Who is Dr. Sally Blower? Why is Head of the Disease Modeling Group at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA making claims in writing that are confusing, contradictory and so easily refutable? Why is she, along with her researchers, churning out alarming press releases that inspire confusion and panic among populations already stigmatized? Why are her findings based on these studies being published in supposedly respectable journals and magazines?
From Pointing Fingers
Why would the director of the Center for Biomedical Modeling at UCLA, claiming to design effective, ethical and optimal implementation strategies for the rollout of HIV treatment in Africa, demonstrate such astonishing cultural, social and political tone deafness in San Francisco and Los Angeles? And why are so few media organizations challenging the extrapolations and misinformation they yield, which have the very real potential to interfere with AIDS/HIV prevention and treatment strategies on a global scale?
This is quite an exhaustive exploration into Dr. Sally Blower, after she refused to engage with critics in the wake of an alarmist press pelease, that was immediately refuted and who refuses to take an iota of responsibility for the misinformation her studies and extrapolations generate.
Before I even scratched the surface of her history and the drama surrounding her, I sent her an email noting that the study and expression of its refuted findings had the potential to inject uncertainty into critical prevention methodologies and inspire hate legislation aimed at gays and people with HIV/AIDS like we are seeing in Uganda.
I added that it was dangerous, callous and inexcusable, and demanded an apology, retraction or both. She refused to engage with me, stating that email was divsive and unproductive.
She certainly would know.
She had ignited a controversey at UCSF by sending an explosive email to her colleagues, as well as editors of select magazines.
Bishop was forced to disclose the fact that he had tasked Professor and Associate Dean Zina Mirsky from the School of Nursing to investigate Dr. Blower’s allegations, despite usually keeping such investigations confidential, adding: "The allegations are not entirely explicit. But they have been interpreted to include institutional sexism, gender discrimination, sexual harassment and professional misconduct." Concluding, Bishop revealed the conclusion of the investigation: "In examining each and every one of Dr. Blower's charges, Dr. Mirsky found no misconduct or inappropriate behavior on the part of any of the faculty named by Dr. Blower. I have accepted these findings and plan no further action on this matter."
Apparently Dr. Blower, this barrier-breaking, self-described scientific feminist, didn’t plan on actually doing anything either. In a January 2001 article in Nature Medicine magazine, Dr. Blower demonstrated just how egregiously UCSF had treated her, telling the publication: "Class action suits are the way to go. Universities can easily discredit an individual." She also told the publication that the reason she didn’t seek legal remedy was because she had taken another job and that legal action "would have dragged on for years."
According to the San Francisco Examiner’s Ulysses Torassa, even "the head of the school's affirmative action office, [Diane Wara] who has been sympathetic to Blower, called her portrayal of events ‘overblown and out of perspective.’" Dr. Blower told Ms. Torassa there nothing Ms. Wara can do so "she spends her time arranging lunches for women faculty to get together and making sure that there are tampon machines in every women's restroom."
More excerpts from the story:
The issue with Dr. Blower is that these incidents are not far away in the distant past, where they shouldn’t be considered. These incidents happened just a few years ago. To send public emails to magazines and professional colleagues referring to the "Senior Boys" whilst touting herself as a scientific feminist, appears as if she’s a college student who just discovered feminist studies in 1995.
This scientific feminist is from the old school. But not quite. Certainly not the pioneering kind like Susan B. Anthony, Ida Jackson or Betty Friedan. Not even like reviled feminists and anti-porn activists Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, who despite everything, still had an iota of interest that extended beyond the self. Dr. Blower is the self-proclaimed kind that corrosively damages real gains made by women to legitimately protect themselves and not because of an intelligent aversion to contemporary feminism’s much inherent hypocrisy, like Camille Paglia. Hers is a narrower, selfish, self-interested, privileged, white middle class appropriation of feminism that uses her gender to manipulate people, threaten lawsuits, allege gender discrimination, and when all that fails, relies on her husband to get her a position.