The Hearing On Hysterectomy Informed Consent HB 1366
The testimony in favor of House Bill 1366 at the Indiana State Capitol hearing on Monday was critical. The hearing was another important action toward legalizing Hysterectomy Video Informed Consent Legislation.
HERS is eager to share the information from the hearing with you. We are in the process of uploading the video footage and will notify you as soon as it is ready for viewing.
posted by HERS Foundation @ 11:37 PM
26 Comments
26 Comments:
I couldn't make it to the hearing but would like to thank the women who attended and those who had the courage to testify. I will continue to support HERS in every way I can to end the atrocity of hysterectomy.
The Attorney General, the government and the authorities in every state should be VERY alarmed at how these doctors are deceiving women into profitable unnecessary surgery. There should be criminal investigations just like they do when there is medicare fraud. Why aren't the authorities or government entities doing anything to stop this?
HERS has been working for 28 years to educate our political representatives and encourage them to take action on our behalf.
It is happening now. Two weeks ago Bruce Borders, Rep. from Indiana, introduced an Hysterectomy Video Informed Consent bill. It was courageous, particularly since he is in the minority party, and it could hurt his re-election. Write to him and show him how much you appreciate what he is doing for all women. HERS worked night and day to contact women to come and testify, and everyone who could get there was there.
New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney will be the Keynote Speaker at HERS Twenty-eighth Hysterectomy conference in New York on April 24th, 2010. She is very supportive of stopping this from being done to women. You can let her know how much her support means to you when you meet her at the conference.
Everyone who has and continues to work so hard to stop this from being done to women deserves a huge cheer for what their hard work is accomplishing. This give you something positive to celebrate and support by getting involved by responding when you're asked to testify or write to legislators.
And of course we want your input about what you think would be effective in educating the public and our legislators about the adverse effects of hysterectomy and castration without the information required for informed consent.
Email HERS with any and all ideas, and what you can do in your own community of political representatives to let them know about the action taken by Rep. Borders in Indiana, and the support of Carolyn Maloney in NY.
Join HERS Hysterectomy Anatomy Video Education (HAVE Law) team and take action. Be part of the solution. We would like to hear about all the things everyone has done to educate the public. There are 22 million women living women in the US whose female organs have been removed without informed consent. We are a POWERFUL voting block!
What does 22 million women hysterectomized living in the U.S. really mean? It means that in the last 40-60 years, gynecologists have amputated the uterus from more than 22 million women in the United States without their informed consent. It is an atrocity of epic proportions.
I am stunned that more of you ladies have not commented on this momentous event. Instead, you prefer to bitch and moan about how you were wronged. I agree that most of you have real issues that were and are unfair to you and your family. You will not do others any good by sobbing about your problems. Get behind Nora and her efforts to help. Get after the Indiana legislators and let them know how you feel.
This is a chance to do something for the good of all. I know a couple of people in the Indiana house and wrote them. Do your part.
I agree with DocF. The silly drama by some commenters does not do any good. Sure, they should not have received a hysterectomy, but less drama would make the site more appealing to others.
Some women that say they are happy with their surgery but are not aware of the health issues that will affect them later in their lives or are happening now and they do not make the connection to the hysterectomy.
I think there are more important issues here than whining about what other people post.
I wasn't able to make the trip to Indianapolis because of bad roads, but I sent Rep. Bruce Borders a letter and the letter I sent to my doctor along with the 'H Word Book'.
First, you can donate any amount that you can give to help HERS fight for a law. Second, you can write to Rep. Bruce Borders and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and tell them how this surgery has affected your life and your family life. Third, we can show up in New York for the HERS Conference in April. Fourth, buy a dozen H Word Books and pass them out to your family and friends and send one to your doctor who hysterectomized and castrated you and tell him how this surgery took everything good from you.
In the last 18 years, I have written numerous editorials in my local newpapers about the consequences of this surgery and the affect it has on your health and well-being, your husband's life, your career and your family life. I have spoken at several HERS Conferences telling my story about the damage the hysterectomy and castration has had on my life. I lost my health, my marriage, my career and most of my friends because my zest for life ended the day I was castrated. I marched in several protest marches that were held in every state with the final protest march held in Washington, D.C.
I also counsel women in my area whose lives are devasted by this surgery.
I would love to know which congressman or congresswoman is accepting money from doctors for their compaigns. These men and women need to be ousted the next term.
I will continue to fight until a law is passed for doctors to give the DVD 'Female Anatomy' to every woman they prescribe a hysterectomy and castration. Doctors will fight this because they know when a woman finds out the damage this surgery does to her, she will most likely not have the surgery, thus money loss for the doctors, clinics, hospitals and drug companies.
Gracie,
I agree with your comment "I would love to know which congressman or congresswoman is accepting money from doctors for their compaigns. These men and women need to be ousted the next term."
An even bigger issue is campaign contributions from hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers. We know they have deep pockets!
The medical industry has become a corupt money making industry. Most satin drugs are not good for people, but doctors get monetary benefit from the drug companies for prescribing their drugs. The FDA is in bed with them as well when they make it difficult for doctors to prescribe natural solutions that can't be patented by those profit minded drug companies. We need to know which congress people are getting contributions from the drug companies and physicians.
Information about who contributes and how much they contribute to politicians is public information. This would be an excellent project for anyone interested in making that information readily available on HERS blog. You can research it online, and/or call your representative's chief of staff and ask them to send you a list of all contributions made during your representatives tenure.
HERS will post the information on our blog. Write down the date and name of every person you speak with in their office. When you submit the information to HERS please include the source, such as a link to a website, or a copy of written materials sent to you by your legislator.
Please let us know if you would like HERS to list your name for HERS as the provider of the report, or if you prefer to remain anonymous.
I absolutely agree with what Quinn said about the medical industry becoming corrupt. I avoided a diuretic and hysterectomy when I found a doctor that also practices eastern medicine. He recognized my blood pressure was high because I had been having irregular periods. After iron injections, my blood pressure returned to 62/108 - I avoided a hyterecomy and a blood pressure medicine. It's nice when you find a doctor that treats the cause and not the symptom. Many doctors just treat the symptom. It is my understanding doctors get monetary perks from drug companies for prescribing their statin drugs and drug companies try to put natural remedies out of the marketplace. The maker of the drug provera (derived from horse urine) has been trying to get natural progesterone out of the marketplace for years because their profits are impacted. The FDA also appears to be in bed with the drug companies as well.
Elizabeth
I absolutely agree with what Quinn said about the medical industry becoming corrupt. I avoided a diuretic and hysterectomy when I found a doctor that also practices eastern medicine. He recognized my blood pressure was high because I had been having irregular periods. After iron injections, my blood pressure returned to 62/108 - I avoided a hyterecomy and a blood pressure medicine. It's nice when you find a doctor that treats the cause and not the symptom. Many doctors just treat the symptom. It is my understanding doctors get monetary perks from drug companies for prescribing their statin drugs and drug companies try to put natural remedies out of the marketplace. The maker of the drug provera (derived from horse urine) has been trying to get natural progesterone out of the marketplace for years because their profits are impacted. The FDA also appears to be in bed with the drug companies as well.
Elizabeth, 'natural' progesterone is needed for fertility clinics because, as far as I'm aware, the manufactured drug progestaton (sp/name?) is not suitable for fertility treatment. 'Natural' also has chemicals in it but it works when boosting the cycle. It's just that the manufactured/label stuff doesn't come up to scratch and has considerably less success. A drug company cannot patent progesterone in its 'natural' form and this also brings down costs.
Sally,
You have your facts wrong. You might do well to read Dr. John Lee's books. That would help clarify it for you.
Elizabeth
Consider this. A poisonous mushroom that grows in your back yard, or on the side of the road, is natural. But it's still poison. There are lethal plants that grow wild, and they're all natural. But that doesn't mean they are safe.
If a substance, whether it be "natural" or "manufactured" has a hormonal effect, you are at risk for adverse effects of both products. If they didn't have a hormonal effect, no one would consider spending money on them.
The so-called natural products produced and sold by people who market them as safe and effective are making money hand over fist selling their products, the same as the pharmaceutical companies.
Don't miss the Dr. Oz show tomorrow, February 25th. The show is called "The #1 surgery you don't need, hysterectomy."
Did you see the Dr. OZ program on hysterectomy this morning? Great that he's addressing this important issue.
I saw the Doctor Oz show on Thursday. The title alone - Hysterectomy: The #1 Surgery you Don't Need - is a huge step in our mission to stop the hysterectomy mill!
I applaud Dr. Oz for speaking out on this issue! Although I would have liked to have seen him specifically mention the adverse effects, this show should save a lot of women from going under the knife.
Although we have several "irons in the fire" we need to step up our efforts while we have people's attention so we can accomplish our mission.
Keep up the fight!
I just watched the video of the
Indiana hearing on Hysterectomy Informed Consent HB 1366. It is very powerful! How these individuals summoned such courage and grace in the selfless baring of their very souls leaves me humbled...and ever so grateful!
You know, I once read a study of hysterectomy rates in Saudi Arabia. There the hysterectomy rates fell along the same lines as uterine and ovarian cancers.
Now, which woman is truly liberated? The intact woman in Saudia Arabia serenely walking in step behind her man with her family, or, the American abbreviated version pulling her hair out as her man, children, family, career veer away?
It is past time that we as a society quit shrugging at this grave gender injustice called hysterectomy. Past time that castration is viewed an unusual, and cruel punishment-- but for the male gender alone!
All the while we remain dumb and aghast at our society's failure to keep marriage, children, family, and livelihoods intact. Folks, it starts with keeping the woman, wife, Mother, daughter, employee intact.
Funny thing about being dumb. It can mean being stupid, or, it can merely mean remaining silent. bc
Anonymous - who posted 3/10/10 on the Indiana Hearing video she just viewed:
I just did also. Very well put with your comments, Anonymous, and interesting what you said. It surely made me think about what you said about women, and in Saudi Arabia - Wow! You are so 'right on' with what you conveyed with everything. I commend you. I think what you were saying also is that there are so many women who have been castrated, and not speaking up. Is it stupidity or fear? I, myself, am seeing just of late, some family members questioning me, and why I continue to say that my Hyst. has 'messed me up' for life. How do I reach these members of family? I refuse to be quiet; yet, it hurts when I do not feel 'support' and 'understanding'. My two children have even questioned me, at times. Well, I guess what is most important is this: My husband knows the person I was, and did see a complete change in me after the Hyst., and he has been supportive of me, at all times. He is willing to speak up; if needed. He is on the same 'page' as Rep. Bruce Borders.
I thank and commend all who spoke there at the hearing; except, for Dr. Larosa. I would love to have a 'one on one' meeting with him and my husband. I would like to find out how much money he has made, personally, by the castration of his patients. I would love to have factual information, and names of all his female patients, and poll them with a list of questions to answer.
And anonymous, with your closing comments: what is the saying? "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."
How many family relationships have been affected by one family member being 'ruined' by a Hyst.? There should be a poll done of how many divorces have happened due to the wife being castrated. There should be with this same poll questionaire questions such as: Has this Hyst. affected your relationship with your husband, your activities with him (socially and sexually), your activities with your children, your social activities with other family and friends, your physical activities, your home environment to do housework and 'sit down' activities, your employment and activities at work? Has the Hyst. affected your own mind to question yourself, and sometimes a sense of helplessness?
How could anyone fight this? Why would any doctor, like this Dr. Larosa, not want this law put into effect to have every female view; so it does ensure she is COMPLETELY INFORMED on truly what takes place with this operation, and shows the female anatomy. I had never seen my 'insides' before or explained what does take place with a Hysterectomy. Why would any doctor question any woman to not see this?
Any doctor who is against this bill, is basically saying, "I do not want to upset the 'system'"; i.e., the system and 'racket' of GYNs getting away with 'castration' of females, and will surely and truly (and finally) INFORM women of what takes place with a Hyst., and so many doctors will lose their precious extra income of profiteering off of uninformed patients with unnecessary surgeries. Darn... Heaven forbid for the patients of these doctors to be getting a 'Heads Up'.
Think how this will change every GYN's way of thinking here. The 'gig' will be up, and way overdue. Thanks for letting me get this out and reading this. My thanks to all who spoke there at this hearing. Great job, and know it must have been 'grueling'. Way to go!
Hmm...I went to a nursing home and asked some of the mentally alert women residents about hysterectomy. To a one, they agreed to all that HERS maintains.
So, when you take women out of societal and competitive roles--you get the truth?
One of the nursing home workers heard me. She, too, had had a hysterectomy and subsequent loss of sexual response. The thing was, this poor woman, who didn't drive, who worked for minimum wage at the hardest of jobs, seemed to accept her fate as somehow being her lot in life. It was so dismaying to me to think that our gov't. paid to do this terrible, unnecessary thing to her. She'd had fibroids and, yes, she was a minority.
Which brings me to tell of the most startling thing that I have ever read. It is a book from a high profile 1965 gyn conference at John Hopkins called, "The Social Responsibility of Obstetrics and Gynecology." This book was advocating for abortion, sterilization, hysterectomy, and birth control as a means of population control for those that it referred to as "the second class human machine." It said that neither political man, nor, theological man could control the population. That the task of population control must fall to the ob/gyn discipline. All so the world could be a fit place for "them, their children,& their grandchildren."
The book noted that black children score lower on IQ tests.
It also had a picture of a uterus almost halved by an IUD and noted abnormal cells, but went on to state this was still an acceptable method of birth control. Anyone remember the Dalkon Shield and the deaths that followed?
(sigh) Old gyn medical literature is full of the truth. Back then, the gyns didn't envision ebay and these texts falling into "the wrong hands."
How did they come to know the stages of fetal development? One book detailed doing hysterectomies on pregnant women at clinics...
Always keep in mind that surgeons must train other surgeons...and that training is best done on a healthy body with less scar tissue. Hysterectomy gives them both abdominal and pelvic entrance. Also keep in mind that surgeons must do so many procedures to get/keep their certifications. Not to mention the profits to be had...
Now, despite today's gyn literature being far more carefully parsed, I still think that the term "vast medical conspiracy" fits...and I think that you have to include other specialities (like shrinks, cardiologists, urologists, etc.) in that conspiracy. After all, they are all benefiting.
One last thing...the "retired" gyn who attended for ACOG? He seems young to be retired. I'm wondering what his reasons for retiring were. I noticed that his remarks were carefully chosen and not the usual dismissal of our claims. Could he have been afraid of giving false testimony? Sometimes, what isn't said is the most revealing of all.bc
If you're having trouble with the hearing video link try http://hersfoundation.org/informedconsenthearing.html
If you're still having difficulty, go to HERS website at http://www.hersfoundation.org and click on "Press/News" in the navigation bar at the top of the page. Then click "Hysterectomy Video Informed Consent Hearing".
If you have an older computer or a slow connection speed it make take a few minutes for videos to load.
BC, Your comment about the retired OB/GYN LaRosa, who testified as an ACOG lobbyist, as not being dismissive is baffling. He was completely dismissive of the testimony by hysterectomized women. He said that 80% of women are 100% satisfied with their hysterectomies, unlike the "anecdotal" reports of the women who had testified at the hearing, and that of their spouses.
When asked if he is currently practicing gynecology, he said retired to become the medical director of a group practice.
Perhaps, rather than saying he did not do the usual dismissal of our claims, it would have been better to say that he carefully chose not to address our claims with the standard gyn ever ready denials. Certainly, his labeling of testimonials as being anecdotal was foully dismissive.
I believe that, for legal reasons, he was being wary of making false statements... Which is notable because of what he then chose not say and because it is rare for a gyn to trouble themselves with such concerns. I guess that there is a big difference between being forthright with your patients (who are owed a medical advocacy duty) as opposed to legal sworn testimony.
Oddly enough, my moral compass says that the higher obligation to veracity is to one's patients--even above legal proceedings. Here, only under this legal microscope, do we find a certain restraint. Not a vocal encumbrance that they are generally given to in their more traditional settings of office and hospital.
Medical director of a group practice, eh? Odds are it is of a gyn group practice that he would protect. Without, that is, providing anything that might be used against him and this medical group later should some unfortunate, deceived woman try to bring suit.
Nowadays, you see it all the time. Gyns who won't put all the glowing things about hysterectomy that they are telling you in writing. No, for that they could be held accountable. No, instead, they'll refer their patients to some sponsored site, or, literature. HERS has well exposed their many tricks. The entrapment that they use is elaborate and extensive.
Which makes it all the more imperative that the HAVE Law actually becomes law. Indiana and NY have taken an important lead!
And, before I go, to the lady who said that she'd so carefully planned her funeral? I'd not have you think this way. You are as wonderfully important as ever!
It is they whose humanity is diminished in this. Please never, ever forget that...bc
The Committee appeared to put a lot of weight on what ACOG ob/gyn LaRosa had to say as if he was an objective witness. First, he hasn't been castrated like the women who testified so he has no idea how it feels. Secondly, he was paid to be there and his profession makes over $17 billion year hysterectomizing and castrating women. How objective could ACOG be when it is their members main income and they've done it to over 22 million women in the United States? Obviously, not is it only okay with ACOG, they want to do it more! $$$$$
In contrast, the women who testified had nothing to gain financially, nor do they have anything to personally gain because there is no cure for this barbaric surgery. Not only that, they personally had to bear the financial burden to attend the hearing (and the emotional burden). The only benefit here for hysterectomized women is speaking out so that it doesn't happen to other women. It's not really a personal benefit, but it just shows that they care about others, unlike ob/gyn LaRosa who represents those who have billions to lose. Although it seemed important for the Committee to point out that there were only two hysterectomized and castrated women from Indiana testifying, I wonder how many women have to tell them they were hysterectomized and castrated without their consent? Shouldn't that be considered a crime? Does Indiana enforce their informed consent laws, or do they just allow ob/gyn's to perform any surgery they want with no repercussions? Shouldn't the Committee contact the State Police and have an investigation regarding their own citizens who were given unnecessary surgeries without their consent? The Committee and everyone who watches this video should be horrified that any citizen is treated this way instead of white washing the issue to keep the money rolling in for ACOG and all the ob/gyn's and hospitals.
I would like to commend all those who testified and thank them for standing up for what is right. It is not very lucrative to tell the truth these days and it is clearly shown when you have over $17 billion testifying against $0.
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