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Debate over gender disorder drug
09 July 2010
Can it be ethical to give girl fetuses a drug to prevent ambiguous genitalia when the drug may also influence their sexual preferences in later life? The US researchers involved reject the idea of using the drug to "treat" homosexuality.
One theme that is beginning to emerge from their presentations at conferences and their published work is the potential for dexamethasone treatment to make the behaviour and sexuality of the girls less masculine. Theoretically, this could mean that by giving CAH girls dexamethasone, they avoid developing the "masculinised" brain architecture that might otherwise increase the girls' likelihood of becoming bisexual or gay.
Meyer-Bahlburg said that his studies of the impact of dexamethasone on behaviour and cognition were prompted by studies of dex in fetal animals showing that at usually much higher doses than in the human treatments, they suffered a range of abnormalities, including low birth weight, cleft palate, liver enlargement, and central nervous system effects. Now, he's monitoring girls who had dexamethasone in the womb to see how they develop behaviourally and sexually.
The treatment is for a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), which affects about 1 in 15,000 babies. Fetuses affected by CAH have gene defects which mean that they either can't make or don't make enough of a key adrenal hormone called 21-hydroxylase.
That means that their adrenal glands carry on producing male hormones long after they should have stopped. Boys' sexual organs are not affected by this, but about one in eight fetuses that are at risk of CAH will be female and develop genitalia with masculine characteristics, such as a large clitoris. Girls may also have their urethra positioned inside the vagina, for example.
(One of my questions is-
Have the done studies that include offspring of those treated?
I have seen an anti- miscarriage drug ruin the lives of three generations of women. I was not around to see if it would effect the great grand children.)
Thank you, hastings center dot org
09 July 2010
Can it be ethical to give girl fetuses a drug to prevent ambiguous genitalia when the drug may also influence their sexual preferences in later life? The US researchers involved reject the idea of using the drug to "treat" homosexuality.
One theme that is beginning to emerge from their presentations at conferences and their published work is the potential for dexamethasone treatment to make the behaviour and sexuality of the girls less masculine. Theoretically, this could mean that by giving CAH girls dexamethasone, they avoid developing the "masculinised" brain architecture that might otherwise increase the girls' likelihood of becoming bisexual or gay.
Meyer-Bahlburg said that his studies of the impact of dexamethasone on behaviour and cognition were prompted by studies of dex in fetal animals showing that at usually much higher doses than in the human treatments, they suffered a range of abnormalities, including low birth weight, cleft palate, liver enlargement, and central nervous system effects. Now, he's monitoring girls who had dexamethasone in the womb to see how they develop behaviourally and sexually.
The treatment is for a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), which affects about 1 in 15,000 babies. Fetuses affected by CAH have gene defects which mean that they either can't make or don't make enough of a key adrenal hormone called 21-hydroxylase.
That means that their adrenal glands carry on producing male hormones long after they should have stopped. Boys' sexual organs are not affected by this, but about one in eight fetuses that are at risk of CAH will be female and develop genitalia with masculine characteristics, such as a large clitoris. Girls may also have their urethra positioned inside the vagina, for example.
(One of my questions is-
Have the done studies that include offspring of those treated?
I have seen an anti- miscarriage drug ruin the lives of three generations of women. I was not around to see if it would effect the great grand children.)
Thank you, hastings center dot org
