Accountability 101

Miriam Grossman, M.D., author of Unprotected, is fed up with the politically correct expectations of psychiatry, which have led her to avoid discussing the psychological ramifications of faith, promiscuity, abortion, and infertility with her patients at UCLA. Her book was originally released in November 2006 under the pseudonym Anonymous, M.D., because Dr. Grossman feared the professional repercussions of admitting that she wrote it. As such, the book is written with the open candor of anonymity, clearly focused on an altruistic goal: preparing men and women to make informed decisions about their sexuality.

“If we want to be successful in confronting the mental and physical health crisis of students, we need straight talk with all the sobering facts,” writes Dr. Grossman. This would be a unified agenda, minus political polarization or radical ideas, because “People are more complicated than ideology, and psychotherapists are supposed to know that.”

Some of the scientific discoveries which health professionals rarely discuss include:

• Sodomy is linked to HIV infection, because the intestinal lining contains M cells which “latch onto the virus, take it in, and deliver it to target cells” directly, a veritable “FedEx” process. The vaginal lining contains no M cells and has a thick 45 cell lining, making HIV “unable to reach target cells in the human vagina under normal circumstances.” Despite this knowledge, the Center for Disease Control launched a media campaign “America Responds to AIDS,” designed to convince Americans that “Anyone can get AIDS.”

• Women secrete a ‘love potion’ chemical which conditions them to love, trust, and affiliate more strongly with their romantic partners. This chemical, oxytocin, is so strong that “after a while, all it takes for it to be released is catching sight of the man” which releases “a rush of agonizing feelings of attachment.” This makes women more susceptible to emotional manipulation within romantic relationships.

• Younger women are more likely to get STD’s, because their cervix contains a larger “transformation zone” of cells vulnerable to infection. This zone decreases as women age. Therefore, waiting even a year or two to become sexually active can have profound physical consequences.

• Studies have shown that faith can have a positive effect on mental well-being. Two University of Pennsylvania neuroscientists scanned the brains of Tibetan monks and Franciscan monks and found that the time and space centers of the brain turned off at “peak moments” in their meditation.

As she laid out recently for a Capitol Hill audience, Dr. Grossman’s vision of a new psychiatric profession is that, finally, psychiatrists would devote themselves to scientific fact rather than social agendas. “Nature exists; if you don’t like what biology suggests about your ideology, then maybe it’s time to take another look at your ideology,” asserts Dr. Grossman. However, many of the ideologies she argues against stem directly from liberal social agendas: gender-blind, androgynous medical policies; special medical status for HIV; and radical feminism. Also, Dr. Grossman argues, pro-choice psychiatrists can no longer delegitimize post-abortion stress syndrome (PASS) because “Our job is not to proclaim whether abortion is good or bad… Let our patients come and tell us what abortion has been like for them.” (emphasis original).

While some might be skeptical of her openly conservative family-oriented conclusions, Doctor Grossman backs up each of her assertions with carefully-documented and politically-inconvenient scientific truths. The book contains a surprising amount of academic detail, with 40 reference pages, yet the dry science is ameliorated by the overwhelming humanity of Dr. Grossman’s patients.

Bethany Stotts is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.