Indian Man Found With 2 Sets of Gonads

[louisev]

Anyone who has been on BLO more than a few months knows about our previous discussions about gonadal dysgenesis and 'true hermaphroditism' and the scanty literature on multiple gonadal systems:

Although the news report is brief, it does say that a man in India was found to have functioning testes (father of two) and was also found to have a full female reproductive system upon being operated on for a hernia. This is certainly a remarkable case:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8675043/Indian-man-has-hysterectomy-after-doctors-find-uterus.html

[Peter]

I don't believe it, as I don't believe everything that I read in the tabloid magazines in the supermarket check-out stand. I will warm up to this story when it is scientifically documented in further detail. If one searches on the term "simultaneous hermaphrodite", one will find that simultaneous hermaphrodites are concentrated among Banana slugs, Hamlets fish, and earthworms.

Peter

[M-A]

Indeed it is hard to believe that somehow the "full female set" completely escaped anti-mullerian hormone effect in early gestation, while it worked perfectly on the male genitals.

The article says it's an embryonic accident, I guess they mean some form of twin conjunction (heterokaryotypic mosaic twins, the uterus being a differrent DNA as the rest) during early development, but for it to happen late enough that either twin already had completely diffetentiated sex, and that only the reproductive system remains in the adult, AND that it had no effect one way or the other during puberty, makes it very dubious.

[Peggy]

Hi all,

I'd guess this is just a matter of the press reporting a real story but getting a few details wrong.

That's what they do most of the time!

Friendly greetings to all,

Peggy

[louisev]

While there are no more details than the Telegraph provided, the Telegraph is the source for the story: they supply the name of the doctor and the hospital:

Dr Pramod Kumar Shrivastava, a surgeon at Chhindwara district hospital near Bhopal, Madyar Pradesh.

[BeyondXXY]

I'm with Peter and M-A on this one. Something is clearly wrong with this picture. Or maybe we're missing details of the story: and someone in the media or the hospital "forgot" to tell us the whole story when it was reported.

This story reminds me a lot of the gay-caveman story, (also by the UK Telegraph) which claimed that archelogoists thought they found a gay caveman because of the way the guy's body and head was positioned when he was buried. Later on, other scientists criticized them saying it wasn't true.

http://www.livescience.com/13620-gay-caveman-story-overblown.html

Seriously, whose to say the dead guy wasn't buried like a woman intentionally, like as an insult because they hated him? You know, like a form of grave desecration? Or maybe his body was turned the other way due to erosion or some other enviornmental event? The fact that tneither the media nor the scientists who reported it never even tried to rule these two factors out, is a disgrace to the scientific community. Because without taking all of the facts into consideration, science becomes nothing more than wishful thinking, instead of proveable facts.

I suspect well find the same wishful thinking in this "embryonic accident" story too. But I'm open to the possibility that some of the story is true.

In the meantime, I'm going to try and contact this hospital and see what I can dig up. Thank you for posting this. It is vert intriquing.

B

[BeyondXXY]

I contacted the hospital, but I'm having trouble locating the doctor. More to come. Developing....