This was in last week's paper, a fantastic rebuttal to the ridiculous article the Post put out last week about how newborn circumcision may be recommended again based on very flawed studies done in Africa on HIV & circ.
There's good concern for not circumcising boys
Thursday, January 21, 2010
It would be disgraceful bioethics for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend circumcision for U.S. infants based on African studies ["Circumcision may receive new support," Health, Jan. 19].
Amputating healthy, vital, nerve-supplied erogenous tissue from helpless infants, based on an assumption that they will be promiscuous adults, is remarkably totalitarian medicine. It also flies in the face of epidemiological realities. The United States has high rates of HIV and the highest rate of circumcision in the West. The "experiment" of using circumcision to stem HIV infection has been running here for decades. It has failed miserably. Why do countries such as New Zealand, where they abandoned infant circumcision 50 years ago, or European countries, where circumcision is rare, have such low rates of HIV?
Circumcising infants who can then claim as adults that they are less likely to catch or transmit HIV is a foolish gamble. And if circumcised individuals still need to practice safe sex, why bother with a procedure that might make them overconfident? Moreover, in an age when "super bugs" are rampant in U.S. hospitals, the CDC needs to weigh carefully the ethics of preventing disease by amputating healthy tissue from helpless children.
John V. Geisheker, Seattle
The writer is executive director and general counsel of Doctors Opposing Circumcision
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About Me
- clara
- I'm just a mom in the world. A crunchy Catholic mama of 6 trying to make sense of it all and stay positive. 5 boys here & 1 in heaven. One awesome man who I get to grow old with. I help new moms breastfeed. I`m happy. I don`t go to shows or dance clubs every night but I would if I could. Where`s the nanny? When I see her she`s SO fired! One of my boys is super sweet and sensitive, another one is a holy terror. I learn a ton from all of them daily. Like Nigella says, as any parent of small children knows,there comes a point in the day where you can`t go any further without a drink! I love cocktail hour. I`d like nothing more than to be with my family and some good friends surrounded by tropical plants drinking a margarita listening to the Eagles. I don`t care about trendy, I like that grungy 70`s vibe.
5 comments:
In Europe, almost no-one circumcises unless they're Muslim or Jewish, and they have significantly lower rates of almost all STI's including HIV.
Even in Africa, there are six countries where men are *more* likely to be HIV+ if they've been circumcised: Cameroon, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, and Swaziland. Eg in Malawi, the HIV rate is 13.2% among circumcised men, but only 9.5% among intact men. In Rwanda, the HIV rate is 3.5% among circumcised men, but only 2.1% among intact men. If circumcision really worked against AIDS, this just wouldn't happen. We now have people calling circumcision a "vaccine" or "invisible condom", and viewing circumcision as an alternative to condoms.
The one study into male-to-female transmission showed a 54% higher rate in the group where the men had been circumcised btw.
ABC (Abstinence, Being faithful, Condoms) is the way forward. Promoting genital surgery will cost lives, not save them.
Both male and female circumcision (in the absence of true disease/need) seems like a major human rights violation to me. The author of the letter is correct in saying the US tends to have a high circumcision rate within the sexually active aged community, yet we also have a high rate of HIV and std's. The only real reason I can see a medical organization recommending removal of healthy body parts is because they profit from it. And they do, don't they?
That is a great letter. It shows so much more common sense than the World Health Organization, Bill Gates, and all those pro-circumcision researchers who are trying to deceive the AAP and CDC into recommending harmful circumcisions based on flawed African studies.
As a Catholic mother, are you aware of this website?
http://www.catholicsagainstcircumcision.org/
I love Catholics against Circ! I have a link to them on here, they are a great group & so is Intact America :)
Thank you Mark, I am glad you found me & left a comment. I agree completely, the studies were painfully flawed. We would never expect an American circed man to rely on his circ status as protection, its asinine. Yet, the Africans are treated like idiots. ABC is the only answer, I agree.
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