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US Doctors Back Circumcision
ananyo writes "On 27 August, a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics concludes for the first time that, overall, boys will be healthier if circumcised. The report says that although the choice is ultimately up to parents, medical insurance should pay for the procedure. The recommendation, coming from such an influential body, could boost U.S. circumcision rates, which, at 55%, are already higher than much of the developed world. The researchers estimate that each circumcision that is not performed costs the U.S. health-care system $313."
We were made this way for very good reasons, even if we don't understand them.
Imagine if somebody proposed the same thing for female infants. What would be the reaction?
Leave all minors alone. Let them decide when they turn 18.
We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone. -management
$313 is a small price to pay to not have one's privates butchered.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
Just practice good hygiene. How about we don't mutilate anyone's private parts against their will?
I'm not American, and I can't quite understand where does the custom in the US comes from. Is it religious in origin? I know muslims, jews and americans practice it, but that's about it. Does anyone know? As far as I know, it's not common at all on other countries.
The problem is sex education in this country. How about leaving the foreskin and teaching boys how to take care of themselves and what to avoid?
As a man that suffers from sever penile insensitivity, presumably from my circumcision (which became infected due to poor practices at the hospital), I believe it is a useless, barbaric practice, almost akin to clitordectomies. Clitordectomies, by the way, are also known as female circumcisions. Coincidence?
If you want some of the truth about what a circumcision actually does I suggest reading the following:
http://www.norm.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreskin_restoration
Silence is a state of mime.
Pediatrics - Only concerned with the health of kids, not adults.
You may be physically healthier, on average, without your foreskin. Only if you're not taught about how to properly take care of it. (So the data, framed in this way, will say that circumcised boys are healthier because improperly cared for un-circumcised boys)
The real problem is a social phobia about teaching little boys how they are supposed to wash and care for their penis. Instead, we just cut off the foreskin so we don't have to deal with it. Touching your "penis" is bad, after all.
Later in life it leads to abnormal masturbation, reduced sexual pleasure, and reduced pleasure of your female partner. - This study conveniently ignores these issues because they're not about children.
The article is also very light on numbers. It mentions a reduction in STIs and whatnot, but provides absolutely no quantitative data. How much are these infections and disorders decreased by? Are we talking a couple percentage points? Or dozens of percentage points? Furthermore, I don't see any definitive causes described. What I see is a correlation with some hypothesizing as to the cause but nothing which has actually been verified by scientific inquiry.
Which studies? Proponents of circumcision continuously invent a new reason circumcision is useful whenever the previous one is debunked. First it was to fight masturbation, then it was because it prevented penile cancer, then it was to prevent genital cancer among women, then it was because men would be too stupid to clean themselves if they were uncut, then it was to protect against AIDS. What will be the next reason, who knows but I'm sure they will invent one then say "prove me wrong".
US healthcare will pay for religious mutilation, but not for planned parenthood.
I think we've identified the core of what is wrong here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_effects_of_circumcision
Read down to the female preference and response section. 79% to 89% prefer circumcised based on the research quoted.
So yes, they actually do.
in Georgia and Iowa (US)...not exactly a widespread study
Mutilation of children's bodies is generally considered to be harmful, yes.
When you're talking about physically cutting into a baby's body, the burden of proof lies with those who would cut, not those who would not. Quoting from an above post:
The British Medical Association said it had no policy on the issue because of the “absence of unambiguously clear and consistent medical data on the implications of the intervention."
As far as I'm concerned if the evidence is so ambiguous after all this time then there's no necessity for the operation. Look at it this way if it prevents the spread of HIV then why is the infection level in the UK a third of that in the US in percentage terms yet circumcision in the UK is very tiny
In the UK, there is no financial incentive for doctors to mutilate children. I tend to trust their version of affairs, rather than those with a financial incentive (the doctor is paid for his time, and the hospital sells the tissue).
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Just because there isn't a proven causal relationship, doesn't mean that there isn't one.
More to the point... has circumcision ever been shown to be linked to something harmful?
Yes.
Circumcision is an unnecessary and mainly cosmetic surgery picked by parents because of tradition and/or religion. Recent attempts to find medical justification for its existence are both new and almost laughable. It's a penile "nose job" for a baby so the baby isn't potentially made fun of for being "different" later on.
Unfortunately, circumcision is a surgical procedure. And no matter how "routine" and "minor" a surgical procedure is, it's only "routine" and "minor" until something inevitably goes wrong. Rare, but horrible when it happens.
Promoting circumcisions to prevent STD transmission is the worst sort of self-serving justification. Why not promote mastectomies at puberty for girls to avoid the 1 in 7 chance of getting breast cancer during their lifetime? Or appendectomies for everyone? If your STD prevention strategy consists of promoting circumcision, instead of promoting safe sex education and prophylactic barrier distribution, your priorities are wildly skewed.
You really want your baby circumcised? Wait until he's 18, and give him the choice.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
>>>my circumcised penis has been greeted with relief by a partner who found the natural look repulsive.
Interesting. If my "partner" said that my natural penis was repulsive, I would tell her that I'll circumcize my dick if she trims those ugly lips off her pussy (female circumcision). Fucking bitch. If the penis didn't need a foreskin, evolution would not have put it there.
For that matter why does God make his followers cut it off? Did God make a mistake when he put the foreskin on the male? Hmmm. But he's supposed to be flawless.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
THE STUPID. IT HURTS!
You mean the same “studies” that called the spleen or even the tonsils “useless” for decades, just because they didn't know the use? Until they realized that the spleen is the standing army (!) of the immune system. (And the tonsils are your front entry guards.)
The place where white blood cells reside, that learned to defend your body against past threats.
Yeeeah, totally useless. Let's remove it. We're totally not arrogant dicks with a god complex for acting like that...
Hell, how stupid do you have to be, to not see that obviously, there’s a reason we have the foreskin, since otherwise those without it would have long won natural selection.
All the arguments here are complete bullshit.
The "disease hazard" one: How the hell is it expecting to much, to pull back your foreskin and wash your dick once, every 1-2 days?? How is that a disease hazard and a justification in the first place?? And how, going by that logic, don't they also recommend removing your asshole, bowels, mouth and nose? Those are even more prone to be full of bad germs.
The uselessness one: I guess you never had one, and weren’t even given a choice to experience it. Because otherwise you'd know, that at least 1. it keep the glans lightly humid... which is its natural healthy state, and 2. protects it.
It's the same thing as a vagina, which also has a special humid fauna/climate as the normal state. Hell, it even is the same damn fucking tissue! What's so hard about this??
What kind of fucked up mind do you have to have, to go: "Well, considering it's a integral part of your body, evolved over millions of years, it clearly must be completely useless."?
So shut the fuck up with your blatant thought-terminating chlichees, if you can't even bring up actual arguments! Only idiots life FOX news pound on "facts" and "fair and balanced". Because he has no fucking idea of the difference between a observation, a hypothesis, a theory, and communication of bullshit.
I wish your whole damn backwards wasteland would just go ahead, and cut the Internet, so you can live your dream of The Dark Ages 2.0!
Is there some evidence that Muslim and Christian men are less promiscuous? I would be very surprised to learn if that were true.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Tonsils are not necessary part of the body either. Neither is the gall bladder. Hell, you can go on quite fine with one lung and no stomach either.
That do NOT mean you remove things.
Hell, you can cut transmission of STDs by just cutting everyone's dicks off. They are 100% not necessary for anything. We can bypass natural insemination with a syringe and tube, you know, like cattle and other farm animals. Would you pay the price??
The recommendations are retarded. 1 in 1,000,000 vs. 3 in 1,000,000 chance of cancer. They are saying uncircumcised result in $300+ extra costs per person, that means each penile cancer costs $150,000,000 dollars in costs. I'm sorry, but someone can't count. Or maybe they hope no one else does either.
In fact good sex ed works: Europe has lower HIV infection rates than the US.
This whole thing is basically "genital mutilation of children is fine because we can cut on education". Amusing fact: female circumcision will similarly risk rates. Will you support it?
The benefits are tiny (and only for adults), and the risks significant (for the kids). Also, what about the right of children to bodily integrity? If an adult wants to be circumcised, this is fine, of course, but this decision, so soon on the back of the German court decision? That reeks of religious lobbying.
Uh, washing anyone? Those of you without foreskins seem to be desperately defending circumcision to justify the decision your parents or their pediatrician made, but the foreskin is just a bit of skin. It is not some impenetrable barrier! It's like saying, I can't get at my teeth to clean them so i must have my lips surgically removed. Jeez, some of you smart people are devilish stupid at times. Glad my kids still have their foreskins. They are whole and unscarred and know how to clean themselves. How about you? When did you last have a shower?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Not to be cynical or anything, but the studies were done by a group with a vested interested in promoting this lucrative surgical procedure.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.