Men Survey

The doctor proceeds with the discussion by saying the following:

"Well, I think you should know that you have a 75% chance of getting prostate cancer sometime in the next 10 years and we should really consider removing your testicles."

The doctor proceeds:

"You don't really plan on having any more children--right? So let's do this and remove the risk of cancer entirely. You do want to be around for your children as they're growing up, don't you?"

Privacy Disclosure

All respondents' identities will be kept confidential but copyright of all responses submitted will be retained by me, Carla Dionne, and may be anonymously presented within the text of my book entitled: Sex, Lies, and the Truth About Uterine Fibroids (scheduled for distribution by Penguin Putnam on the Avery Publishing label in February 2001) with no remuneration going to any parties who choose to respond to these research questions. Please feel free to forward the URL of this survey to any men that you have reason to believe might respond. The more responses I get, the better! The URL is as follows:

http://www.uterinefibroids.com/r_mensurvey.htm

Footnote

To put this in context for you so that you can have a better understanding of WHY I am asking these questions of men:

Nearly 600,000 women undergo hysterectomy annually. It has been speculated that as many as 90% of all hysterectomies -- surgical removal of the uterus -- are performed for BENIGN conditions and are, in fact, treatable with methods that do not involve removal of the uterus at all.

According to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) and as reported by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), only 10% of all hysterectomies are due to cancer.

In addition, over 60% of the women who undergo hysterectomy have their ovaries removed at the same time. That's about 360,00 women or so annually. The ovaries perform an equivalent hormonal function of the testicles in a man.

Why do so many women readily allow this castration to happen to them? Because of one word: cancer. Doctors tell women that ovarian cancer -- an incredibly deadly cancer -- can be avoided entirely if they allow for the removal of their ovaries. What they DON'T tell women is astounding:

1. There is less than 1.8% of a lifetime chance of acquiring ovarian cancer.
2. If you undergo a hysterectomy (leaving the ovaries in), your risk factor is cut in half.
3. Ovarian cancer can occur in the pelvic region even without the presence of the ovaries -- if you're destined to get this type of cancer, removing the ovaries does not, necessarily, protect you.
4. Removal of the ovaries means instant surgical menopause and a need for hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for the remainder of a woman's life. Without HRT, a woman's overall risk of acquiring heart disease and osteoporosis increases significantly. Heart disease is the number one killer of women in this nation.

UPDATE 11/4/2000 : Loss of hormones due to surgical menopause is NOT comparable to natural menopause. Researchers now have clinical data showing that women who undergo oophorectomy have significant loss of hormones that is not paralleled in women who undergo natural menopause. These hormones are NOT replaceable with synthetic drugs. Recent studies clearly show that women who undergo oophorectomy have long-term consequences of hormonal loss that seriously exceed that of women who experience natural menopause -- with or without the administration of hormone replacement therapy.

During the last 20 years in the United States, over 12 million women have opted to have a hysterectomy under the guidance and advice of a gynecologist. Out of those 12 million, roughly 7.5 million women have consented to the removal of their ovaries at the same time. 7.5 million women castrated in the United States over the last 20 years for benign conditions of the uterus.

So, compare how you responded with how women have responded under similar circumstances with significantly smaller statistical risk factors and ask yourself one question: Why?

When women say "Not tonight dear, I have a headache." Could they possibly mean "Not tonight dear, I have no sex drive and will get nothing out of this sexual encounter anyway so let's not. Okay?"