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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."
(Speaking as a man with a foreskin, who can't quite imagine what it would be like not to have one... uncomfortable?)
I occasionally see reports about circumcision affecting cancer outcomes, AIDS transmission, things like that.
What completely mystifies me, is the mechanics of these effects. Perhaps a foreskin can lead to increased transmission of AIDS. How? By what mechanism?
Doctors pay dues to the AAP, not babies. Doctors make money off of cutting babies. You joke, but it is a HUGE industry - not just the operation, but afterwards the tissue is sold to make cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.
The world doesn't work like that, and a measure that can help prevent disease with very few side effects can and should be used to help stop disease.
Wow, nice. So because people act foolishly, everyone (that doesn't approve of it) must suffer? Please. The people dealing with HIV are usually dealing with the consequences of their own actions, but if we remove all foreskins, we punish everyone for their actions. Furthermore, plenty of people without foreskins do have HIV. A small increase in the chance of getting HIV/penile cancer is not worth punishing everyone over.
A very large recent study in Europe found 1/10 having short term complications with circumcision and 1/1000 having suffering serious permanent problems. 1/1000 is not large enough to forbid adults from getting it if they want to, but it is large enough that it has been forbidden on children in Germany and under evaluation for being forbidden in several other countries.
my mother did it to me
I think that's common... in my experience it's actually women who feel most strongly in favor of circumcision. When my boys were born I didn't really care either way that much (sorry, I don't think it's as horrific as some here do, and neither do I think it's hugely beneficial or important), but my wife was quite insistent that they be circumcised. She didn't really have any argument other than "uncircumcised penises look funny". Oh, she also cited hygiene, but the "look funny" argument seemed to be the more important one.
I've come across the same attitude from nearly every other American woman with whom I've discussed the topic -- which isn't a huge number, penis alteration not being a common lunch conversation topic and all -- but probably a couple dozen or so.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
The "less AIDS argument" actually holds up in third world countries where there is no access to health care, less hygienic practices, and less education.
It doesn't hold up here in America. There may be like 1-5 cases of the extra foreskin actually causing HIV to be contracted when without it the virus didn't contract - there may be none at all. In all seriousness, the studies cited were not done in the developed world.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
I was in physical pain for roughly 10 years from when my male puberty started (yay, facial hair, oddly I never got crackly voice) and when my female puberty started (yay, boobs, goodbye morning wood).
When I started HRT, I didn't even know I was circumcised. I thought pain along with wood was the normal thing for a guy. Apparently, my doctor didn't think twice about my reporting feelings that I should have been a different gender with different body parts and experiencing pain at the normal functioning of the male genitalia. It wasn't until I met my intact ex-boyfriend that I learned I had been mutilated. It turns out that the feelings I experience of the skin tearing were abnormal, even for a circumcised man.
Also, no trans woman I've ever asked has once reported the same pain I reported. Therefore, eliminate my doctor's theory that the pain was caused by some mysterious brain-genital mismatch.
The question that digs at me is this: was my doctor right in dismissing circumcision as a cause or am I right in blaming circumcision as the cause? Because of all the disinformation surrounding male genital mutilation, my doctor may not have been aware of a case presented in The Joy of Uncircumcising by Jim Bigelow (an intereting read regardless of standpoint) worse than mine. Instead of just pain because the skin felt like it might tear, there's a story of a man whose skin DID tear, every night.
At any rate, because I can never return to my natural, unmutilated state, I'll never know. And, if I may since this is slashdot, since estrogen HRT solved my problem, the worst part, being a geek, is not knowing lol.
Cheers
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You're forgetting to point out the insignificance of the numbers in question. For UTI, if it's a 90% reduction, well, take the existing incidence rate, 1.5%, add 90%, and it's still less than 3%. And how many babies die from UTI? We're talking /infection/ here of a routine infant condition, not mortality.
It makes me want to throw up.
Then I watch how people react to allowing US hospitals to perform the "clitoral pin-prick" style female circumcision which fulfills certain religious beliefs. Nothing is removed. Read my other comments, and I would gladly trade 10 years of physical pain (possibly) due to a circumcision a bit too tight for a pin-prick. People lose their shit. Really, I had a comment removed from NPR.org just for mentioning that hospitals (and the AAP) had considered creating a protocol for this pin-prick.
If I can be 100% serious for a moment, think about it. Girls every year are trafficked to 3rd world countries to be mutilated. US hospitals are offering to do something that will be done anyway in a less severe, much more sterile manner. And people still lose their shit. So, the girls continue to get trafficked to 3rd world countries to have their clitorises pricked with a bacteria-infested knife, resulting in irritation that requires amputation of the entire clitoris. BUT OMG FGM BRAIN LEAKS OUT EAR. But male circumcision, ok, that's cool.
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Unless I'm entirely mistaken, the specific studies in question are the African studies which your links rely on as proof that circumcision reduces HIV infection. (All three studies were conducted by the same group over the same time period and use the same methodology; I suspect that if they didn't get good enough results they were planning to pool them in one study.) The circumcised men were instructed not to have sex for the first two months of the 12-month study period whereas the control group were allowed to; in addition, because all men were given free condoms and advice on safer sex at every visit but the circumcised men had more follow-up visits the circumcised group had better access to both condoms and advice.
The APA article your links bases their claims on is also misleading in other ways. For example, the 3 randomised trials were not exactly " consistent with previous ecological and observational studies in Africa, Europe, and the United States" - as I recall the observational studies showed much larger benefits (and in fact the more robust the studies are, the smaller the effect seems to be). The Ugandan trial also couldn't actually show that "the protective effect of circumcision increased with longer time from surgery" as they claim because there was no control group after 12 months and therefore not a sliver of evidence that the decrease in HIV infection rates over time had anything to do with circumcision whatsoever; while didn't stop the researchers from claiming it as a benefit from circumcision and even extrapolating the decrease out into the distant future and prominently quoting the extrapolated figures in their abstract, they had no basis for those claims whatsoever.
Also, the bit about "Male circumcision and HIV protection among MSM have not been studied as well as heterosexual transmission" is weasel-worded bullshit - we've studied this to death even after study after study showed no benefit, and subsequent studies have still shown no benefit. The lack of evidence for it working has nothing to do with lack of research - we've researched it plenty and it just doesn't work. Furthermore, notice how they dismiss all the studies showing that circumcision doesn't affect the risk of men transmitting HIV to their female partners and cherry-pick some that do; in practice things may be even worse because studies that were showing early signs of concluding that it actually increased the risk to female partners have been terminated early for getting undesirable results!
Not to mention correlation does not equal causation so we have no idea if the men they chose had other factors that weren't considered.
Hell the wiki on correlation has a medical study that said women that take birth control were at less risk for heart disease but a further study showed those women actually had a HIGHER risk but since they were from a higher socioeconomic group than the women without birth control it was the much better diet and exercise habits that skewed the results.So I'd say before we can give an answer either way further more controlled studies should be done.
And finally I have to wonder how much of the problem isn't western taboos about talking to kids about their genitals. Lets face it like any other part of the body children need to be taught to clean the area correctly and thoroughly but we here in the west are so hung on the idea that little John or Jane may actually play with themselves I seriously doubt any of the kids were being givern a proper education in such matters.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Same way as you'd explain the health benefits of male circumcision. Observational studies using the same methodology as the ones on male circumcision found that female circumcision was similarly effective at preventing HIV infection amongst women as male circumcision was amongst men. The research community has just chosen not to believe or act on this for reasons that are entirely political and have nothing to do with the evidence. (On the other hand, studies have found that male circumcision is totally ineffective at preventing HIV infection amongst men's female partners, but the scientific community has ignored this and chosen to proceed with it as a method of preventing HIV infection amongst women anyway.)
I am circumcised, and I say with no hesitation that circumcised penises look grotesque, abnormal, and defective. To be circumcised is to live in an antinatural state.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Where's the punishment? The research shows that there is no punishment. There's no loss of sensation -- in fact, men with adult circumcisions report that sex is BETTER afterwards. (RTFS). Its all upside and no real downside other than complications in the procedure itself, which are rare in infants.
You truly believe that taking skin that used to be protected at all times against friction except during the sexual act and having it rub continuously against the fabric of your clothes isn't going to reduce sensation?
Are you retarded?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Here's some numbers for you:
If we circumcise 100 infants, at a cost of $33,000, we prevent 1 case of urinary tract infection, at a cost of $100 for a doctor's visit and penicillin regimen.
Obviously we can see which of the doctors and patients benefit from this arrangement...
The real path to male liberation
Post-hoc rationalization.
A few points:
- I would rather have the penis I was born with, which would now include not a 'small ribbon' but an area of skin with the approximate surface area of an index card
- There are far less invasive treatments for penile cancer than the removal of the entire penis
But... becoming a girl because you have cancer and lose your penis? Are you for real? It's funny you mention that though, because there's a notable case where circumcision itself did destroy the penis of an infant, and in attempt to fix things they performed gender reassignment surgery (though doomed sexually for life), put the kid on hormones and raised him as a girl. Problem was, he never identified as a girl, and some decades after learning the truth about what happened to him, killed himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
But yep, the science behind the procedure is bulletproof. Except when it isn't.
And to your assertion of cognitive dissonance, I have not experienced this. To the contrary I have found that people will go to any length to convince themselves that they have not been harmed when it's very obvious they have.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
I'm circumcised and I FUCKING HATE IT. It was done when I was aged two and I remember the pain after the operation. I have so little sensitivity that sex with a condom is a total waste of time for me. If anyone suggested that females have their clitoral hood removed and their clitoris exposed there would be an outrage. LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE and let them choose when they are 18.