I am greatly concerned with the testimony given by Dr Zainab Shamsuddin as having been quoted by deputy public prosecutor Suhaimi Ibrahim during the hearings of the commission of inquiry into the nude ear-squats scandal.

Zainab was quoted to have testified that the act of squatting was capable of dislodging any hidden foreign objects inside body orifices. As a medical doctor, I am shocked by the statement and wonder whether it was truly from a medical expert.

Any young girl could tell that inserting a tampon into her vagina is a convenient way of stopping menstrual overflow if she wants to take a dip into swimming pool. She could also tell you that a tampon cannot be easily dislodged by a simple squat or even straining.

Squatting plus straining may not even dislodge an intra-vaginal substance like a tampon or any smooth-surfaced substances. For the vast majority of cases, a digital manoeuvre is needed to remove a substance in most cases, again depending what the substance is and what its size is.

In my clinical practice, I found women with toothed rubber band used for sexual pleasure and tampon being forgetfully left inside vagina for weeks. They presented to me with foul-smelling vaginal discharge and were too embarrassed to tell what they had done beforehand. These substance were not dislodged even when they went to toilet and strained to pass stool numerous times. I still had to use a vagina speculum and forceps to remove the foreign bodies causing them illness.

I really doubt the accuracy of Zainab's testimony or it might have been intentionally misquoted due to political reasons. Moreover, Zainab is an obstetrician and gynaecologist and not a surgeon. The domain of 'anus' should be in the purview of a colorectal surgeon. The chances of getting things out of anal or vaginal orifices by mere squatting are extremely small. It is scientifically baseless.

It is a medical fact that the vaginal orifice does not have a voluntary musculature to control substance from going in and out. The vagina walls are made up of involuntary musculature. But that does not mean that foreign bodies can get out of vagina easily by simple squatting. On the contrary, it is not easy to expel something spontaneously from the vagina by simple squats.

The anus' sphincter, meanwhile, is a powerful voluntary musculature which can control a substance inside the rectum effectively even with excessive squatting. In other words, it is even more difficult to dislodge a foreign body from the rectum through the anus when compared to the vagina.

I really think that their testimonies' of some of the commission's witnesses were more political than professional. I think the commission should call for more expert medical opinions. The investigation methodology used by the police is outdated and often procedures are based on sheer ignorance and arrogance. The commission should not have just wrapped up their inquiry so hastily.