According to a spokesman for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, state officials will look into the claims of a handful of women who say they were traumatized and branded by doctors working on behalf of a secret group, in order to see if those claims indeed warrant a further investigation.
This move comes after a report by The New York Times (which can be found here, and I suggest you read) detailed the complaints of women who came forth with their disturbing stories of a group affiliated with the self-help organization NXIVM (pronounced Nex-e-um, for some reason). NXIVM responded to those accusations on their website by calling them "lies."
According to the complaint that a woman filed with New York's Department of Health this past summer, Dr. Brandon Porter performed a number of "studies" for NXIVM's personal development department. If you're wondering what type of studies these were, and why that was put in quotes, the woman claims that one of them involved Porter showing her footage of extreme violence, including gang rape, while she was connected to equipment monitoring her brainwaves. She says that Porter did this without warning her of the footage's contents, and she further says she's been haunted by the images for the past year.
After the Times published their story, Porter reportedly resigned his position at the Albany, NY hospital that he worked at.
In addition to that, an undisclosed number of other women said that a family doctor in suburban New York's Clifton Park branded their lower abdomens to initiate them into a secret society that's affiliated with NXIVM. That brand was said to be the initials of NXIVM's founder, Keith Raniere, and according to one woman members were blackmailed into keeping it a secret.
According to TIME, NXIVM combated the claims by stating a media outlet inaccurately linked them to a "social group" before labeling the accusations against them as "a criminal product of criminal minds." That seems like a weird phrase. On top of that, TIME also writes:
According to NXIVM's website, they describe their organization as:
...My head hurts.
Anyway, sounds like something you might want to avoid. You know, just to be on the safe side.