Know your steroids. Especially if you're pregnant.

[maradydd]

First, the OMGWTFBBQ. Via Pharyngula, the Hastings Center Bioethics Forum, and TIME Magazine: pediatric endocrinologists Maria New and Saroj Nimkarn are advocating prenatal treatment with the glucocorticoid dexamethasone to "reduce behavioral masculinization" of female children

Comments

[fanlain]

Without dexamethasone, my sister would have died sooner than she did. It reduced the brain edema in her metastatic breast cancer. The dexamethasone basically bought her a month and a half longer of life. While that might not sound like much, I'm sure it was everything to her 4-year-old son and to her.

[maradydd]

Dexamethasone was absolutely indicated in your sister's case. When the choice is between high-octane steroids -- especially short-term high-octane steroids -- and death, then without question the steroids are the correct choice. That one is a no-brainer

[maradydd]

I don't know enough about the other effects of dexamethasone on fetuses. From animal studies it looks pretty bad, but the literature on humans is inconclusive. The unethical part is all about the children, though.

[digitalusrex]

the people that want perfect little princess daughters. *puke*