When I say “self care day” I do not mean I’m getting my lashes, nails and eyebrows done. I’m literally laying in bed eating snacks and binge watching a show.
UCLA appears to have made its choice, and it has chosen to stand by Dr. Mark Tramo, a neurologist, medical doctor, and professor entrusted with the care, education, and safety of students and patients.
This decision is disturbing in light of revelations from the Epstein files. According to those records, Dr. Tramo continued communicating with Jeffrey Epstein after Epstein’s 2007 conviction for soliciting prostitution. In those communications, he reportedly told Epstein that he would “check to see if his students were cute.” Even more troubling, he discussed how newborn babies will suck on a pacifier more vigorously when it triggers a recording of their mother’s voice instead of another woman’s voice, describing how to manipulate an infant’s behavior using emotional and biological attachment.
Coming from a licensed physician and neurologist, this is not an abstract academic comment. It is medical knowledge about infant development being shared with a convicted sex offender. Providing this kind of information to someone with Epstein’s history is reckless, unethical, and potentially dangerous. It amounts to advising someone on how to influence and exploit vulnerable infants.
Despite knowing Epstein’s criminal past, Dr. Tramo continued corresponding with him and repeatedly used his official UCLA email account to do so, tying these interactions directly from the university.
Last Thursday, after many people,including myself, exposed Tramo and contacted UCLA, the university removed his faculty page from its website. At the time, this appeared to be a small but good step towards SOME accountability.
I was going to recognize this as progress. But shortly afterward, UCLA quietly restored his page, as if nothing had happened.
I don’t think that any arrests are going to happen, but I had hoped that real life consequences would occur. But even the institutions are protecting these people. Sick.