Letters to the Magazine

Medical Causes of Infertility Raising the issue that infertility among younger women is on the rise and highlighting the lifestyle and environmental factors that may be contributing to this troubling trend are important services to your readers ("Ask the Pro/Infertility," TIP SHEET, March 13). If young women better understand these risk factors to their fertility, they can then take action to--it's hoped--reduce threats to their childbearing ability. However, in focusing on the impact of such things as age, weight, exposure to contaminants and smoking, your article excludes mention of the medical causes of the disease of infertility in women, including ovarian dysfunction, endometriosis, blocked tubes and other structural malformations and hormonal disorders. For many women, infertility is caused by underlying clinical problems which often can be successfully addressed with drug therapy, medical procedures and/or surgery.

Joseph C. Isaacs, CAE, President and CEORESOLVE: The National Infertility AssociationBethesda, Md.

Correction

On our March 20 cover, we referred to Dr. Richard Jadick, the brave military physician who saved dozens of lives during the battle for Fallujah, as "Hero M.D." Dr. Jadick is in fact a D.O., or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine. Osteopathic medicine takes a holistic approach to medical care, emphasizing prevention and focusing on the body's musculoskeletal system. Like M.D.s, D.O.s are fully qualified physicians licensed to work in every aspect of medicine, and the U.S. military makes no distinction between the two medical degrees when hiring. There are currently about 56,000 osteopathic physicians working in the United States, many of them as primary-care physicians. You can read more about osteopathic doctors at www.osteopathic.org/index.cfm?PageID=ado_whatis. NEWSWEEK regrets the error.

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