How to respond to this? "Male circumcision: New data shows more benefit'

[myfairbabies]

I get a newsletter in my email from a local naturopathic ped, and in this months there was an article with that title (the ped did not write it). It links to this study and talks about how the aap is being asked to reconsider their position about circ. The whole HIV thing is thrown in there and it says the WHO now recommends it to all males. It has a small part about the .2-1% of complications like bleeding and infection. It closes with "at this point it appears that newborn circumcision is a beneficial practice and should be considered for prevention of several common non-sexually and sexually acquired infections."

I replied and said that I no longer trusted his judgment and would be unsubscribing from the newsletter. Now he wants to know what bothered me because all he saw was a study discussing the benefits of circumcision and "no official position was taken." He then asked for me to provide other studies against circumcision and they would be glad to publish those. he even said I could write an article to rebuttal this one, he will gladly include it in the newsletter.

I am definitely not up to writing an articulate rebuttal, but if anyone would like to help me, please do and I will of course credit you! I can email you the newsletter if you want to read the whole thing. I haven't been involved in this forum lately so I don't know what good links/studies there are right now. I think it'd be great to have him publish something anti circ for his next newsletter that was logical and made sense to parents in my area!

[mama24-7]

off the top of my head, i'd send him what the australians have said, which is the african studies aren't relevant. i don't have a link, but it's in a thread in TCAC.

you could also send him to intactamerica too - they've got more on it IIRC.

glad to hear he's listening!

sus

[Quirky]

You can find some great links at www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org

As a naturopath, he should be aware of the function of the intact penis. After all, the foreskin is there for a reason! Send him to http://research.cirp.org

And ask him whether he would recommend that parents cut their baby girls' genitals for any preventative health reason whatsoever?

I'd be very disappointed that a health care provider dedicated to helping the body heal naturally would buy into a recommendation for "preventative" genital surgery BEFORE any problem actually shows up. Circumcision is about as unnatural and non-holistic as you can get.

[Fellow Traveler]

I might be able to help you write a replybut perhaps we could find someone with credentials. I'll add more a bit later but you could start with the recent Austrailian paper: http://www.circumstitions.com/news/news36.html#annals

or here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/...rticle1427972/

to the WHO statement their "recommendations" only apply to contries with high HIV prevelence such as in Africa.

ETA: Ok go ahead and email it to me. I'll PM you with my address.

[Storm Bride]

I can't help you, but I wanted to express my disgust with this (widespread) sentiment/belief:

newborn circumcision is a beneficial practice and should be considered for prevention of several common non-sexually and sexually acquired infection

Yeah...because there are sooooo many newborns at risk for sexually acquired infections. It occurs to me that if I were a guy, and ended up having only one (or even none!) sex partner in my life, having had part of my penis cut off to prevent me from "catching something" would really p**s me off, yk? Despite the way people talk about men, they're not all out getting it on with a different random woman every night (and I don't care if they are, if it's all consensual - it's just that there are lots of men who aren't and that makes this argument even more asinine).

[Greg B]

The fundamental problem with these articles is that they do not take into consideration all the advantages and disadvantages. They do not include for instance the value of a foreskin for sexual function and feeling. And they take things out of context, like the statistical benefit.

It is basically like the UTI argument. It reduces the argument to whether HIV is reduced. If it is, then this is recommended. Too simplistic to be informed decision making. Below are some ways to better put this in perspective.

The typical report says that there is about a 50% reduction in getting HIV. Sounds compelling...until you realize it can also be stated (more accurately) as circ’d men had a 1.6% chance of contracting aids, while the normal men had a 3.4% chance. Or if you were circ’d you had an incidence of 16 men out of a 1,000, while normal men had an incidence of 34 men out of 1,000.

This doesn’t sound as compelling. Or use the number in a more familiar and less frightening context. Relate that 50% to birth control, a similar situation in which you want to be very certain that you are safe. How many people will be satisfied if their birth control method only reduces the chance of pregnancy by 50%?

So what does he trade off against this reduction? Let's see, the circ'd person still has to do all the other more effective things like condom use. So in effect, all they get for their circ is a 50 50 chance of being safe when they fail to do the other stuff reliably. And how likely is he to use the condoms, which will still be required? Anecdotally, he is less likely to, because not only do circ'd guys have a lot less feelings during sex, but with a condom on, they feel almost nothing. Whereas a guy with a foreskin and a condom still has the gliding action and more feelings that a circ'd guy. Hmmm, doesn't seem to be so compelling...

I am willing to help word a rebuttal if that will help.

Regards

[eepster]

Originally Posted by myfairbabies

talks about how the aap is being asked to reconsider their position about circ.

This one really gets my goat. So what if they are being asked to reconsider their position.

I'm bet they get asked to reconsider their position on pretty much everything they have ever had an opinion about. Heck they probably get asked to consider having opinions about things they never even thought about in the first place.

How often do you think they get asked to reconsider their stance on vaccines? How about when to start this food or that food? How about lowering the diagnostic criteria for ADHD (so that more kids are on ridalin,) or possibly raising the criteria (so that less qualify?)

Being asked to reconsider something is in no way, shape or form an endorsement of the thing being reconsidered.