Watchhttp://www.cdc.gov/hiv/malecircumcision/
Study after Study after Study shows Circumcised Males have 42%+ reduction in HIV infection versus the non-circumcised groups. For high-risk groups: Those who have multiple partners, have been treated for other STDs, etc. the reduction was ~70%.
Wow, if you knew that a two-minute, largely painless (but only on infants with less developed nerves) operation could reduce your child's chances getting HIV by nearly 50%, you'd be nuts not to do it.
Furthermore, being circumcised almost completely eliminates the risk of Penile Cancer. Almost all cases of penile cancer in the USA are in uncircumcised males. Studies show that the chances getting and spreading other STDs, and it is now believed, HPV (a large factor in Ovarian Cancer) is also greatly retarded by circumcision.
Tell Rabbi Tuckman, lose the bacteria/virus breeding chamber skin flap.
"If a vaccine was available that reduced HIV risk by 60 percent, genital herpes risk by 30 percent and HR-HPV [cervical cancer virus] risk by 35 percent, the medical community would rally behind the immunization, and it would be promoted as a game-changing public health intervention," study author Dr. Aaron Tobian, epidemiologist and pathologist at Hopkins, told MSNBC.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20115905-10391704.html
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thunder, dude, what were you looking for when you found this story? lol
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Ha! Bap, you'd be surprised at how many anti-circumcision nuts (pun intended) there are out there. Paleo Diet Websites have commenters, Radical leftist sites, weightlifting sites, etc. - all bargle blah about "health" and "being natural". Antibiotics, Ibuprofen, and Polio Vaccines aren't natural either. Many are anti-Semitic and others insist circumcision is 100% child abuse. The Science suggests otherwise.
I gotta tell you, pseudoscience is everywhere.
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Or just don't have sex with gay men.
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I thought they made a cure years ago.
With the miracle drug Trinoassitol.
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Hey, if you completely cut baby's genitals off right when they are born and cannot decide for themselves, you reduce the risk to close to zero! Yay for mutilation and dependence!
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mell says
Reductio ad absurdum
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I keep my keys, wallet and a spare tire under by schlong flap. It's very useful - like a kangaroo pocket - if you don't get all weird about where it's located.
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zzyzzx says
For really. No straight person has ever gotten an STD.
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thunderlips11 says
Nothing against it if you want to do it to 'protect' yourself when you are old enough to make your own decisions.
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thunderlips11 says
I agree that we do all sorts of unnatural things that are beneficial, but I have to say, cutting someone's penis without their consent is pretty extreme. Why not let them make the decision when they are older? Sex is supposed to be a lot better with an uncircumcised wiener -- and you want to take that away from baby Thomas!
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swebb says
It's about risk management like everything else in life, and by not having anal sex and avoiding risk groups you can cut it very close to zero, so that comment has merit. Statistically the risk is very low compared to other everydays risks. If you live like a nun or a priest you can certainly cut your risk close to zero as well - HPV though (and some other "STDs") can also transmit via used towels or other skin on skin contact, though the risk is very low. Everybody though gets infected at least with HSV1 and EBV throughout their lives.
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thunderlips11 says
Yes, and;
thunderlips11 says
Maybe not so much.
Anyway, unless one is being raised in a HIV riddled country (The US has a 0.4% HIV infection rate compared to the 20%+ in some African countries), both of these "positives" are only slight changes to risk.
The American Cancer Society on penile cancer prevention:
"In the past, circumcision has been suggested as a way to prevent penile cancer. This was based on studies that reported much lower penile cancer rates among circumcised men than among uncircumcised men. But in many of those studies, the protective effect of circumcision was no longer seen after factors like smegma and phimosis were taken into account.
* * * * *
Perhaps the most important factor in preventing penile cancer in uncircumcised men is good genital hygiene."
Circumcision is certainly not a "slam-dunk", when making this choice for a baby we can not ignore the risks of circumcision.
Complications happen in 0.2% of infant circumcisions, and these complications range from swelling, infection, to loss of penis and death.
As a religious rite the risks can go up significantly, for example:
http://gothamist.com/2012/03/08/rabbis_circumcision_death_investiga.php
http://gothamist.com/2012/06/07/circumcision_sucking_gave_11_nyc_bo.php
The risk v. benefit is far from clear, and very slight on both ends of the spectrum. Once you perform the circumcision it is, for all intents, impossible to reverse, but you can always get one later if the positives become a much more obvious.
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mell says
Hmmmm...is that the story you are sticking with? Did your significant-other buy it?
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Foreskins are very useful for piercings and anti-social tatoos.
They need a "Smegma March" on Sacto to outlaw circumcisions. Those precious, fermenting secretions and pheromones should be a constitutional right! They make the little invaders feel at home when they make the beach head.
An un-basted penile head is a sad penile head.
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swebb says
Giving somebody a vaccine without their consent can be considered extreme - many people think so. However, the benefits outweigh the concerns IMHO. Every time a mother gives a baby a vaccine, or infant meds, it is without the infants consent.
As the MD so eloquently stated, if there was a vaccine that did was circumcision has been shown (over and over again) to do, it would be a no-brainer to recommend that it be given to all infants.
There is no scientific evidence that circumcision reduces penile sensitivity, penis size, or any other common claims made by Anti-Circs.
Because circumcised men are less likely to transmit HIV, Herpes, and HPV, it is a PUBLIC HEALTH issue.
Many people have sex prior to 18.
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thunderlips11 says
Correct, it would be a no-brainer, but if that same vaccine also caused the occasional penis to be mutilated, or fall off, or the child to die, then it would be banned.
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leo707 says
Which almost never happens. The rate of complications from circumcision is less than .2%, and the vast majority of them are ordinary infections that can be expected from any surgery and quickly resolved with no lasting harm.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2562792
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thunderlips11 says
In that one study...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20158883
"Most studies reported no severe adverse events (SAE), but two studies reported SAE frequency of 2%. The median frequency of any complication was 1.5% (range 0-16%). ...Traditional circumcision as a rite of passage is associated with substantially greater risks, more severe complications than medical circumcision or traditional circumcision among neonates."
http://www.cps.ca/en/documents/position/circumcision
"Complications of circumcision
Circumcision may lead to complications, which range from minor to severe. They include easily controllable bleeding [84][85], amputation of the glans [84]-[86], acute renal failure [87], life-threatening sepsis and, rarely, death [84][85]. The evidence of postoperative complications is unknown [84]. The rates of complications reported in several large case series are low, from 0.2% to 0.6% [8]. However, published rates range as widely as 0.06% [88] to 55% [89]. Williams and Kapila [90] have suggested that a realistic rate is between 2% and 10%.
Recommendation: Circumcision of newborns should not be routinely performed."
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The most famous gender reassignment after a circumcision:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2004/06/gender_gap.html
"Born in 1965 in Winnipeg, he was 8 months old when a doctor used an electrocautery needle...burning off his entire penis as a result.
* * * * *
For Dr. Money, David was the ultimate experiment to prove that nurture, not nature, determines gender identity and sexual orientation—an experiment all the more irresistible because David was an identical twin. His brother, Brian, would provide the perfect matched control, a genetic clone raised as a boy...
...At age 2, Brenda angrily tore off her dresses. She refused to play with dolls and would beat up her brother and seize his toy cars and guns. In school, she was relentlessly teased for her masculine gait, tastes, and behaviors. She complained to her parents and teachers that she felt like a boy..."
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From the first link:
There were more complications with circumcision at "older ages", which is exactly what anti-circs are proposing when they wish ban infant circumcision. Even so, it was also "especially by inexperienced providers or in non-sterile conditions". IE Mufasa, the prayer leader of the Blue Turkomen tribe unsurprising did not wash his holy rusty knife when circumcising little Achmed in the dirt floored village hut (after shooing the goats away), and the parents later shlepped the kid to the DWB clinic for some antibiotics where it got entered into the log.
The Conclusion goes on:
Which confirms circumcision as an HIV/STD prevention strategy, and clearly shows that the difficulties in circumcision are usually the result of non-medical professionals operating in a non-medical environment. Since the study included studies from third world nations and was not limited to language, it said that tribal witch doctors may not be the best persons to seek out for a circumcision lest you end up going to the hospital later for an infection.
The second study:
While Canada did not recommend ROUTINE circumcision, I'm glad they reassessed the data and were much less against it generally than they were in 1982. In their opinion, the benefits and harms were equal, and thus they could not recommend as a routine procedure, probably because the Canadian Pediatricians included third world studies when it came to complications, which is odd because Canadian Hospitals do not do circumcisions in dirt floored huts... etc. etc..
Why the Brits and Canadians are including results from the third world when assessing the complications of Circumcision is weird, unless they are trying to get an outcome that confirms their cultural bias.
I was unable to find ratios of deaths to circumcisions performed in either meta-study.
However, the American Academy of Pediatrics is now recommending that circumcision be covered by insurance, and that the benefits outweigh the harms:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/science/benefits-of-circumcision-outweigh-risks-pediatric-group-says.html?_r=0
http://www.nature.com/news/doctors-back-circumcision-1.11296
And most interesting was this correction to the NYT article:
The CDC's lack of deaths from circumcision gels well with other studies that showed only 3 deaths out of 50M circumcisions from the middle of the century in the USA, all of which were the result of undiagnosed Hemophilia or Fraud, and none of them carried out in a medical environment by medical professionals.
Finally, the WHO embraces circumcision as a tool against HIV spread.
http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/
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thunderlips11 says
Yes, the risks do seem to increase as age increases.
thunderlips11 says
The examples I previously gave of death (and herpes transition to infants) happened in New York, USA. Complications are not limited to the developing world.
leo707 says
The range of complications found in the studies is huge. I agree that any studies showing in the 55% range of complications are not happening in the US. I don't have time to look through all the references, but I doubt any industrialized nation studies had more than 4ish%.
leo707 says
thunderlips11 says
I agree that circumcision is a good HIV prevention strategy in areas where HIV is prevalent, education is low, and high-risk behavior is abundant. There is no industrialized nation that has these issues. Hygiene and safe sex is much more effective at controlling HIV spread than circumcision, and does not carry the risks.
thunderlips11 says
Ummm...not really...Yes, they are recommending that insurance covers it, but from the article you cited:
"But the academy stopped short of recommending routine circumcision for all baby boys, saying the decision remains a family matter. The academy had previously taken a neutral position on circumcision."
“We’re not pushing everybody to circumcise their babies,” Dr. Douglas S. Diekema, a member of the academy’s task force on circumcision and an author of the new policy, said in an interview. “This is not really pro-circumcision. It falls in the middle. It’s pro-choice, for lack of a better word. Really, what we’re saying is, ‘This ought to be a choice that’s available to parents.’ ”
thunderlips11 says
I have yet to be convinced that routine circumcision is called for, but I do think that there are times when circumcision is a good choice. Like when living in an area with a large % of the population has HIV, or when a boy is born with a penis that has a foreskin prone to infection.
A few other interesting items from your link:
"Circumcision does not appear to reduce H.I.V. transmission among men who have sex with men, Dr. Diekema said. 'The degree of benefit, or degree of impact, in a place like the U.S. will clearly be smaller than in a place like Africa,' he said."
"Two studies have found that circumcision actually increases the risk of H.I.V. infection among sexually active men and women, the academy noted."
"Significant complications are believed to occur in approximately one in 500 procedures. Botched operations can result in damage or even amputation of parts of the penis."
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thunderlips11 says
I would like to read Bollinger's methodology, but unfortunately his study is only available for pay. :(
http://www.mensstudies.com/content/b64n267w47m333x0/?p=488e687276f346699601a0275fc5827b&pi=2
I guess it is just as well, because I really don't have the time today.
thunderlips11 says
Maybe I am missing something here, but why would one find circumcision related deaths in a report done by an organization that does not track those kinds of deaths?
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leo707 says
Yes, in a non-hospital setting by non-medical personnel (Mohel). I absolutely agree that circumcisions should be performed by medical professionals in sterile settings.
The Method section of the British Study (first link in your previous post) states they use studies from all over the world, including "Arabic" literature. They didn't confine their meta-study to the first world. That was what I was referring to - not your other link about NYC.
leo707 says
Yes, that seems to be the case.
leo707 says
Yes, Poor David, victim of blank slaters/social constructivists... Dr. Money was also a child abuser. However, extraordinarily rare dismemberment does happen - just like very rarely people suffer death or permanent paralysis from routine vaccinations or even routine surgeries for minor injuries.
leo707 says
Which would be 0.2% What is significant? Dismemberment? An minor infection resolved in 48 hours or less with oral antibiotics? NYT should have sourced that.
leo707 says
I assume that it's so rare, and years go by between incidents (despite millions being circumcised each year), that some years, like 2010, it doesn't even show up.
I have a hard time thinking that the CDC wouldn't count something that causes hundreds or even just a dozen deaths per year.
I have a hard time believing that out of the countless millions each year that are circumcised, if any but the most infintesimal number suffered dismemberment, that there wouldn't be an activist group, class action suit, some kind of reporting on it.
leo707 says
Thanks for that correction. However, anti-circs want to ban childhood circumcision entirely, regardless of the parent's beliefs or the openness of doctors and medical organizations to the procedure. Which is why that SF judge shot down the proposal - he knew it would be overturned in a heartbeat by any court at first challenge.
leo707 says
Like Alabama, or the South Bronx ;)
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Bap33 says
Must have been on the weird part of the internet again.
Step #1 - Close Browser
Step #2 - Reopen Browser
Step #3 - Start over on Google or Youtube
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didn't the Sodomite Nation get really pushy about stopping all flap trimming? It was a few years ago, but I think that was going on. Anyone recall the specifics?
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thunderlips11 says
Yeah, that is an issue I have been having with all the sources I have been reading. They are not clear what "significant complications" are vs. just "complications." However, I would imagine that a minor infection would not rate as "significant."
Those details are often buried in the text of a study, and we have been mostly citing abstracts and news articles that tend to leave details like that out.
thunderlips11 says
Ug, yeah...that is a horrible story.
thunderlips11 says
Yeah, it would be nice to see the data sets side-by-side. When the Canadian and American Pediatric Associations both come to the conclusion that routine circumcisions are not recommended, but it is up to the parents I am assuming that they have access to better more complete data than I do after an afternoon of Googling.
thunderlips11 says
Yeah, I think that an all out ban would be a net loss for healthcare. However, I would not be opposed to a ban on non-doctors performing circumcisions in less than ideal circumstances. If you are going to do it, at least it should be getting done right.
thunderlips11 says
Ah, haha...yes, you have a point there.
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Bap33 says
This may be what you are referring to:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/18/san-francisco-circumcision-ban_n_863945.html
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How about some of you dumb fucking degenerate serfs and peasants actually watch a mutiliation of the penis being performed on a child before opening your mouth about shit you actually know nothing about but just read and accept the bullshit from the medical cartel....
Cannibal Anarchy will feel just as painful as this. ApocalypseFuck can also watch the videos and he will also agree that cannibal anarchy should feel just like this.
&playnext=1&list=PL666B22F3C271CCD5&feature=results_main
&feature=related
&feature=relmfu
&feature=related
OP just takes everything what western medical "doctors" say as fact just because they are the "official authority"...
Anyone that relies on western medicine, treatments and doctors is a fucking clueless retard peasant.
Boycott all western medicine if you want to live well. It is all a big fucking racket & one of the biggest frauds right next to college.
Vaccines are also a fraud as well.
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Robber Baron Elite Scum says
Ack! Vaccines and fluoridated water are perhaps the best public health measures ever, and the only examples of preventive care that actually do save money. For the cost of one week of the Iraq War, or even one day of our current medical-industrial complex budget, we could have multiple vaccines against HIV and eradicate the disease totally, like what happened with smallpox. Or maybe Robber Baron's comment was meant to be sarcastic, since PhRMA make so much $$$ off drugs they aren't interested in vaccines.
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thunderlips11 says
Well, at least one kid died in 2010 from circumcision:
http://www.pregnancyandbaby.com/the-hatch-blog/articles/935637/pushing-your-parenting-agenda-how-far-is-too-far
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I'm just happy to see someone advocating an alternative to condoms, because condoms suck bigtime.
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liberals are an odd sort ... they demand the law allow to have a baby get it's head smashed, brains sucked out, and torn limb from limb when the completed birth is not wanted by the woman, BUT, they don't want to see the male kid's peter trimmed should it somehow not be aborted. A really odd sort indeed.
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zzyzzx says
So when all sexually transmitted diseases are eliminated by science, will you proclaim "have as much gay butt sex as you want!"?
It is disingenuous to link the morality of homosexual sex and practical matters like STD prevention, especially when condoms are completely effective in preventing the spread of these STDs.
If you want to argue that homosexual sex is immoral then open a new thread and start that thread by answering the following question. Why the fuck is gay sex immoral?
I have yet to hear any conservative give an answer to this other than that their racist, sexist, pro-slavery, pro-murder Christian religion says gay sex is immoral. But given that the Bible says slavery is moral, I say fuck the Bible, it's not a good source of morality.
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leo707 says
Yeah, but I also have been thoroughly tested which is something couples can demand from each other. That being said, there are tons of different HPV strains and a lot of viruses that each partner carries and can transmit that are not on the trend list these days since they have been around forever, which cause far more health issues in numbers than the common STDs combined. I am not saying that you shouldn't protect yourself (if you are promiscuous), but if you wanted to take care of your health in the most effective way STDs overall would not be a huge topic. Btw. you cannot test a guy for HPV as of today with any confidence. It's a very complicated topic, some clear them out every time, some don't and can transmit.
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Bap33 says
I somewhat agree with this, I think states should be able to regulate abortion on the state level, and while I am against criminalizing it, I often wonder how one can not include unborn children in defending everyone's freedoms.
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thunderlips11 says
I don't have kids so I haven't had the need to research this, but I do remember back in the 1990s there were a lot of people stating that male circumcision was as barbaric and harmful as female circumcision and that the only reason it was done was that it was a cultural norm.
The case the opposition made was that male circumcision causes extreme pain for the baby who often passes out as a result and causes a loss of sensitivity when sexual maturity is reached.
Penn and Teller had an episode on circumcision on Bullshit! Season 3 Episode 1 where they went into details about how bad it was.
Not being an expert on the subject myself, I'd be interested if there are experts on the matter that can say whether or not the babies actually do feel intense pain during the procedure and whether or not the other alleged effects are real. The episode of Bullshit says that babies are actually hypersensitive to pain, not less sensitive.
The article in this thread seems credible to me, so I'm willing to accept that the procedure does lower HIV transmission to men a bit, but I'd count on a condom way before counting on circumcision for that. If the other negative effects are legitimate, then I'd still be hesitant to have the procedure performed on any kid I had.
I'd like to see more unbiased facts about this subject from non-political and non-religious sources.
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Bap33 says
No one wants to see a baby get it's head smashed. That's a disingenuous argument just like when the left try to argue that pro-lifers are just anti-women assholes who want to control women's bodies.
I really need to get out my thesis that answers the abortion question once and for all.
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curious2 says
Another thing to disagree on ;) I completely disagree on fluoridated water which is again mostly a US-phenomenon (and a few other countries) as most other countries weighed in and found more risks that benefits, on the Vaccines I partially agree since there a useful and more or less useless/dangerous vaccines. Debating those would be a different topic.
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Dan8267 says
we can keep it on simple terms.
At [TIME FRAME "X"] before birth the left/liberal/sodomite/pro-abortion crowd has no problem with dick flaps getting tossed away with the destroyed baby. But, at [TIME FRAME "X"] after birth, the same crowd has all these deep reasons to save the dick flaps (and the baby) from any and all harm. How's that? No religion mentioned. No existentialism. No Jedi mind tricks. It is due to these types of things that I say liberalism is a mental disorder. One that I think is fostered and increased by drug abuse and/or sexually immoral activity.
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Bap33 says
Just so you know. They are people out there who disagree with both mutilation of genitals and abortion.
You need to stop supporting mutilation of genitals by trying to discredit those don't support it through a generalization taken out of your ass.
And by the way, I hate liberals as well. But trying to assume that genital mutiliation opposers are all liberals is a insult to your intelligence.