ESSM Newsletter # 38

3 ESSM Today Dear ESSM members, As you may already know, a novel society has been recently founded with the name of “An- drogen Society”. You may have been already contacted by the founders of this society to be- come members or to take part of the forthcoming congress in Lisbon. The Executive Committee of ESSM has discussed about this issue and I would like to illustrate you some of the major points, which prompted us to take an official position against this initiative: 1) the topic of this society largely overlaps with the area of interest of ESSM with a consequent fragmentation of the field of Sexual Medicine. 2) “Androgens” are already an important part of the program of our meetings and ESSM annual meetings represent one the best- qualified scientific event for this topic. The major experts of this field in Europe are ESSM members. 3) the “Androgen Society” raises also ethical issues about its relationship with pharma- ceutical industry and consequently raises questions about its transparency. After having taken into consideration the above points, we consider the role of “founding mem- ber” or “members at large” or “officers” of the new society incompatible with ESSM officers po- sition. Moreover, I strongly recommend not taking active part as “speaker” or “chairperson” of the forthcoming congresses of this Society. I am confident that all ESSM members will share our decision, because we can only confront the attempts to fragment our field if we act in unison. On behalf of the EC François Giuliano ESSM President Prof. François Giuliano AP-HP, Neuro-Uro-Andrology Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Raymond Poincaré Hospital Garches, France francois.giuliano@uvsq.fr 21st World Meeting of the International Society for Sexual Medicine 20th Congress of the European Society for Sexual Medicine European Society for Sexual Medicine Jointly organized by: www.issmessm2018.org