elanya: Sumerian cuneiform 'Dingir' meaning divine being/sky/heaven (Axe)
elanya ([personal profile] elanya) wrote2010-06-17 05:49 pm

Open Letter to Dr. Schlegel, Chairman of Cornell University Department of Urology

Dear Dr. Schlegel

A friend of mine forwarded me a link this morning reporting on some very disturbing research being conducted through your department. I hope that I am only one among many writing to inform you of how appalling they found Dr. Dix Poppas’s “research” and practice of clitoral reduction surgeries, and the even more disturbing follow up practices.

While I can’t condone the practice of clitoroplasty on its own, I cannot find words to describe the visceral negative reaction that reading about the follow up procedure causes me. The idea that using a vibrator (however clinical the language used) to sexually stimulate a six year old girl so that, after having her clitoris cut up to suit his tastes, her doctor can then turn around and tell her she is now capable of normal sexual development is as absurd as it is appalling.

I hope that word of this research spreads, and that as department head you will do what you can to shut down this project and call the “scientists” in question to task for their involvement in this atrocity.

Sincerely,
Heather Hatch
PhD Candidate in Anthropology
Texas A&M University


Links:
Bioethics Forum: Bad Vibrations
Psychology Today: Can You Hear Us Now?
The Stranger: Female Genital Mutilation at Cornell University

[identity profile] astatine210.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)
That pretty much sums up my response.

[identity profile] elanya.livejournal.com 2010-06-17 11:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, that has pretty much been my headspace all day.

[identity profile] oscuridad.livejournal.com 2010-06-18 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
whoa...

[identity profile] gnomentum.livejournal.com 2010-06-18 09:39 am (UTC)(link)
*Speechless*

This is even legal??

[identity profile] elanya.livejournal.com 2010-06-18 12:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I like to think that an ethics review board really should have shut it down, but I don't think it went through one properly.

Apparently in the UK it is definitely illegal.

[identity profile] cheez-ball.livejournal.com 2010-06-18 05:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, it's illegal! What he did differed from what he presented to the IRB.

It's discussed at the bottom of the first page of the Psychology Today entry. And the first and second authors claim they had no knowledge of his follow up exam activities. WTF?! How can you be a first author and not know the content of your own paper?

[identity profile] rumor-esq.livejournal.com 2010-06-18 02:34 pm (UTC)(link)
This is monstrous.

Good on you for writing the letter, Lan.
Edited 2010-06-18 14:36 (UTC)