Top surgeon forced to resign after comment that semen makes women happier



Controversy: Dr Lazar Greenfield was forced to resign after his article about semen

A top surgeon has been forced to quit over comments he made regarding semen and its effect on women's health, commenting on research that it made them happier.

Dr Lazar Greenfield, 78, resigned from his position as president elect of the American College of Surgeons after a controversial Valentine's Day editorial in which he quoted a study which found that women who had unprotected sex were less depressed than those who wore condoms.

In an email to the New York Times, he said he had apologised many times for the piece but hinted that this did not seem to be enough for some of the people who had complained.

He, along with the college board, decided the best course of action would be to resign.

He said: 'Therefore, rather than have this remain a disruptive issue, I resigned as president-elect. I only hope that those who choose to judge me will read the article in the spirit in which it was intended.'

He also resigned from his position of editor-in-chief of Surgery News and in the wake of the controversy, the entire issue the article was in was withdrawn.

Position: Dr Greenfield is an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Michigan School of Medicine

In the article, he cited research that found that female college students who had had unprotected sex were less depressed than those whose partners used condoms and speculated that compounds in semen have antidepressant effects.



Comment: Colleen Brophy said the editorial was just a symptom of a much larger problem in the surgery field

He said: '(Researchers) found ingredients in semen that include mood enhancers like estrone, cortisol, prolactin, oxytocin, and serotonin; a sleep enhancer, melatonin; and of course, sperm, which makes up only one per cent to five per cent.'

He concluded: 'So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there’s a better gift for that day than chocolates.'

The editorial outraged many women in the field, some of whom said that it reflected a macho culture in surgery that needed to change.



Dr Barbara Bass, chairwoman of the department of surgery at Methodist Hospital in Houston, told the New York Times: 'Some things you can’t recover from if you’re in a leadership role. But the resignation does demonstrate that the surgery association’s leadership does understand the continued challenges women face as they join and mature in the surgical profession.'

The Board of Regents of the American College of Surgeons said they had received numerous complaints from the surgical community about the editorial and despite the fact the doctor had expressed his deep regret over the offence he caused, they could not let the issue distract or diminish the college's focus on improving the care of surgical patients.

But it was believed by some that his resignation would not end the controversy.

Dr Colleen Brophy, a professor of surgery at Vanderbilt University, said: 'The editorial was just a symptom of a much larger problem. The way the college is set up right now is for the sake of the leadership instead of patients.'

Dr Greenfield is an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Michigan School of Medicine and is best known for inventing the Greenfield filter, a device which prevents blood clots which form in the legs during deep vein thrombosis from travelling to the lungs.

He is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in vascular surgery and lectures extensively in the U.S. and abroad.

He has served on the editorial board of 15 scientific journals.



Patricia J. Numann will now assume the office of President-Elect.



THE CONTROVERSIAL ARTICLE: WHAT IT SAID

'As far as humans are concerned, you may think you know all about sexual signals, but you'd be surprised by new findings.

It's been known since the 1990s that heterosexual women living together synchronize their menstrual cycles because of pheromones, but when a study of lesbians showed that they do not synchronize, the researchers suspected that semen played a role.

In fact, they found ingredients in semen that include mood enhancers like estrone, cortisol, prolactin, oxytocin, and serotonin; a sleep enhancer, melatonin; and of course, sperm, which makes up only 1%-5%. Delivering these compounds into the richly vascularized vagina also turns out to have major salutary effects for the recipient.

Female college students having unprotected sex were significantly less depressed than were those whose partners used condoms (Arch. Sex. Behav. 2002;31:289-93). Their better moods were not just a feature of promiscuity, because women using condoms were just as depressed as those practising total abstinence. The benefits of semen contact also were seen in fewer suicide attempts and better performance on cognition tests.



So there's a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there's a better gift for that day than chocolates.'







