One of the last sane

HIV infection can be cut 100% by not having sex with an infected partner, and close to that by practicing safe sex. STDs are caused by sexual intercourse with infected partners, not by having a foreskin.

Also, correlation does not prove causation.

Circumcision may be beneficial to the seXually active in areas with high endemic HIV infection. It does seem to be beneficial in countries with a lot of sandy desert, because uncut men in those countries tend to get severe posthitis, as many soldiers found out in North Africa. But it does not follow that mean little boys who do not live in a desert, and do not live in an area with high endemic HIV infection (or live in an area where sex education and condoms are readily available), should have to be circumcized. Rbochner's advocacy of circumcision makes about as much sense to me as saying that people who live in areas where malaria is not endemic should nevertheless use mosquito nets and take chloroquine regularly.

ybnormal

In a word, yes. There is clearly more reason to believe that, than ANY of the close-minded and totally ambiguous medical justification that rbochnermd has presented.

Conspiracy? No one said that. Is this maybe how our md sees the tidal wave that's finally, building against his profession regarding this wholly self-serving issue?

Too many doctors do hate to have their judgment questioned. Who among us has not crossed paths with one, if not several such 'offended' doctors, when questioned?

But, let's see if there's maybe a better answer to your question.

No, it ain't exactly a conspiracy. It's more of a protection mechanism that surfaces in most all murky Public Relations campaigns such as this. To me, it's simply that, for a doctor who has advised circumcision all his life, to suddenly change his advice, would be to admit he had been wrong all along. And to admit error in one area, certainly begs patients to wonder, "What else could he wrong about?" That's bad for the prestige and bad for the business.

Seriously, how does even a great doctor, deliver you a son, cut him routinely, then a year later, say, "let's NOT cut this one"?

Point being, at what point in a doctor's practice, could it be safe for him to change his mind? Probably never. So, you would think the new crops of young doctors will, over time, leave this Victorian bloodletting, if not a Neanderthal practice behind. Right?
Don't hold your breath.

I suggest that we witness that blind resistance, with virtually every post our md makes.


Anyway, here's a real answer, and what I'm trying to say as well...

<a href="http://www.nocirc.org/articles/gollaher.html" target="_blank">Excerpts from THIS source Frogsmoocher posted</a>

...the operation became so commonplace that physicians and parents scarcely considered it surgery at all. By all indications, the procedure was done with little thought, as though it were simply a routine of childbirth like cutting an infant's umbilical cord.

From their residencies onward, most doctors discover that pressure to conform to what is considered standard within the local medical community is irresistible. In turn, these practice standards, imbued as they are with medical authority, shape patients' preferences. For patients normally presume that what doctors accept as medical policy is also the best thing to do.

The doctor-patient relationship contains a built-in mechanism of mutual reinforcement, encouraging both parties to follow the pack. With the passage of time some practices harden within medical and popular culture alike, so it becomes impossible to sort out how much demand for a procedure should be attributed to physicians and how much to patients. [68]

[68] David M. Eddy, "Practice Policies: Where Do They Come From?" JAMA 263 (1990): 1265-75. On the matter of circumcision, as with so many other medical decisions, patients conflate social, cultural, and medical issues. For instance, on the basis of 190 questionnaires completed by women who had their sons circumcised, one study determined that the health benefits mothers associated with the procedure had little or no medical validity. At the same time, few mothers understood the risks of the procedure. See J. E. Lovell and J. Cox, "Maternal Attitudes toward Circumcision," Journal of Family Practice 9 (1979): 811-13. More recently, research conducted among parents presumably inclined against surgical intervention - a group of men and women enrolled in natural childbirth classes - found that nearly two-thirds of them had decided to circumcise their boys for explicitly social reasons. Foremost among these was an expressed fear that being uncircumcised would stigmatize their sons because they would be different from other boys, as well as from their own fathers. See Jay Brodbar-Nemzer, Peter Conrad, and Shelly Tenenbaum, "American Circumcision Practices and Social Reality," Sociology and Social Research 71 (1987): 275-79.


Summing it up...
In this respect, the peculiar history of neonatal circumcision in the United States exemplifies the process by which physicians, despite having no solid science of clinical outcomes, succeeded in transforming standard medical practice into social custom.

Nyx, I'm afraid you got no better answer from the remainder of his response.

Please note that in his reference, The article, rather than making his point, IMO, goes more to what I said earlier, that this common surgical procedure, remains in search of a disease.

The one study in that referenced link, is not the implied dozen studies, and then, it ONLY concerns effects on women who engage in sex with ADULT men.

Again, please, what can that possibly have to do with torturing ALL infant boys?

Absolutely nothing.

Repeating myself, this so-called positive circumcision study is another
diversion of the medical industry's pro-circ lobbyists, which for decades have been
repeatedly indicting, but never managing to convict the foreskin,

this time, reporting findings of

cancerous women, but NOT ONE, SINGLE, CANCEROUS FORESKIN.


Please don't try to tell me that some similar statistically mysterious findings for these women's cancer cause, could not also be discovered had the husbands instead been screened for washed vs. unwashed hands, Colgate vs. Crest or cut vs. uncut fingernails for that matter.

Impressed, I ain't.

Dr Rick

Your analogy is hard for me to follow; prepubertal male circumcision has been found to reduce the risk of penile cancers, cervical cancers, HIV, human papilloma virus, syphillis, chancroid, gonorrhea, and urinary tract infections, but what does any of this have to do with mosquito nets and chloroquine? The health benefits of childhood circumcision may be more dramatic in areas where HIV is endemic, but they also extend well beyond those areas.

In this thread I've discussed recent studies and statistics that demonstrate health benefits from circumcision, and I've questioned your "no-brainer" ethical post. I'm advocating an objective evaluation and rational approach to circumcision. I have never performed a circumcision, but this thread and a prior one several months ago inspired me to review the literature on the subject. In doing so, I found that recent studies, particularly some published in the past 36 months, have demonstrated that circumcision has health benefits.

I've also found that some people get really emotional about the subject.

Rick

[ August 22, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

Gurdur

I'm wondering why some here so bitterly and personally attack rbochnermd in the great circumcision debates.
The guy takes great care to provide one particular scientific view on circumcision, well-based and researched, and gets bitterly attacked for apparently not being ideological enough and not being on the "Right Side".

Impressed, I ain't.

[ August 22, 2002: Message edited by: Gurdur ]</p>

AtlanticCitySlave

Boys should be circumcised because a lot of women won't sleep with them if they're not.

tronvillain

Are you joking? Perhaps it's an American thing.

tronvillain

rbochnermd:
Well, I assume it is, but I have no way to be completely certain.

ybnormal

I apologize then for an appearance of the same "tone" that you are namelessly directing at me, I suspect. Below, please find every instance in my prior post where I directly referred to rbochnermd, as I would appreciate knowing exactly where I so bitterly attack her/him.

Perhaps you mistake instances where I DO bitterly attack the medical industry, which rbochnermd so proudly represents and protects, but please don't confuse the two. I apologize for anywhere my awful forced writing style has contributed to such confusion.

And with that in mind, please don't miss the fact that rbochnermd openly touts what many of his professional colleagues also bitterly attack as a totally unnecessary mutilation of innocent children.

Also, you may find my talking about rbochnermd rather than talking to her/him somewhat offensive, however, I must point out that in my first post I addressed rbochnermd directly, honestly and nicely.

Altho it doesn't bother me in the least, as it actually makes it easier to address facts, one of which is that rbochnermd in part, set the "tone" here by choosing to ignore my questions. Such passive/aggressive behavior tho, in no way inhibits my perseverance.

All that is strictly your opinion... maybe you could do yourself a favor by reading the entire thread carefully, where IMO you can find something other than great care or well-based and researched comments. You have obviously and completely overlooked the primary point of the others here.

And as a reminder, that back reading I suggested would also exhibit the same great care or well-based and researched comments by others here, which in general, has been methodically, and often arrogantly, completely dismissed, seemingly without consideration. This century old doctor-knows-best "tone" by the medical industry at large, goes to the heart of this entire sensitive issue, and my last post in particular.

Great ending, huh? I don't mind the flattery of plagiarism. And thanks for the opportunity to clear this up.

Peace!

ExTheist

1. Parents should teach their kids, (in this case males) good hygiene. This would eliminate problems that intact men may have.

2. Leave the decision up to the boy to make at an appropriate age. This would be a valuable lesson in teaching the child that his body is his and his only.

3. This would have the added benefit of dis-empowering control freaks be they religious or secular. (always a worthy goal)

ybnormal

For example...

It was, what echoes said it was; an official letter written by the ACS.

Perhaps rb dismissed this ACS anti-circumcision letter, for its 1996 date.

rb said as much by adding, Here's something a little more up-to-date on some of the benefits of circumcision....

Then why, a few days later, post a pro-circumcision study, released in early 1997, which surely was conducted in part during 1996, the same year as the previously dismissed letter?

And I suggest that even more damaging to rb's argument, against that ACS letter, is this added advice to echoes.

...the American Cancer Society Web Site...has neither an official pro nor con position on circumcision...

More damaging, because, unless it's shown that the ACS has since retracted that letter's STRONG anti-circumcision advice to the American Academy of Pediatrics, then it stands TODAY as their last, stated and official position to the AAP.


The full content of the<a href="http://www.fathermag.com/health/circ/acs/" target="_blank">American Cancer Society letter</a> less some lengthy addresses...

(no emphasis necessary)
I cannot imagine how the American Cancer Society could have possibly taken a stronger anti-circumcision position, regarding their solitary expertise- cancer.


And altho I don't know exactly what constitutes rb's idea of an ACS official pro nor con position on circumcision, a search TODAY found the following on the <a href="http://www.cancer.org/eprise/main/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_2X_Can_penile_cancer_be_prevented_35?sitea rea=CRI" target="_blank"> American Cancer Society Web Site </a>

(emphasis added)

Again, we can only conclude that what is found in a search of the American Cancer Society Web Site, today, does indeed constitute <a href="http://www.cancer.org/eprise/main/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_2X_What_are_the_risk_factors_for_penile_ca ncer_35?sitearea=CRI" target="_blank"> an official position on circumcision</a>

(emphasis added)
All I can add to that, is to reemphasize the main points in my first post, which are backed up by the American Cancer Society...

One, that researchers now believe those studies were flawed

and Two, regarding cancer and such, that the

issue of circumcision is medicine's way to distract the public's attention.

The only things being fought here, are old ignorant customs and bad medical habits.

Peace 2 4skins!