ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION | ADVERSE SIDE EFFECTSA couple of weeks ago I ventured a guess that a page in the New Yorker would become a much read article [I thought it would become a "runaway hit"] |
Chinese Arithmetic, outlining as it does, the life-long

embarassing problems faced by a man who suffered throughout life as an incurable horn dog | I laughed out loud while reading the piece, but as I reflected upon the article's content, the more troubled I became about what I'd read |
Clearly the article had been cribbed from someone's confidential medical case files | I began to be troubled that the article's "author" [quite evidently a faked name, given that he's stealing from a patient's medical record] sought to make fun of someone with a serious medical condition | The whole episode rankled my patient advocate professional core | I had to speak out! So I wrote to the New Yorker in anger and disgust | Thus far, that magazine, which I once respected, has not admitted to its wrongs and I have not seen my courageous letter published, which takes that tome to task | Thank God for the Internet! I can expose this disturbing wrong | You might want to read the offensive article
Chinese Arithmetic first, so as to better understand my perturbation with the New Yorker | That said, I share with you, dear reader, my letter which the
New Yorker has been too arrogant to print |
Re: Chinese Arithmetic [published on 30 May 2005
It is with disappointment and dismay that I read excerpts from a confidential clinical case record [were they purloined?] of a defenseless patient with an embarrassing and disabling chronic condition as published in Shouts and Murmurs the week of 30 May 2005.
Publishing confidential medical information violates a patient's basic rights to privacy as protected by US federal HIPAA regulations(1). The document provided millions of readers with clearly identifiable information about the patient.
Making matters worse, the use of vernacular speech, coined phrases, and gutter talk mixed with proper clinical terminology violates the standards and protocols of the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Health Care Organization [JCAHO](2). To cite but one egregious example "...then they started wearing those thong dealies..."
This magazine has thus recklessly exploited yet another helpless victim of this hugely tragic, embarrassing condition. Consider, you can't walk upright! Oddly, the clinician's documentation from the patient's chart failed to provide the proper nomenclature for the patient's condition. A Priapic episode is both a painful and embarassing condition, made all the worse by current social stigmas against its sufferers. While similar to the lesser known condition of Semen Toxicity Syndrome [STS], the actual impact on the sufferer is much more severe since those with STS have found ways personally of lessening their aggravation, so to speak.
Even worse, I'm certain the clinician who wrote it has faked his name. Never, have I seen "Ian Fraizer" cited in the important [and upstanding] professional journals that report on this malady.
The liberal media must cease their ruthless exploitation of yet another disenfranchised population. All for a cheap joke, "Chinese Arithmetic" continues to harden Society's attitudes toward its sufferers and stiffen their resolve to discriminate against us.Will "Woody" Brady