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Dear Editor,
In your story about the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development's funding of sex research projects ("Sex and child health," September 19), you refer to the controversy surrounding the surgical sex-reassignment of children born with "ambiguous (intersex) genitalia" as an example of how NICHD "has been the subject of intense criticism." However, the fact that this "treatment" was initially promoted by a physician who happened to be a major NICHD grant recipient does not make this ongoing medical practice a NICHD-funded project. Nor are the critics of this particular "treatment" necessarily the critics of NICHD's funding of sex researches.
In fact, it is precisely these researches that, in recent years, provided evidences indicating that these surgeries performed without the child's knowledge or consent did indeed cause physical, psychological, and sexual damages. Cutting NICHD's research funds will not stop these surgeries; more researches that evaluate their long-term effects and explore less invasive alternatives will. As a patient advocate, I support NIH/NICHD's continued funding of researches of intersex conditions, which will help doctors provide better medical treatment for children born with intersex conditions.
Emi Koyama
Director, Intersex Initiative Portland
http://www.ipdx.org/