‘Disgusting’ study rating attractiveness of women with endometriosis retracted by medical journal

Fertility and Sterility took seven years to take down Italian study, which was criticised by doctors for ethical concerns and dubious justifications

Gabrielle Jackson
@gabriellecj
Published on Wed 5 Aug 2020 08.34 BST

A widely criticised peer-reviewed study that measured the attractiveness of women with endometriosis has been retracted from the medical journal Fertility and Sterility.

The study, Attractiveness of women with rectovaginal endometriosis: a case-control study, was first published in 2013 and has been defended by the authors and the journal in the intervening years despite heavy criticism from doctors, other researchers and people with endometriosis for its ethical concerns and dubious justifications, with one advocate calling the study “heartbreaking” and “disgusting”.

The study’s conclusion was: “Women with rectovaginal endometriosis were judged to be more attractive than those in the two control groups. Moreover, they had a leaner silhouette, larger breasts, and an earlier coitarche.” Coitarche is the age at first sexual intercourse.

Rectovaginal endometriosis is a severe form of the disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus – called endometrium – grows outside the uterus, often attaching to other organs and causing pain, scarring and sometimes infertility. One in 10 women and other people with a uterus of reproductive age have the disease.

The women taking in part in the study had not given their consent to be judged for their attractiveness and did not know this was happening as part of their medical consultations. The study received ethics approval and was publicly funded by the University of Milan school of medicine. The authors asked the women about their sexual history and measured their body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio and breast-to-underbreast ratio. Only Caucasian women were selected for inclusion in the study.

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Medical journal pulls study judging attractiveness of women who suffer from endometriosis

‘I fail to understand how a small group of Italian doctors rating attractiveness of women with different stages of endometriosis contributes anything to medical science,’ says gynaecologist

Maya Oppenheim Women's Correspondent @mayaoppenheim
4 hours ago

A study that judged the attractiveness of women who suffer from endometriosis has been pulled from a medical journal after sparking outrage.

The women who contributed to the peer-reviewed research, titled “Attractiveness of women with rectovaginal endometriosis: a case-control study”, never provided their consent to be rated by their appearance and were unaware this was going on.

Rectovaginal endometriosis affects roughly five to 12 per cent of women who have endometriosis – a common disorder that affects around 176 million women worldwide – and can put sufferers in severe pain with bowel movements.

One in 10 women of reproductive age in the UK has endometriosis, a condition when tissue similar to that which grows inside of the uterus grows outside of the uterus – attaching itself to other organs and causing a great deal of pain and leading to other issues such as infertility.

The controversial study, published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, concluded: “Women with rectovaginal endometriosis were judged to be more attractive than those in the two control groups. Moreover, they had a leaner silhouette, larger breasts, and an earlier coitarche”. Coitarche is the age at which someone first engages in sexual intercourse.

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