NOCIRC booth at Ann Arbor Art Fair

[ursaminor]

Hey,

Im just letting everyone know NOCIRC of Michigan will be tabling for the 14th year in the non-profit section on E. Liberty st. between Fifth Ave. and S. Division st. for the duration of the Art Fair 15-18th. I believe Norm Cohen will be staffing on Fri and Sat.

I will be helping out at the booth wed, th and fri evening. feel free to stop by if you are in the Ann Arbor area!

Peace,
Anya

[Night_Nurse]

That's great! I'm no where near MI, but I did help out at a local booth this spring for an intactivist org. I hope you reach lots of people! Have fun!!!

[Fellow Traveler]

Let us know how it goes.

[PuppyFluffer]

It's wonderful that NOCIRC gets out with the face of real people to answer parent's questions and educate the general public.

[Fellow Traveler]

How did it go? An update please!

[ursaminor]

I actually didnt make it down there yesterday, they were fully staffed and my infant son was fussy - but the two of us are gonna pack up the stroller and head over the the booth this evening. I will let everyone know how it goes...

for the most part we tend to have a good response from the public. lots of mommys who stop by to say their son is intact and even some parents who decided not to circ because of information received from the booth in previous years. every year there are a few mothers who stop by to say they left their sons intact but they developed an infection and had to be circed. I remember a British mother and father and 7 year old son came up once, and the mother mentioned her son was intact but she wished she had had it done to him because of "skin problems/sensitive skin" the father looked really uncomfortable that she was saying this,...and I cant imagine what the child was thinking. I mentioned there are less invasive ways of dealing with those types of issues and she replied "well yes, we make do" and walked off. very odd. Anyhow, I will update tonight!

[Fellow Traveler]

Ok, I can't wait!

[ursaminor]

I met the other volunteer at the nocirc booth at 6:30pm yesterday. He had been there since 4:30 and said it was slow. shortly after I arrived foot traffic seemed to pick up.

One of the first people to stop by the booth was a Taiwanese student who was curious as to why circ was preformed in the us. He stayed for a while asking a lot of questions. Also a man from Beijing stopped by with his pregnant wife. They were planning to deliver in the states and he seemed very educated and appalled that circ is prevalent in America (I guess he had discussed it with his Beijing physician) . I suggested putting a sign or card on the infant bassinet at the hosp. reading no circumcision to avoid any potential mix ups.
All in all it was a pretty mellow 3 hours. A young man stopped by and thanked us for our work and mentioned he was intact - he then bought a bumper sticker. A mom and baby stopped by - she noticed I was nursing my son and we had a good chat - it was nice talk to another mama who left her son intact. There was an Indian couple and young child that walked up. They told us they had their son circumcised because they were worried he would be tease if he was intact.

The single most unnerving and difficult thing we had to hear was from a couple, white, late 20's, the male was studying medicine at the local university and the female I believe was also in the medical field The guy said he had never heard of such a thing (referring to our booth), we mentioned circ is not medically necessary, the women then sited the UTI study, we then mentioned UTIs are rare and treated with antibiotics, the women then said UTIs can often be fatal and 4% of Sepsis cases in the first 30 days of life are due to a UTI infection. I am not sure how this statistic validates non-therapeutic circumcision in a healthy infant, but the woman was clearly not hearing it. They refused to take any handouts, studies, or stats that we offered them.
This is really concerning to me - every year I run into a handful of Medical Students who refuse to do research on the issue and insist on validating circumcision as a legitimate medical practice - and these are our future doctors? Not all are this way, in fact some agree fully that routine circ is bunk, but the ones who take a hard pro-circumcision stance on flimsy pretenses just blows my mind!

I will conclude that it was a positive evening. Will give another update for friday when I am home.

peace

[Night_Nurse]

Originally Posted by ursaminor

... the male was studying medicine at the local university and the female I believe was also in the medical field The guy said he had never heard of such a thing (referring to our booth), we mentioned circ is not medically necessary, the women then sited the UTI study, we then mentioned UTIs are rare and treated with antibiotics, the women then said UTIs can often be fatal and 4% of Sepsis cases in the first 30 days of life are due to a UTI infection.

Maybe remind them that the AAP still doesn't endorse circ as a preventive measure for anything and that if antibiotics are good enough for both girls and circumcised boys, then they are a good enough way to treat the rare intact boy with a uti.
To the man you could have mentioned yes, maybe he'd never heard of this because doctors just do the circs and rarely hear back on complications realized once the male is sexually active. He should know there is a large movement of men trying to restore their foreskin.
And I have no idea if the woman's statistics are correct or not. Even if they are, and yes, sepsis can be fatal, there can also be major complications, including fatalities, post routine infant circ. But I doubt she'd want to hear that since stopping circs isn't really putting money into any doctors bank accounts, yk?

I'm glad to hear the overall response has been positive! Keep up the good work!

[Sileree]

I stopped by today and got some pamphlets for my doula clients.

[Fellow Traveler]

Anyone know how the rest of the week went?

[ursaminor]

Friday my son and I stopped by the booth. Norm Cohen director of nocirc of MI was staffing. minutes after arriving a father and his adult son came up and said "it (circumcision) prevents cervical cancer" Norm informed him that in fact those studies have been debunked, to which the father replied "by who?' in disbelief. At one point the father was trying to get us to state our opinion on vaccinations, especially gardasil, saying "..you really should be promoting that cervical cancer vaccine to get people to stop circumcising.." I guess he still believed even after talking with us that circ and cervical cancer are related somehow.

During the brief time I was there several young mothers and intact and foreign born men picked up info or just chatted for a while. A mother of a now adult son told us that her baby was "not the same" after his circumcision and she really didnt want to consent but the father did anyway.

DH and I attended the yearly 'after art fair dinner' with Norm and other supporters.

I guess out of everything this week, I am a little worried about the AAP and CDC's new circ position to be announced some time this fall. As I understand it, the CDC is working with the AAP in developing a statement. In light of the several highly publicized HIV/circ studies - the outcome does not look like it will be in our favor. It could potentially really set things back 20 years. There are some very powerful people out there who would like to see universal circumcision.

[tennisdude23]

Originally Posted by ursaminor

Friday my son and I stopped by the booth. Norm Cohen director of nocirc of MI was staffing. minutes after arriving a father and his adult son came up and said "it (circumcision) prevents cervical cancer" Norm informed him that in fact those studies have been debunked, to which the father replied "by who?' in disbelief. At one point the father was trying to get us to state our opinion on vaccinations, especially gardasil, saying "..you really should be promoting that cervical cancer vaccine to get people to stop circumcising.." I guess he still believed even after talking with us that circ and cervical cancer are related somehow.

During the brief time I was there several young mothers and intact and foreign born men picked up info or just chatted for a while. A mother of a now adult son told us that her baby was "not the same" after his circumcision and she really didnt want to consent but the father did anyway.

DH and I attended the yearly 'after art fair dinner' with Norm and other supporters.

I guess out of everything this week, I am a little worried about the AAP and CDC's new circ position to be announced some time this fall. As I understand it, the CDC is working with the AAP in developing a statement. In light of the several highly publicized HIV/circ studies - the outcome does not look like it will be in our favor. It could potentially really set things back 20 years. There are some very powerful people out there who would like to see universal circumcision.

I have been following the HIV and circ. hype closely, and I think that your conclusion is really over-stating it. The news so far seems to be quite positive. The Brits and the Australians have already made it clear that the African studies have no relevance to health care in western countries, and have no plans of revising their policies. The Canadians will follow suit and U.S. agencies will certainly not due anything that would differ much from the conclusions of their colleagues. After all, all these organizations use the same data and mirror each others policies, which are probably more political/legal than medical in nature. I am assuming that you will probably get a non-position statement that is going to be filled with all kinds of legal and ethical ambiguities, and one that will absolutely have no effect on what happens. It certainly had no effect in the past thirty years, and there is nothing out there to suggest that the case will be any different now. For example, there was similar hype before the 1989 statement. The circumcision policy that was brewed under the auspices of Edgar Schoen emphasized some of the medical benefits of circumcision; however, it took a very non-position argument that was somewhat reversed in 1999 when the non-position policy became even more non-position (I guess only a medical organization such as the APP could pull something like that off).

On a different note, the hype generated by the hiv-circ. connection I think is actually quite use full. It puts circumcision into the mainstream news, meaning that people get exposed to it. I am convinced that the more people learn about it, the more they will be willing to abandon it. The reason why circumcision rates have been falling in the USA is not because the AAP revises its statement every 10 years, but rather because the internet has revolutionized information technology.

[ursaminor]

I dont know, Norm seems to believe the AAP is going to conclude that maybe parents should consider circ for their infant sons. Of course I am worried they might say this, but hopefully if the studies are examined truthfully, the flaws will become evident. I just wouldnt put it past the AAP to go against other countries' medical policies on it. Although, it is my understanding that there are as many studies finding the exact opposite of the relation of Circ to HIV, they just arent publicized. Maybe those studies will be taken into account also by the AAP & CDC.
You are hopefully right though, and the US would probably stick out like a sour thumb if they adopt an outright pro-circ policy contrary to their neighbors.

[tennisdude23]

Yes, the evidence is contradictory to say the least, and the interpretation of the data is up for grabs. I don't know what the AAP will say, and for the most part, I don't think it's important one way or the other. I presume that they will shed light on the HIV studies. However, it's evident that even if taken at face value the so called "medical benefits" of circumcision can be mirrored through good hygiene and safe sexual practices, not to mention that it's extremely difficult to extrapolate data from Africa and apply it to the U.S. context.

If you are looking for some information, I would check out the intact america and circumcision and hiv websites.

[Fellow Traveler]

My guess is that they will say it's not necesary but because of the they believe the potential benefit of HIV they will it should be paid for if the parents want it. Thus reversing the Medicaid situation. I agree with tennisdude they'll sick out if they do since all other have already said it doesn't apply in this context. One strong advantage we have now is that it is increasingly seen as unecesary especially among younger people.