Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Is it a TOS violation if you post a copyrighted image that's in fact a copyrighted image stolen from you? The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery can claim copyright all they want over the pictures they steal from BME, but I'd like to see them defend it in court. Hell, given that they're selling this image, maybe we should take them to court…

I don't know if any of you are PubMed subscribers (if you're not, don't buy this article, it's a page long, contains no real information, and isn't worth the $30), but Cheyenne pointed me toward this interesting article (PMID 12031390, also in Urology 59 (6), 2002):

In it, the doctor describes a M2F patient who can not afford the costs of a surgical suite for a full (surgical amputative) castration. The patent comes in with printouts from BME/extreme (mentioned by name) describing various home castrations which the doctor then looks into and decides that Burdizzo castration is viable.

The procedure is done in his office, with Marcaine (an injectable local anesthetic which is publicly available) being injected into the spermatic cords. The Burdizzo was clamped on each cord for 30 seconds. The patient had no problem walking home, and no secondary problems were described – not even bruising! The testicles atrophied and the procedure was a success with the doctor describing the procedure as ideal for those who “wished to avoid the pain, expense, and scar associated with the open procedure.”

(If the “home method” is just as successful, far safer, less invasive, less damaging, and less likely to interfere with follow-up SRS surgery due to an absence of scarring, I'd love to know why people are still using full on surgical orchiectomy?)

That's got to be a first — doctors copying a procedure from the cutter community, and then deciding that the cutters got it right and were doing a superior procedure! Not that it'll change their methodology any time soon — as the doctor points out in this article that far more money is spent with the surgical route.

Anyway, I'm off to the gym again this morning. I will do my best not to have a heart attack… have to make sure I'm better hydrated this time. I've also been trying to up my caloric intake, but it's hard because I'm not used to eating that much, and it's wrecking havok with my digestion to up it so much.