing; graves
• Golestan Palace damaged
• IRGC threats
• Latest tally of deaths
• US sinks unarmed Iranian ship
• WH's video game
• Breaking Veteran's arm

Casey Means

• Senate confirmation hearing
• Carte Blanche
• Strong’s The Bad Science of Casey Means’ Good Energy
• Means’ exit from residency
• MAHA, Means, and Money

💊Take Two & Call Me in the Morning

• Tiny Chef wins multiple Emmys; acceptance speech; dances/exercises; cancelled
• Doctor falling asleep under anesthesia
• Waiting for the beat to drop in MRI

Text us!

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
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

State of the Union bingo card; US Mens Hockey squanders the good vibes; RFK Jr’s HHS gets sued yet again for illegally messing with vaccination; Punch updates; Angry Quilters; Gen Z slang

Men’s Hockey Squanders Good Will

• Some of the US men’s hockey team reactions to the response to their “locker room talk”
• Ellen Hughes’s comments
• Hilary Knight’s reaction to the US men’s hockey team
• Arghavan’s post about the US men’s hockey team cavorting with the president
• Hockey mom Sara Wiles
• Andy Murray knows how to stand up for women

Another Lawsuit Against Antivax HHS:

• AGs Kris Mayes (AZ)and Rob Bonta (CA) announce lawsuit against HHS
• FDA’s refusal to evaluate Moderna flu vaccine (and later reversal of this decision)
• Moderna no longer investing in new late-stage vaccine trials

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning

• Arghavan’s post summarizing the story of Punch, the little monkey abandoned by his mother
• QuiltCon: The Quilters are angry
• Gen Z writes the Pasco Library script
• 77 year old art curator Alison Luchs uses Gen Z slang to teach

Text us!

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
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Go Team USA! Weird Workout with RFK Jr; ICE harming kids in detention; Gisele Pelicot speaks out about her husband's abuse

• Hilary Knight is the greatest US women’s hockey scorer ever
• RFK Jr and Kid Rock working out

Dystopian Daycare in Dilley

• Hundreds of kids detained > 20 day Flores rule limit.
• Two measles cases confirmed at the Dilley family detention center
• 2-month-old Juan Nicolás developed respiratory illness requiring hospitalization. Family deported immediately after hospital release.
• 18 month old Amalia, also sick with respiratory illnesses, discharged back to ICE custody and allegedly denied needed meds after hospitalization.
• Read letters written by children in ICE detention facility

Pelicot’s Book Release

• A review of Gisèle Pelicot’s book: A Hymn to Life
• Mme Pelicot’s interview with the New York Times
• Daughter Caroline Darian’s book: I’ll Never Call Him Dad Again
• Philip Young pleads guilty
• The Telegram group with 70,000 men giving tips on how to SA women
• Swedish man accused of selling sex with his wife
• German man convicted of drugging and raping his wife

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning

• Arghavan’s carousel of “First in my bloodline” (the tweet)
• Eileen Gu laughs at journalist after winning 2 silver medals

Text us!

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
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else.