Originally posted yesterday afternoon at 3:15 PM.
That’s not fair, as Hanna Rosin at Slate will shortly point out. Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New—of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University—isn’t just trying to prevent lesbianism by treating pregnant women with an experimental hormone. She’s also trying to prevent the births of girls who display an “abnormal” disinterest in babies, don’t want to play with girls’ toys or become mothers, and whose “career preferences” are deemed too “masculine.” Unbelievable:
The majority of researchers and clinicians interested in the use of prenatal “dex” focus on preventing development of ambiguous genitalia in girls with CAH. CAH results in an excess of androgens prenatally, and this can lead to a “masculinizing” of a female fetus’s genitals. One group of researchers, however, seems to be suggesting that prenatal dex also might prevent affected girls from turning out to be homosexual or bisexual.
Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University, and her long-time collaborator, psychologist Heino F. L. Meyer-Bahlburg, of Columbia University, have been tracing evidence for the influence of prenatal androgens in sexual orientation…. They specifically point to reasons to believe that it is prenatal androgens that have an impact on the development of sexual orientation. The authors write, “Most women were heterosexual, but the rates of bisexual and homosexual orientation were increased above controls . . . and correlated with the degree of prenatal androgenization.” They go on to suggest that the work might offer some insight into the influence of prenatal hormones on the development of sexual orientation in general. “That this may apply also to sexual orientation in at least a subgroup of women is suggested by the fact that earlier research has repeatedly shown that about one-third of homosexual women have (modestly) increased levels of androgens.” They “conclude that the findings support a sexual-differentiation perspective involving prenatal androgens on the development of sexual orientation.”
And it isn’t just that many women with CAH have a lower interest, compared to other women, in having sex with men. In another paper entitled “What Causes Low Rates of Child-Bearing in Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia?” Meyer-Bahlburg writes that “CAH women as a group have a lower interest than controls in getting married and performing the traditional child-care/housewife role. As children, they show an unusually low interest in engaging in maternal play with baby dolls, and their interest in caring for infants, the frequency of daydreams or fantasies of pregnancy and motherhood, or the expressed wish of experiencing pregnancy and having children of their own appear to be relatively low in all age groups.”
In the same article, Meyer-Bahlburg suggests that treatments with prenatal dexamethasone might cause these girls’ behavior to be closer to the expectation of heterosexual norms: “Long term follow-up studies of the behavioral outcome will show whether dexamethasone treatment also prevents the effects of prenatal androgens on brain and behavior.”
In a paper published just this year in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, New and her colleague, pediatric endocrinologist Saroj Nimkarn of Weill Cornell Medical College, go further, constructing low interest in babies and men—and even interest in what they consider to be men’s occupations and games—as “abnormal,” and potentially preventable with prenatal dex:
“Gender-related behaviors, namely childhood play, peer association, career and leisure time preferences in adolescence and adulthood, maternalism, aggression, and sexual orientation become masculinized in 46,XX girls and women with 21OHD deficiency [CAH]. These abnormalities have been attributed to the effects of excessive prenatal androgen levels on the sexual differentiation of the brain and later on behavior.” Nimkarn and New continue: “We anticipate that prenatal dexamethasone therapy will reduce the well-documented behavioral masculinization…”
It seems more than a little ironic to have New, one of the first women pediatric endocrinologists and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, constructing women who go into “men’s” fields as “abnormal.” And yet it appears that New is suggesting that the “prevention” of “behavioral masculinization” is a benefit of treatment to parents with whom she speaks about prenatal dex. In a 2001 presentation to the CARES Foundation (a videotape of which we have), New seemed to suggest to parents that one of the goals of treatment of girls with CAH is to turn them into wives and mothers. Showing a slide of the ambiguous genitals of a girl with CAH, New told the assembled parents:
“The challenge here is… to see what could be done to restore this baby to the normal female appearance which would be compatible with her parents presenting her as a girl, with her eventually becoming somebody’s wife, and having normal sexual development, and becoming a mother. And she has all the machinery for motherhood, and therefore nothing should stop that, if we can repair her surgically and help her psychologically to continue to grow and develop as a girl.”
In the Q&A period, during a discussion of prenatal dex treatments, an audience member asked New, “Isn’t there a benefit to the female babies in terms of reducing the androgen effects on the brain?” New answered, “You know, when the babies who have been treated with dex prenatally get to an age in which they are sexually active, I’ll be able to answer that question.” At that point, she’ll know if they are interested in taking men and making babies.
In a previous Bioethics Forum post, Alice Dreger noted an instance of a prospective father using knowledge of the fraternal birth order effect to try to avoid having a gay son by a surrogate pregnancy. There may be other individualized instances of parents trying to ensure heterosexual children before birth. But the use of prenatal dexamethasone treatments for CAH represents, to our knowledge, the first systematic medical effort attached to a “paradigm” of attempting in utero to reduce rates of homosexuality, bisexuality, and “low maternal interest.”
So no more Elena Kagans, no more Donna Shalalas, no more Martina Navratilovas, no more k.d. langs, no more Constance McMillens—because all women must grow up to suck dick, crank out babies, and do women’s work. And the existence of adult women who are not interested in “becoming someone’s wife” and “making babies” constitutes a medical emergency that requires us to treat women who are currently pregnant with a dangerous experimental hormone. Otherwise their daughters might grow up to, um, be nominated to sit on the Supreme Court, serve as cabinet secretaries, take 18 Grand Slam singles titles, win Grammies, and take their girlfriends to prom.
And we can’t have that.
Two things: Gay people have been stressing out about the day arriving when scientists developed treatments to prevent homosexuality. The preventing gay sheep freak out is here, Twilight of the Golds is here, and I recall—but can’t quickly find a link for—a “fellow” at the Family Research Council or the American Family Association who backed in-utero hormone treatments to prevent homosexuality. Well, here we are—the day appears to have arrived. Now what are we going to do about it?
And will the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee invite Maria New to testify at Elana Kagan’s confirmation hearings? New could argue that Kagan—childless, unmarried Kagan—is unfit to serve on our highest court because her “low maternal interest” pegs her as abnormal, well outside the “maternal mainstream.” Maybe GOP senators would be mollified if Kagan knocked back a few bottles of dex during her confirmation hearings?
UPDATE: A little more about dex from Alice Dreger:
The specific drug we’re talking about, dexamethasone, is not a benign drug for pregnant women, nor for the children exposed in utero. The studies we do have on the early prenatal use of “dex” are worrisome. The number of women and children missing from the follow-up studies of this drug use is more worrisome still.
This drug is unequivocally experimental and risky. That’s why, back in February, I organized interested members of the Bioethics community to fight to make sure every woman offered dex for CAH knows the truth about its experimental and risky nature. (You can read about our efforts in Time magazine. And you can about the medical establishment’s resultant mad scampering to make sure everyone knows this is experimental here.) Make no mistake: In spite of Dr. Maria New’s outrageous FDA-regulation-flaunting claims that this off-label drug use “has been found safe for mother and child,” it ain’t been. New is a rogue pediatrician whom medical societies have been nudging (and sometimes yelling at) for years. Because she apparently wouldn’t stop experimenting on these women and children without ethics oversight, in January I got called in to help by a few freaked-out clinicians. And I called in my colleagues to call out the feds. New just looks and sounds safe for mothers and children. Which is why she’s really dangerous.
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So does anyone know a gay 3 year old? Because I surely dont! Thus this would mean they werent gay from birth and thus it isnt something that can be cured before birth (not that it needs to be cured anyways) I am just saying I dont see it as something people are born with. Noone is born gay! It is something that happens later in life, unless you can show me some gay three year olds.
Who on earth would sign up to be a test subject for a drug that will stop their children from being individuals? And isn’t testing shit like this on un-born children kind of, you know, anti-life?
Oh, my. Let’s all just hunker down to heterosex, wear dresses, and poop out litters of kids who fit their narrowly prescribed gender roles. God forbid a woman fantasize about anything else. Conformity is beautiful. Science is hard. I want a doll to play with.
Thank you, sir. May I have another?
With massive overpopulation in the world, and huge global issues like genocide, oil spills, wars, starvation, AIDS, financial recessions, etc etc etc… should anyone really be worrying about women that aren’t interested in procreating?!?
With millions of wonderful, productive, intelligent, successful gays and lesbians in the world should anyone really be worrying about the possibility of more gays and lesbians being born?
This is a sick mindset, corruption as deep as it goes. Just another way for the government to eventually control the population. Frightening! Not much different than when the government was sterilizing black women without their knowledge. I’m appauled!
Shit, it’s the Stepford Wife hormone! What planet am I on? What year is this? Where is Rod Serling hiding? This is nauseating. And here’s something not mentioned in the article (no doubt due to lack of research and information): besides intersexed conditions, the same hormones (androgens) that cause CAH and PCOS sometimes “produce” transmen and FTMs. So it’s not only lesbians and career-minded females that may be eliminated or altered. As a gay transman, this seriously concerns me. It seems it’s not just the “gay gene” researchers we need to fear, it’s the ones that would try to make all of us “normal”.
It all sounds incredibly unethical. I wonder how she even got approval for a human subjects trial.
Dexamethasone used to be used to enhance fetal lung maturity in babies which were expected to be born prematurely but was replaced years ago by another steroid; Betamethasone, which is far more effective and has less negative side-effects.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cg…
I have no idea who this Dr. New is, and she may indeed be an unethical, eugenics-minded lunatic. But I feel the need to play devil’s advocate and point out that her comments as quoted in the article indicate someone who is merely researching all the effects of dex. Does she anywhere openly advocate the use of this drug in order to prevent a fetus from developing into a lesbian? That fact that her research might open up the possibility of an “anti-gay” drug is alarming, but I still don’t see any proof that that’s why she’s engaging in it.
I dont know how she (Dr New) has the time to do all this – i.e. research and articles – surely if she believes so much in what she is doing then she should be at home with her 100 kids, doing the cleaning and washing and satisfying her husband.
“that will stop their children from being individuals”
But aborting them and stopping them from even being people….let’s wear a ‘I had an abortion’ t-shirt and celebrate that!
BWT, what about cleft lips, should we leave those alone?
It’s what happens when we pathologize normal variation. Some people still consider being GLBT a pathology, not a normal variant. Intersexuality is also pathologized. The Deaf community consider that they are a variant,not a pathology–though the hearing community tends to want to “cure” deafness. It’s always value judgements.
But this woman is something.
“The challenge here is… to see what could be done to restore this baby to the normal female appearance which would be compatible with her parents presenting her as a girl, with her eventually becoming somebody’s wife, and having normal sexual development, and becoming a mother. And she has all the machinery for motherhood, and therefore nothing should stop that, if we can repair her surgically and help her psychologically to continue to grow and develop as a girl.”
CAh is a pathology, being gay is not… where does she draw the line?
Straight. Female. Celibate. Work in a university health research department.
Can’t believe this. It’s not science, it’s not ethical, and it shouldn’t even be legal.
@12 the only reason homosexuality could be a sin is because people CHOOSE to assume it’s unnatural. Except it happens in nature all the time. They take what is a rather neutral behavior – sex, and turn it into something ridiculously over important. Sex, is an activity and a behavior and if people weren’t so hung up on religion it would be like playing soccer or driving a car. Religion is A HUMAN INVENTION. And humans are idiots.
I’ve taken dex before and…it’s Seriously Bad Mojo (it pissed with my autonomic functions); the thought of anybody giving this to a child is baffling. And for the record? I never once thought ‘shite – I need children1!!’
Dexamethasone is a corticosteroid. Will you block androgens? Yes. Will you cause a host of other issues? Hell yes. For an adult person corticosteroids (and dexamethasone is a strong one) can cause osteoporosis, adrenal insufficiency upon removing the drug, mood problems such as “roid rage”, and a whole host of issues. Imagine putting that into a developing embryo whose system is far more delicate. This sickens me deeply. We don’t even allow parents to slob dexamethasone cream all over the kids with eczema, it is too strong but we can give this to pregnant women and their fetuses? How sickening.
I found this interesting:
“CAH occurs equally often in XX and XY individuals.”
(from: http://www.isna.org/faq/medical_risks/ca…)
And yet it looks as if she is only targeting XX fetuses.
101
My best friend has known she was a lesbian since age 5.
Thank you and goodnight. 😉
If only they could give pregnent women a drug that would guarantee the child would grow up to be rational. That would put an end to Christianity.
Nice of them to prove the biological basis for homosexuality and that it is, in fact, NOT a choice.
Nazis in 2010?? I thought we solved this problem!
@101
Ever come across a ‘straight’ 3 year old? Little boy having sex with a little girl?
I think not.
Sexual development occurs around puberty, and most would argue that one is developing a sexuality that is already there, but dormant. Very, very basic biology.
Of course, someone might have said pediatric endocrinology was a “masculine” career choice back in the day…
Anyone ever wonder what size a clit is ^supposed^ to be? I did, knowing that as my boyfriend puts it – I have a BBW clit. (No I’m not fat (I’m a size 6), I just have a PHAT clit). I was born as a question mark by the way – I was majorly swelled and for 2 days my mother was worried I was intersex. My sister has PCOS so it’s likely that my crazy libido, big clit, bad acne, lack of maternal urge, and my general sexual preference for women are all due to a very slightly elevated androgen level.
I hope it never gets fixed! Thanks Mom for not snipping me! Best birthday gift ever!!! RIP, I love you Mom!
Unbelievable! I can’t understand why somebody would want to do that to a woman. What is wrong with women being who they are? Huh?
Well, fuck her with a telephone pole. The whole goddam article is describing ME. I have zero interest in babies, never played with dollies or horsies (I wanted Hot Wheels, goddammit), I’ve been in a traditionally “male” field for 30 years (it’s still 90% male – I’m an engineer), and I’m bisexual. So I guess I should have just gone on the goddamned compost heap at birth.
What a weird fucking thing to be working on. With all the problems the world has, people are worried about a handful of women who DON’T want to reproduce? One thing the world does not have a shortage of is people wanting to reproduce. Instead of changing a benign (possibly even beneficial) variance from the norm like this, why not spend your efforts trying to eradicate a really horrific genetic disease?
What a waste.
…also, the idea of waiting several decades to see if there are unfortunate side effects rather sickens me. Ever hear of DES? Thalidomide?
Yet one more example of the criminalization of intersexuals, from the start. Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, and the ambiguous genitalia that sometimes occurs, is an intersex condition. We’re already subjected to hormone treatments, surgery, and psychological attempts at “normalization” without our expressed consent as it stands, now! This crazy bitch comes along and takes all that one step further?! This is nothing short of an OUTRAGE! Funny, isn’t it? That, under typical circumstances, people like this would be considered to have a particularly harmful form of Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder. However, if they run in conservative circles and serve those particularly inhumane ideals, then all is well. How can we honestly allow this any longer?
What do you expect from a society that smiles upon killing a child in the womb? They are either people or not, make up your mind.
Josef Mengele reincarnated????
Well what IDIOT mother would allow experiments to be done???!!! As far as the pre-destination…I played with dolls..went to prom…cheerleader…even yes…stripper…I am currently in a 17 year relationship with 3 children…a LESBIAN relationship…WHOA!!! Whatever!! God doesn’t make mistakes in all that He creates and those who choose to interfere seal their own fate…so I’m not too worried about this “science” progressing…People playing God will get what’s coming to them…
Hmmmmm but just think of what could happen if a cell of gay Terrorists got our… their hands on these drugs. We could use the hormones to create a legion of little nelly boy births!
As a wife, and a mother, and a homemaker, I find this study completely fucking offensive. I chose this lifestyle for myself, without some drug dictating that I should. Does that make me “normal”? Or does that make me a person who exercised their right to free choice and decided on a course for my life?
People who aren’t wives, or mothers, or homemakers are not abnormal. They simply chose a different lifestyle for themselves than I did. That makes them just as normal as I am. Just as much a person exercising their right to choose what they do with their life.
I really don’t give a shit if my kids (two boys and a girl) turn out gay, straight, pansexual or asexual. As long as they’re happy, I’ll be content with that.
@ TubularEverything – First of all, we don’t SMILE on abortion. I’m a member of the “Pro-Choice” crowd that believes that it is the woman’s choice (though, hopefully, she consults the father and considers his wishes, as well) whether to have a child or not. The planet is over-populated and no child deserves to be brought up in a household where they are unwanted; nor should a woman be forced to raise a child conceived during a rape if she doesn’t want to be constantly reminded of a horrible experience. However, I do not support in-utero experimentation and abortion of a child for frivolous reasons (such as the possibility the child could be intersexed, which is happening!). This attempt to heterosexualize people is just sickening! Live and LET LIVE. Whatever happened to that?
@ 130 – Funny that you failed to mention possible intersexual or even transgendered when you said that. Don’t misread me, though. Your statements are virtuous, nonetheless. I’d probably love being your kid. 😉
How on earth can this be medically ethical? Hasn’t this woman ever heard of Joseph Mengala I am not a lipstick lesbian (though I more on the femme side) nor a “butch” lesbian — What is her explanation for women like me? I chose not to have children — because my father beat the crap out of me and I did not want to perpetuate the cycle. I also have never had a desire to be pregnant with all the “horrors” that entails. I have no interest in taking care of a screaming baby, changing diapers, — I admire those that do but I am selfish with my time, energy, and resources — WHY would I subject a child to my selfishness — we have enough straight people in the world that do that. I have always worked “pink collar” jobs nothing that would be considered outside the norm. I chose not to marry because I didn’t want someone else taking my hard earned money and now the government tells me I can’t. I have one baccalaureate degree and working on a second — So according to this “doctor” (and I use that term very very very loosely) because of my independent thinking qualities I’m not a real woman — Well F*CK you. I am happy and healthy and don’t need her to say otherwise. Once again the government/doctors don’t always know best and can’t fix everything — and need to stay out of a woman’s reproductive system.
@132 I don’t often run into those conditions, so I don’t think about them often. That said, I do have a friend (we’ve lost touch somewhat, being so far apart these days) who was born a hermaphrodite, but was raised male. I didn’t know about this for a long time. So it was something of a paradigm shift when he finally told me he felt like a she, and I’ve tried to make it as best I can. (She understands my occasional slips with pronouns, since I met her as a him. 🙂
How can I do less for my kids?
Intersex is not something I think I’ll ever have to help my kids deal with personally. They seem to be fairly physically “normal” (though I HATE to phrase it like that, I can’t think of another way). Transgendered? Maybe. But if something happens during puberty (still some years away), I’ll cross that bridge when it comes. I haven’t been in that situation as a parent (though I have with being a friend.) Maybe I won’t handle it as well as I think I would, even though I’m a fairly liberal-minded person. But I like to think that I’d be okay with it, and help my kids as best I can to adjust and feel loved for who they are, not who everyone else thinks they should be.
“abortion of a child for frivolous reasons”
What, like you’re too busy working, hanging with your friends shopping so would rather spend your money on other things?
Those all seem pretty frivolous for a human life to be taken.
“Once again the government/doctors don’t always know best and can’t fix everything — and need to stay out of a woman’s reproductive system.”
Unless you want to murder the same fetus, then you probably want the doctor to get in the way right?
For those of you who believe Homosexuality is a sin: http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosex…
@124: Thalidomide was a result of people not understanding chirality. One enantiomer of Thalidomide cured morning sickness, the other caused birth defects. If you have the useful form in enantiomeric excess, it’s a perfectly good drug.
Here, the potential problems associated with this drug are well-known. There is no excuse.
@135: No, more like women who do not have the financial or psychological resources to raise a child, or who are not physically capable of safely carrying a child to term. Stop perverting the natural function of the anus and get your head out of there.
” like women who do not have the financial or psychological resources to raise a child”
So what about women who don’t have the psychological resources to raise a gay baby, or one with Downes Sydrome, can they abort?
I guess technically this drug works.. seeing as reading this article makes me go from not wanting to have children, to wanting to have tons of little tomboys and gaybies out of spite.
@132 Since my initial shock upon reading Dan’s post, I’ve been reading up on CAH in XX fetuses. I’m now truly surprised that nothing regarding intersexed individuals had been brought up sooner! From a 6-18-2010 Time article, “A Prenatal Treatment Raises Questions of Medical Ethics”:
The early prenatal use of dexamethasone, or dex, has been shown to prevent some of the symptoms of CAH in girls, namely ambiguous genitalia. Because the condition causes overproduction of male hormones in the womb, girls who are affected tend to have genitals that look more male than female, though internal sex organs are normal. (In boys, in contrast, the condition leads to early signs of puberty, such as deep voice, body hair and enlarged penis by age 2 or 3.) But while the prenatal treatment may address girls’ physical symptoms, it does not prevent the underlying, medical condition, which in some severe cases can be life-threatening, nor does it preclude the need for medication throughout life.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/…
@132 Since my initial shock upon reading Dan’s post, I’ve been reading up on CAH in XX fetuses. I’m now truly surprised that nothing regarding intersexed individuals had been brought up sooner! From a 6-18-2010 Time article, “A Prenatal Treatment Raises Questions of Medical Ethics”:
The early prenatal use of dexamethasone, or dex, has been shown to prevent some of the symptoms of CAH in girls, namely ambiguous genitalia. Because the condition causes overproduction of male hormones in the womb, girls who are affected tend to have genitals that look more male than female, though internal sex organs are normal. (In boys, in contrast, the condition leads to early signs of puberty, such as deep voice, body hair and enlarged penis by age 2 or 3.) But while the prenatal treatment may address girls’ physical symptoms, it does not prevent the underlying, medical condition, which in some severe cases can be life-threatening, nor does it preclude the need for medication throughout life.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/…
If this Mengele-style “doctor” would follow her own reasoning, she wouldn’t be a doctor but be at home barefoot and pushing out babies. Or, at the very best, she’d be a nurse taking orders from her misogynistic jerk of a male doctor boss who pinches her butt every time she walks by. Oh – and she’d be wearing the Halloween costume version of a nurse’s uniform that has the built-in push-up bra. This is Nazi stuff, people – why isn’t this woman in jail?
Oh – and for the record – this childless woman who can’t stand babies or small children, and is in a traditionally “masculine” profession (oh, horror, I’m educated with a PhD, get the net) is happily married – to a man. So, one out of four isn’t bad, I guess.
what a totally screwed up bunch of women and the Dr…also….
@60 – say hell no!! of course. Only ignorant people are taking this drug I’ll wager. No one smart would do something like that to their fetus. Oh – and though I’m straight I still fall under that umbrella – hated dolls and never daydreamed about marrying. Even wore boys clothes until I was about 22…
The appropriate medical organisations (American Academy of Pediatrics, the various endocrinology groups, and so on) have issued a statement that prenatal dexamethazone should only be given for congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH)in regulated, ethics-cleared (IRB) studies at large centers planning to do long-term (to adulthood) followup of the study patients.
Management of post-birth children with CAH has controversies, and the drug regimens are variable. To me, it would seem obvious that the major issues are dealing with the severe “salt-losing” kind of CAH, and preventing precocious puberty and the curtailed growth that results from very early puberty. Policing functional external genitalia is simply NOT medically appropriate for children and should NOT be the concern of anyone other than the adult with unusual but functional genitalia plus the capacity for true informed consent.
One question for New and Meyer-Bahlberg: CAH women have a significantly lower rate of fertility (in those heterosexual women with active partner and with adequate anatomy to allow PIV sex), and the more severe the CAH, the lower the rate. What happens if the prenatal therapy makes CAH women more “gender-normed”, maternal, etc, but doesn’t change the reduced fertility? The CAH women desiring children would simply face more frustration, and might envy gender-variant CAH women who are perfectly happy without children.
Short-term prenatal corticosteroids are commonly used to accelerate lung maturation in unstable situations where pre-term birth is likely. There’s no question that outcomes are better in neonates with adequate lung development. There have been questions about reduced short-term memory in non-CAH recipients of short-term prenatal corticosteroids, but the advantages of good oxygenation (mature lungs), in terms of decreased brain hemorrhages and general brain development, far outweigh any possible subtle changes seen in retrospective studies.
#19 wrote “To what degree do we embrace science as truth, and to what degree reject it? Do these decisions change when we don’t agree with the results?”
You misunderstand. Science is fundamental research with no predetermined outcome; the goal is to expand our knowledge and understanding. This isn’t science, it’s technology: using a particular method to achieve a specific outcome. We accept or reject any given technology by balancing the desirability of the outcome and the severity of the risks.
Those who want to geek out on this stuff (21-hydroxylase deficiency) can read
http://tinyURL.com/26lxzuv (The Online Metabolic and Molecular Bases of Inherited Disease)
http://tinyurl.com/27343l4 (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man)
http://tinyurl.com/2fn6obr (Merck Manuals Online Medical Library)
The last of these says “Dexamethasone is used only in postpubertal adolescents and adults.” They write that this drug has been associated with conditions such as adrenal suppression, immunosuppression, myopathy (problems with muscle development), problems with kidney function and salt balance, Kaposi’s sarcoma, and psychiatric disturbances. A list of adverse reactions is here: http://tinyurl.com/2csp6hz.
On the website of the people who are doing these experiments, they write “Dr. New maintains contact with all children treated prenatally, and has found not permanent adverse effects of treatment on mother or fetus. Thus, with nearly 20 years’ experience, the treatment has been found safe for mother and child.”
But Alice Dreger, Ellen K. Feder, and Anne Tamar-Mattis wrote “In the Q&A period, during a discussion of prenatal dex treatments, an audience member asked New, “Isn’t there a benefit to the female babies in terms of reducing the androgen effects on the brain?” New answered, “You know, when the babies who have been treated with dex prenatally get to an age in which they are sexually active, I’ll be able to answer that question.”
The Merck website says that dexamethasone has a category C pregnancy risk factor. pregnancy.org describes category C this way: “Studies in animals have shown an adverse effect but no studies have been done on pregnant women or no animal studies have been done and there are no adequate studies in pregnant women.”
You know, its interesting that she talks about the “traditional mother and housewife role” of women, when she is a doctor. Why isnt SHE home watching her kids or cooking for her husband? in fact, why doesnt she leave all this silly medical stuff to the men, who are obviously better qualified to take over this position and do this research, because women are too stupid to know these things
Thats it. there is no God.
Now all we need to do is find a cure for Liberalism.
I remember a story from a genetics textbook where the women in this one village thought that if they drank bull’s blood (ew) during their pregnancy, they’d be more likely to have a boy (which they wanted.) The high levels of testosterone affected the development of the forming genitals, and at that stage where the vulva *stays open* in a girl, the testosterone cause it to close over (as it does in a male fetus when the scrotum is formed.) So these were genetically girls, but the chemical had forced a change in the appearance of the external genitalia, making them appear to be male, although they were XY girls.
I would think that these babies being treated by Dr. New, no matter what levels of hormones are present, are going to be “hard wired” to be a certain way, and while the DEX may affect their appearance outwardly, what evidence is there that this will be anything but a cosmetic change?