Prominent Irish psychotherapist Stella O’Malley has criticised the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for removing the word “women” from health guidance, describing the move as “dangerous.”
O’Malley, founder of Genspect, and author of a number of best-selling books on parenting and mental health, told The Daily Mail that the scrapping of the word ‘women’ in favour of ‘people’ in an effort to be more gender-neutral, was “an appalling example of how politics is increasingly interfering with medicine.”
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US’s national public health agency, replaced terms including ‘women’ and ‘mother’ with ‘pregnant people and ‘pregnant person’ ’in its recommendations for a range of respiratory virus vaccinations for pregnant women.
The Daily Mail reports that the agency also removed terms ‘she’ and ‘her’ from the updated terminology – which was amended at the end of September.
“’CDC recommends pregnant people get a flu vaccine by the end of October, although flu vaccination should continue as long as flu is circulating,” it reads, adding:
“Getting a flu vaccine by the end of October helps protect pregnant people and their babies before flu activity begins to increase. Pregnant people may receive a flu vaccine during any trimester of pregnancy.”
In another statement released in September for the RSV vaccine, the CDC said:
“Today, CDC recommended the first respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine for pregnant people to protect their newborn from severe RSV illness.”
Ms O’Malley told the newspaper that there was “no need” for the action.
“In medical matters, clarity and simplicity should be prioritised so that everyone can understand what is involved,” she said, adding, “Some people, especially those for whom English is not a first language, will not understand what is meant by ‘pregnant people’ yet they would readily understand ‘mothers.’”
The author of ‘What your teen is trying to tell you,’ and maker of the Channel 4 documentary, ‘Trans Kids, it’s time to talk,’ argued that pregnant women are more vulnerable, and that some groups – including those whose first language is not English – may find the wording confusing.
The former resident psychotherapist TV programmes on both RTÉ 1, and on a TG4, said she was “disappointed” that the health agency “has needlessly chosen to use more complicated language than they need to.”
It’s not the first time the CDC has come under fire, with its website last year replacing the word “breastfeeding” for “chestfeeding” in July, sparking controversy.
Dr Jane Orient, executive director of theAssociation of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), told The Daily Mail that the health agency was “cowering to political forces” in its removal of terms like ‘women.’
She said that “a small minority but highly influential entities, who are trying to change language, Orwellian style, to force acceptance of an absurdity.”
“All pregnant persons are women. A trans man is a woman who is trying to alter her body to resemble a man’s. She is endangering her baby’s health if she is taking testosterone. The CDC ought to be warning about that,” Dr Orient added.