Open letter to CNN, Nadia Kounang & Dr Scott Sullivan Re: Your article on Endometriosis
Dear CNN, Nadia Kounang and Dr Scott Sullivan,
Yesterday my absolute hero, Lena Dunham, did something incredible for Endometriosis. She got the world talking about it. Dunham announced that she’s been forced to pull out of the promo tour for her hit TV series GIRLS due to an Endo flare-up. I was heartbroken for Lena. But, as the Co-founder of EndoActive – an Endometriosis Activism Group – I was grateful and proud that she had shared this information on social media and thrilled that the media had picked up on it. Any publicity for Endo is good publicity, right? Wrong.
I am absolutely horrified by what you, CNN, have published. You had not only an opportunity to report on an under-publicised, insidious disease that is destroying lives and desperately needs to be taken seriously, needs attention and needs funding but you had a responsibility to report factual, evidence-based research supported by compassion, care and a positive message. To my horror and the horror of the thousands of women I represent, you have grossly missed the mark and published instead an unsavoury, chauvinistic, factually incorrect, medically and morally irresponsible piece of writing that helps no one and in fact undoes so much of the hard work that EndoActive and so many others are doing daily.