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A recent article (see below) says, "I caution parents, however, against delaying the decision [to circumcise] until the child is old enough to decide for himself."
What a blatant abuse of a child's rights. If he won't want it done, DON'T DO IT!
"Don't Be Scared to Circumcise Your Baby Boy"
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/health-tips/2007/12/06/dont-be-sca red-to-circumcise-your-baby-boy.html
Cancer Surgery Falls Eczema Chancroid Pregnancy Syphilis Testicular cancer Hepatitis Tuberculosis Epilepsy Urinary tract infections Cortisol Incontinence Thrush Stroke Prostate cancer Impotence Hepatitis C Breast cancer Cervical cancer Urinary incontinence Viagra Pain Penile cancer Rare diseases HPV Paralysis
As a victim of male genital mutilation, I found Bernadine Healy's column, Don't Be Scared to Circumcise Your Baby Boy, incoherent and extremely offensive.
This statement makes her position clear:
What is not healthy in this free flow of ideas is to diminish the real abuse of female genital mutilation with a trumped-up portrayal of the "abuse" that infant circumcision allegedly exacts on our helpless baby boys.
Healy clearly has an unprofessional level of contempt for those of us who feel negatively affected by the procedure she seeks to legitimize. To have lost a valuable, pleasurable part of ones anatomy without giving one's consent seems bad enough, but to have one's objections shut down publicly by a person with Healy's influence and eminence is really beyond the limits of decency.
I'm calling on Dr Healy to write another column, explaining how male circumcision does not violate a child's rights exactly as female circumcision does. I would like to hear her explain why this procedure, and no other, can be marketed by health providers on it's putative medical benefits, yet sidestep its significant ethical problems by palming them to some miasmic conglomeration of 'parental choice' and 'cultural tradtion'.
Either its medicine or it isn't Dr Healy, and unless you can justify your reactionary position, you should prefer to remain silent on it.
Healy contends that parents can consider circumcising infants, and supports this assertion with the latest speculation on why a GROWN MAN might choose circumcision for himself. Infants are not at risk for sexually transmitted infection. Condoms are the BEST prevention for STI as they protect BOTH partners while also preventing unwanted pregnancy.
The foreskin includes over half the sensual nerve endings. I'm a grown man who is disgusted that a normal healthy valuable part of my body was amputated when I couldn't defend myself. Parents should be scared of what their son might say when he figures out that his parents chose to have him mutilated at birth while over 80% of his peers worldwide were left intact. Circumcision is even becoming almost as rare in some US states.
Healy fails to note that the medical evidence is not compelling enough to convince even one medical association in the world to recommend infant circumcision. Meanwhile he completely ignores the sheer value of intact genitals and the boy's right to choose.
HIS body HIS decision.
What would the circumcisionists do without Female Genital Cutting? Without it they'd have nothing worse we do to children by which they could justify the extraordinary custom of cutting part off baby boy's genitals. No-one opposed to circumcision is downplaying the horror of the female operation as performed in poor countries, or indeed in the Western world, where it is illegal, no matter how token, minor, sterile and/or anaesthetised, and without regard to custom or religion. What we are saying is that, as human rights issues there is nothing to choose between them and both, equally, should be outlawed. There is no other healthy renewable part of a boy's body, no such part of a girl's body or an adult man's body, that can be removed at someone else's whim. Why is the foreskin alone so singled out to be demonized?
That's "no other healthy non-renewable part"
Since most Americans are accustomed to the practice of routine infant circumcision, they have a difficult time seeing it as child-abuse. Men who were subjected to this as infants do not even have an idea that something was taken from them until they encounter some information about it. At that point they either remain neutral, exhibit the "sour grapes" phenomenon "I'm better off this way anyway", or become regretful.
Women on the other hand, most of the time undergo female circumcision in countries that practice it, at an age that they can remember (so do many Muslim men as well, by the way). Still very few of them speak out against it and detail their horrid experience. Most women who uderwent the cutting themselves, go on to take their daughters to be cut as well. Something really weird happens when genital cutting becomes intertwined with cultural values. People who practice it begin to defend and promote it. They need a wake-up call from someone who has not bought into the scam to question what they are doing (like Western advocates against female circumcision). Since there are sub-cultures in many countries that practice male circumcision, and because of becoming medicalized, male circumcision does not awaken the same sense of injustice in people and it continues to be tolerated.
People get offended by others criticising their choices which they thought were based on a sound foundation and will defend it till the end. Few have the courage to admit that they may have fallen victim to the influence of the culture they were born into.
I have researched very exensive on this subject and the only reason I have found yet for a boy to be circumcised is in the case of one in a million births when the boy is born with a deformed penis and in that case the foreskin is used to fix the damage.
In my Country which followed the British example of circumcising its boys, but unlike Britain which dropped it like a hot potato in 1949 it carried on the practice for much longer.
Nowdays commonsense has prevailed and this operation has dropped to 12%, In one state it is down to 2%.
Now the information what has been done to them is available on the internet and boys who have been subjected to this unecessary dreadful mutilation are finding out the true facts.
Some never forgive their parents, some leave their homes and refuse to communicate to their parents again, I have read emails from these young men who now are aware that their sexuality has been stolen from them, their despair is heartbreaking to read.
To see that America which I believe would be the most advanced Country in the world still mutilating their boys at a rate of over 50% belies belief. If you had a law that banned doctors from charging for this operation the practice would plummet to zero overnight.
One study estimates that a realistic complication rate for newborn crcumcision ranges from 2 to 10 percent. To the many circumcised men who become aware of the function and value of the prepuse, the very fact that this sensory organ was destroyed is itself a complication of circumcision. As far as they are concerned, the actual complication rate is 100 percent. For males fortunate enough to survive the surgery without immediate complications, there is a growing awareness today of the long-term consequences of neonatal circumcision. These are only now beginning to be documented.
Circumcisers have lead many parents to believe that circumcision is a safe operation. They have withheld from parents the documented fact that at least one out of every five hundred circumcisions in the United States results in a serious surgical accident.
Common Circumcision disasters can be listed under the following headings: Bleeding, Infection,Gangrene, Necrosis, Balanitis Xerotica Obliterans BXO) Secondary to circumcision, Urinary tract infection, Urinary Retention, Meatal Ulceration, Meatal Stenosis, Urethral Fistula,Hypospadias Epispadias, Lymphedema,Complications from Anesthesia, Vomiting, Apnea (Stopped Breathing), Rupture of Internal Organs, Rupture of the lung, Blood clots in the Lung,Heart damage, Rupture of the stomach, Rupture of the Bladder, Leg Cyaosis, Buried Penis, Adhesions, Excessive skin loss/Denudation of the penile shaft, Chordee, Cysts, SkinTags and Bridges, Pitting of the Glans, Plastiell Complications, Excesive Scarring and Keloid Formation, Impotence, Amputation of the Glans, Amputation of the entire penis, Death.
Many Americans are surprised to learn that male circumcision is extremely rare outside the United States. Routine circumcision is unheard of amongst the civilisations of continental Europe, Great Britain, South America, and non-Muslim Asia. Most Europeans-including European doctors are shocked to learn that routine circumcision goes on in the United States. Most refuse to believe that such a thing is possible in a civilised, Western World.
Another fact you should know is that routine circumcision has not always been practiced in the United States. It was only after World War II that most American hospitals instituted neonatal circumcision as a routine proceedure. Prior to that, the vast majority of American boys were just like Euopean boys in this respect.
The prepuce is a common anatomical structure of the male and female externa genitalia of all human and non-human primates; it has been present in primates for at least 65 million years, andis likely to be over 100 million years old, based on its commonality as an anatomical feature in mammals.
Your child will not come to any harm being left intact, the only risk of danger is letting people interfere with him.
Circumcision is just as wrong for baby boys as for baby girls. In both cases, healthy, functional tissue is surgically removed from a minor incapable of making decisions. The only difference is that circumcision of boys has become so entrenched and accepted in our culture that no one has thought to question it until relatively recently.
There is NO alleged medical benefit attributed to circumcision that cannot be achieved by less radical means.
An infant of either sex should be granted the right to an intact body until he reaches an age where he is capable of deciding for himself. Girls are protected by law ,in the US, from having their genitals mutilated. Boys should be granted the same protection.
In the 20th century, female circumcision/female genital mutilation was practiced by doctors in the United States and was continued up until at least the early 1970's. Nowadays, those doctors if they were still alive and practicing would be quite embarrassed for their part in the practice.
Male circumcision is undergoing a cultural shift headed toward becoming illegal. Courts in Finland and Germany have recently found it to be a criminal offense and have declared it to be illegal. Public hospitals in Australia have banned the procedure on minors and the President of the Tasmanian Chapter of the Australian Medical Association has given his support to making it illegal regardless of where it is performed, public hospital or private clinic: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/09/2113665.htm
This is the trend of the future and I hope that this comes back to Dr. Healey and haunts her. Circumcision of any child is nothing more than a violation of a child in the most personal and private manner possible at the most vulnerable time in their life. Those who violate minor males should get the same treatment as those who violate minor females. They should all go to prison!
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I would like to examine Bernadine Healy's opinion concerning the preventative effect claimed for circumcision from a SCIENTIFIC point of view. She claims that "medical evidence" supports benefits for circumcision..but this evidence is based on questionable correlational STATISTICS only. This is not science.
She nowhere states that the effects of these "benefits" are NOT seen in the real world outside of the "medical" studies themselves. Many intact countries have lower rates of the conditions claimed to be reduced by circumcision. This violates one of the most basic and fundamental requirements of science--the ability to accurately predict an outcome from an action.
Perhaps she would be kind enough to provide a rational explanation (with evidence) as to why these studies fail to meet their prediction?
She then goes on to state that there are "plausible mechanisms" (her opinion) that MIGHT explain the claims. Plausible does not mean proven..in fact, all of the mechanisms speculated have been shown to be questionable at best, and many have been disproven.
She also dismisses the concrete evidence of the loss of all of the nerves of the foreskin and functional structures of the foreskin as "anecdotes". Until and if the circumcision advocates can provide logical and rational evidence that the loss of nerves does NOT decrease sensation and sensitivity and function, this is a ridiculous and fallacious argument and it is only her opinion that the evidence is mere anecdote.. It is about time that rational and logical thought be applied to this subject.
I find it interesting that she ventures into the FGM argument and tries to condemn it with her preconceptions. There is not actual evidence of harm from female circumcision greater than the harm from MGM--merely a collective opinion from countries that practice MGM and condemn FGM- there is evidence of harm for MGM, yet she tries to claim there is a valid reason to oppose FGM and not MGM. This is a prime example of a cultural double standard.
Lastly, I would like to examine this comment by her:
"I caution parents, however, against delaying the decision until the child is old enough to decide for himself. Get real. Not many teenage boys would relish the discussion, let alone the act. Nor do I think they would have the perspective to weigh the medical pros and cons."
Yes, let's get real here...
Why would teenage boys not relish a discussion about something that has adverse effect on his very sexuality? Better that it be done and let HIM decide than to have suffered from this and find the harm done via the interent. IF he would not relish the act as a teenager, then WHY force it onto him as an infant?
A teenage boy would not have the perspective to weigh the alleged medical pros and the proven cons, yet a teenaged mother would have this perspective? Is this real enough?
This OPINION speaks volumes. Ignorance (chosen or inadvertant) does, in no way, justify this procedure being done on infants! If an individual wishes to have this done as adult, it should be his right--but then HE is responsible for his actions and the outcome..and not merely the victim of the actions of others.
Dr. Healy:
It might interest you to know that it is not simply the British National Health Service consultant Geoff Hinchley who is calling into question the ethics of such a procedure or invoking the UN declaration on the rights of children with respect to this issue. Individuals and medical groups have made similar statements for years. While for the most part, for reasons I can't begin to fathom, American organizations have been ignoring them despite the fact that the AAP has stated circumcision was neither medically necessary nor had any substantive benefit since the early 70s.
Dr. Margaret Somerville, founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, where she holds the Samuel Gale Chair in the Faculty of Law and is a professor in the Faculty of Medicine, had some good things to say about this in her book, The Ethical Canary, reprinted here. Dr Somerville said in part: A common error made by those who want to justify infant male circumcision on the basis of medical benefits is that they believe that as long as some such benefits are present, circumcision can be justified as therapeutic, in the sense of preventive health care. This is not correct. A medical-benefits or "therapeutic" justification requires that overall the medical benefits should outweigh the risks and harms of the procedure required to obtain them, that this procedure is the only reasonable way to obtain these benefits, and that these benefits are necessary to the well-being of the child. None of these conditions is fulfilled for routine infant male circumcision.
So anthropologically are we more like Africa or Australia? Perhaps rather than parroting a news paper headline you should explain what is meant by that 50% and how that relates to the AFAO's bullet on context-specific. Is that an absolute reduction or a relative reduction and what that would really mean for an American or an Australian. Why embrace those results while at the same time ignoring and not following up the results of the Stallings study? I think Dr. Jon Myers gave us the answer to that question.
But ethically speaking that doesn't really matter, again as Dr. Margaret Somerville said in the Ethical Canary: The most recent claim of a medical benefit from circumcision is a reduction in the risk of contracting HIV infection or other sexually transmitted diseases. The research on which this claim is based is being challenged, but even if it is correct, it would not justify circumcising infant boys. Even assuming that circumcision gave men additional protection from becoming infected with HIV, baby boys do not immediately need such protection and can choose for themselves, at a later stage, if they want it. To carry out circumcision for such a future health protection reason (assuming for the moment that circumcision is protective) would be analogous to testing a baby girl for the gene for breast cancer and, if it is present, trying to remove all her immature breast tissue in order to eliminate the risk of her developing breast cancer as an adult woman. A very interesting set of corrisponences between Dr. Somerville and the Chief of the Division of Neonatology Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario expands on her legal interpretation of the procedure. I recommend that you read them closely.
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If the rate of complication is so low perhaps you could explain why the AFAO go on to point out that circumcision has a 2-10% incidence of complication. Perhaps you are only considering immediate complications and not long term effects some of which, such as meatal stenosis or meatal ulcer, aren't realized until long after the fact and may require further surgical intervention. Some may conclude that the complication rate is 100% when you consider the structures of the foreskin (BJU 1999) that are lost (BJU 1996) to circumcision. A recently plublished study (BJU 2007) found that the foreskin is actually the most sensitive part of the penis. Incidentally, the scar is the most sensitive part of the circumcised penis. A recent study done in South Korea found that circumcision causes reduction in sexual satisfaction in 20% of men.
So, is circumcision ethical? The British Medical Association states: Unnecessarily invasive procedures should not be used where alternative, less invasive techniques, are equally efficient and available. It is important that doctors keep up to date and ensure that any decisions to undertake an invasive procedure are based on the best available evidence. Therefore, to circumcise for therapeutic reasons where medical research has shown other techniques to be at least as effective and less invasive would be unethical and inappropriate. While not to be out done the Central Union for Child Welfare in Finland unequivocally states that circumcision of boys is a violation of personal, bodily, and sexual integrity. It asserts that it is only acceptable when medically necessary, and should otherwise be prohibited by law.
Is the British National Health Service consultant Geoff Hinchley the only one invoking UN declaration on the rights with regard to infant male circumcision? Hardly. Just this past September, The Australian Federation of AIDS Organizations produced this brochure in which the AFAO points out that: Articles 3 and 6 of UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights require consideration in discussion of the implementation of circumcision programs to prevent HIV. Article 3 clause 2 states that “The interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole interest of science or society” and article 6 clause 1 states that “Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.” Given that male circumcision is an invasive HIV prevention method that is expected to have a population effect rather than a direct, measurable individual effect, genuine informed consent that involves a clear understanding of the lack of direct benefits to the individual is therefore ethically required. As Dr. Somerville pointed out infants and children don't immediately need this protection and they can acquire it at a time, if they so choose, when they are capable of giving consent. The AFAO goes on to say: How a man factors the known risk reduction alongside the unknown variables into his sexual decision-making is the important thing. Unless he opts to use condoms with all sexual partners whose HIV status is positive or unknown, he remains at risk of acquiring HIV (and if he does this, there is no need to be circumcised for added protection). Finally, most recently, Tasmanian Children's Commissioner, Paul Mason, has called for a ban on male circumcision and The Australian Medical Association has backed him up.
The foreskin has been blamed with scant evidence for a stunning number of diseases and conditions, including "nocturnal emissions," masturbation (when it was bad), syphilis, epilepsy, paralysis, bed wetting (and not the cause as in a common circumcision complication, meatal stenosis), curvature of the spine, "paralysis of the bladder," clubfoot, crossed eyes, blindness, deafness, "dumbness," urinary incontinence, "rectal incontinence," tuberculosis, penile cancer, prostate cancer, STIs of every variety, a great number of cancers affecting many different often unrelated parts of the body, urinary track infection (a rather new foreskin related malady), and now from the rooftops (and current blue ribbon champ), AIDS.
These claims have later been found to be either greatly overstated or entirely wrong. But for some reason doctors and researchers, such as yourself, continue to grope around for any justification. Its time doctors and researchers, such as yourself, end this 100 year old charade and join colleagues in places like Australia, Finland, Britain, and other parts of the world and address infant male circumcision for the ethical problem that it is. Infant females already have the protection of the law; boys deserve the same respect. Don't like that comparison Dr. Healy? I suggest you take it up with Hanny Lightfoot-Klein; I wonder what she might say about this story and discussion
If we limited FGM to excising only the clitoral hood (Type I FGM), performed it during the first week or less of life in a clean facility under the wishes of the parents, would Mealy consent to FGM? Of course not! But it is interesting to note that the victims of FGM grow up to heal their psychological trauma by doing what? They then support the practice on their own beloved daughters with the support of their spouses, and not without strikingly similar reasons we argue for cutting *our boys. Back in the US, infant male circumcision exacts the same psychological damage on our men and *their spouses such that one of their first acts of love is to ask someone to amputate what amounts to about 50% of the movable shaft skin of the healthy, sexual penile tissue of their brand new baby boy. They do this even if it means exposing their own flesh and blood to great physical pain and even death, as 300 out of the one million babies subjected to this ‘little snip’ die each year, usually from bleeding to death. The truth is that all wind up with diminished penises – some simple anatomy lessons will bear this out.
It is plainly understood that parents aren’t given cart blanche on enacting medical procedures that alter their children’s bodies permanently without very strong medical reasons, yet no strong medical reasons exist for routine circumcision of neonates. Doctors defer to ‘parental choice’ and parents defer to ‘doctor opinion.’ Well, which is it? In my opinion it is neither. It is the right of the child to bodily integrity and free choice with what he does with his own penis, that you very much. And people. Cutting off part of a male’s sex organ has no effect on sensation? Please. These so-called studies that conclude this are amazingly devoid of meaningful questions, yet as recently as July, we have a well designed study which tells most rational people what we already know – cutting off sexual tissue results in lifelong reduction in – you guessed it – sexual pleasure. I guess that’s not a bad thing if you’re one of those people that believe sexual pleasure is not appropriate, or vulgar, which I’m sure you’re not, right?
The law is meant to protect all citizens equally, including those who cannot yet speak for themselves, but with regards to ending routine infant male circumcision, we must begin to see our own cultural double standard before this can happen. Mealy, a medical professional who of all people, should be most informed and lucid on what he claims is a medical topic yet who clearly is not, represents a colossal example of that double standard in action.
I would like to address an open question to Dr. Healy. There was a much ignored study by Stallings et al in 2005 in Tanzania. The study showed that female circumcision reduced transmission of the AIDS virus. http://www.ias-2005.org/planner/Abstracts.aspx?AID=3138
Would you advocate the routine circumcision of baby girls on the basis of this study, Dr. Healy? If not, why would you advocate the circumcision of baby boys on a similar basis?
I'm heartened to read this Rapid Response on the BMJ about financial compensation:
Financial issues we should consider 13 December 2007
Laura J MacDonald,
stakeholder in the NHS
London N1 5SL
The current cost of providing for ritual surgery on the NHS is covered above. I wonder however if anyone has carried out due diligence on the FUTURE financial implications of carrying out ritual surgery on non- consenting patients?
As a degrading, harmful and painful treatment prescribed on the basis of his gender, his parents religion, or a presumption about his future behaviour, male infant circumcision is a clear violation of many explicit requirements of the Children's Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2006. The loss of highly innervated erogenous tissue is irreversible, and the BMA have accepted this may entail psychological consequences. The compensation awarded to a complainant could run to hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Some will consider litigation unlikely but the recent formation of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain shows clearly that we cannot rely on the presumption that a man born to a Muslim family will retrospectively approve his circumcision.
If GPs, ethicists and surgeons don't care about the consequences of taking a functional and joyful part from an unconsenting boy, NHS finance managers certainly should.
Circumcision has been around a long time, so it is quite clear that there are NO medical risks other than the procedure itself, and substantial medical benefit in avoiding sexually transmitted disease, phimosis, and maintaining cleanliness. That said, an elective medical procedure should never be taken lightly.
The claims that are most disturbing are by circumcised males who claim that they believe that they have lost sensitivity. This is, fortunately, a testable claim: individuals have circumcisions later in life for a variety of reasons: religious conversion, phimosis, and most recently the prevention of HIV transmission may be driving individuals to have the procedure. We should be measuring if there is a perceived change in sexual pleasure, duration of intercourse (wouldn't reducing sensitivity change the duration of intercourse?), and partner pleasure.
Wouldn't it be ironic if the measurable change turned out to be higher partner satisfaction due to longer intercourse? That finding would make circumcision a potential treatment for premature ejaculation and perhaps drive circumcision as a tantric procedure.
All or none of this may be true, but I have yet to hear an objective view.
"Circumcision has been around a long time, so it is quite clear that there are NO medical risks other than the procedure itself, and substantial medical benefit in avoiding sexually transmitted disease, phimosis, and maintaining cleanliness. That said, an elective medical procedure should never be taken lightly."
Unfortuantely this is an erroneous statemnt--there are NO PROVEN benefits, and many poroven risks--up to and including DEATH.
"The claims that are most disturbing are by circumcised males who claim that they believe that they have lost sensitivity. This is, fortunately, a testable claim: individuals have circumcisions later in life for a variety of reasons: religious conversion, phimosis, and most recently the prevention of HIV transmission may be driving individuals to have the procedure. We should be measuring if there is a perceived change in sexual pleasure, duration of intercourse (wouldn't reducing sensitivity change the duration of intercourse?), and partner pleasure."
Once again, there IS objective evidence for this damage:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/servlet/useragent?func=synergy&synerg yAction=showAbstract&doi=10.1046/j.1464-410x.1996.85023.x&area=product ion&prevSearch=allfield%3A%28circumcision%29
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/3/prweb512999.htm
Study Confirms Male Circumcision is Genital Mutilation
A new study in the British Journal of Urology International shows that men with normal, intact penises enjoy more sexual sensitivity — as much as four times more — than those who have been circumcised. Circumcising slices off more of a male's sensitivity than is normally present in all ten fingertips.
Actually PE is higher in the circumcised:
http://www.cirp.org/library/sex_function/vissing1/
SCANDANAVIAN JOURNAL OF SEXOLOGY, Volume 2, Number 4: Page 103.
PREMATURE EJACULATION AND CIRCUMCISION
BIOGENIC OR A CULTURAL FACTOR
VISSING M
Premature ejaculation ( PE ) seems to be the most common male sexual dysfunction world-wide. Reports from the Middle East, India and Asia show a much higher incidence of PE than in the western world. In these areas the vast majority of men have had a ritual circumcision. In our clinic we also found a significantly higher incidence of PE in men from these parts of the world.
Is it a biogenic factor due to circumcision or a psychogenic disorder due to cultural differences?
We investigated penile sensitivity with TSA 2001 Thermal Analyzer ( cold / warm and tactile sensation ) in normal men and and with PE who had a ritual circumcision and in non-circumcised men. The literature will be discussed and the results presented.
Correspondence
Institute of clinical sexology
Rigshospitalet
Copenhagen Denmark
"Wouldn't it be ironic if the measurable change turned out to be higher partner satisfaction due to longer intercourse? That finding would make circumcision a potential treatment for premature ejaculation and perhaps drive circumcision as a tantric procedure."
see above
"All or none of this may be true, but I have yet to hear an objective view."
see above
Partner pleasure?
http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/ohara/
Tandy makes some very nice and well referenced comments: the data show that the discussion is still an open one: Tandy should refrain from saying that there are NO health benefits, as transmission of HIV is clearly reduced in circumcised individuals
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/circumcision.htm
Even though there are clearly those that disagree
http://www.circumstitions.com/HIV.html
But the weight of evidence cited cannot have it both ways:
By stating that premature ejaculation is greater among the circumcised (with reference) and citing the article on partner pleasure cites :
"Because the vast majority of the fine-touch receptors are missing from the circumcised penis, their role as ejaculatory triggers is also absent." which would clearly indicate that ejaculation would be delayed. This just demonstrates that there are more factors involved, and there is not a clear finding on either issue.
A pleasure to read comments by informed readers; I salute you.
"Tandy makes some very nice and well referenced comments: the data show that the discussion is still an open one: Tandy should refrain from saying that there are NO health benefits, as transmission of HIV is clearly reduced in circumcised individuals "
I state that there are no PROVEN benefits for circumcision--and scientifically speaking, this is true..even the alleged claim for the reduction of HIV.
Basic tenets of science: These can be used as a litmus test for claimed benefits
Conclusions based solely on known flawed data cannot be considered valid
ALLstudies have known flaws—flaws of commission and/or flaws of omission
Flaws = not scientifically compelling
The worth of a theory is determined by ability to make accurate predictions
NO predicted reduction or elimination is found in real world
Failure to fulfill prediction = not scientifically credible
So, until and if those advocating this HIV reduction can show that the redcution actually exists, there is no PROVEN benefit...and the same applies for all other alleged benefits.
I have well I should say my husband and I have 3 sons... Before our oldest was born my Father asked, " do you plan to have the baby circumcised if he is a boy???" We discussed it and he encouraged us to do it. He is not circumcised he is 83 now and was born at home. My Father in law who is 80 now also encouraged us to do it... I was told it is not necessary except for cleanliness. My husband felt strongly that it needed to be done. All 3 boys are circumcised and it didn't seem terribly traumatic at the time. I have heard and read statistics of increased cervical cancer in women who partners are not circumcised... Just my 2 cents
As a scientist I appreciate your case, but believe that you are overstating the value or lack of value in the data. Perhaps your agenda is showing?
There is no "compelling evidence": with predictive results for any of the negatives you so happily cite either:
I pointed out, for instance, that while you cite one source as linking circumcision to premature ejaculation, you cite another that links the foreskin to loss of a stimulus to orgasm. You would have to postulate some mechanism by which both would be true, and then test it. They are contradictory, so therefore, both are "not true" as they have not been reproduced nor shown as predictive. See how easy it is to dismiss another's case as scientifically invalid without actually addressing WHAT the shortcomings are?
The CDC's review of the studies, while it mentions they have flaws, does not come to your conclusion that ALL the data is invalid. The trends in this case are compelling, pending further research. If the research was not directional, it would be more supportive of your (prejudice). In this case, the epidemiologists rule. The World Health Organization does not spend their money or efforts where there is not at least reasonable evidence that there will be some return on their investment. They too do not dismiss the data as "flawed" to the point of being worthless. Again, the epidemiologists rule.
http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/
Basic tenet of balance and rhetoric; It is not really helpful to discourse to accept statements that support your beliefs as fact and dismiss those that do not as scientifically invalid. You should apply the same values to the data that you cited. Few are based upon either multiple studies or contain populations that are not biased by either a preponderance of one male condition or the other. "That looks funny to me". I remember the discussion on Sex and the City where one of the girls says "I don't want one that comes with its own carrying case". So much bias exists at the cultural level that good scientific data will be hard to come by.
What is your bias on this subject? Are you a gay male with foreskin envy? A close friend of mine, now deceased from HIV, discussed his wish to have experienced sex as an "intact" male. As a circumcised male, I have often wondered what I am "missing", but try to be objective about what has, and has not, been measured. I appreciated the data that you presented, but it is less definitive than what exists in the medical press.
There is ample reason to avoid circumcision as surgery is never to be conducted without reason, but the jury is still out.
Let's not paint the research as "all flawed" as there is little enough research being done. The truth will ultimately come clear when the correct piece of data appears and can be reliably reproduced. Until then, schoolyard rhetoric is unnecessary, and your "litmus test" comment is unnecessarily strident. There are other points of view that, until there is better evidence, are scientifically valid.
Assuming that there is no medical reason to do so, there is still the religious and cultural history among Jews and Muslims. The risk would have to be measurable, not just a lack of benefit, to overcome the bias in those cultures.
In my mind it is likely that circumcision will decline over time, unless the data on STDs turns out to be erroneous, but lets not jump the gun here.
"By stating that premature ejaculation is greater among the circumcised (with reference) and citing the article on partner pleasure cites :
"Because the vast majority of the fine-touch receptors are missing from the circumcised penis, their role as ejaculatory triggers is also absent." which would clearly indicate that ejaculation would be delayed. This just demonstrates that there are more factors involved, and there is not a clear finding on either issue."
The factors that relate to PE are not the quantity of nerves, but the quality of the nerves--enough sensory feedback to relay the closeness of the climax to take corrective action. Also, In tight erections there is constant pressure on the glans (a pressure sensitive organ that facilitates the climax) that preconditions one to climax earlier.
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