Circumcism for medical reasons

[dmpmercury]

I remember reading somewhere that in countries where circumcism isn't performed like Scandinavia that the need to be circumcised later in adulthood is pretty rare. I remeber seeing figures on this. I am writing a research paper and I can't seem to find this information. Does anyone have a source for it?

[Fyrestorm]

I believe the study showed something like.01% in non circing countries. I'll see if I can dig something up

[buckeyedoc]

Yeah, wasn't it a Finnish study, and it was like 1 in 17,000 men?

[glongley]

The info came from the book "Circumcision:An American Health Fallacy" by Edward Wallerstein, New York: SPringer Publishing Company 1980. Here is some data that he gives:

Oslo Norway: 3 circs/20,000 male babies over 26 year period = rate of 0.02%
[source: Dr. Dag Riis, Director of an OSlo well-baby clinic. Telepphone interview, August 1973] p. 127 of Wallerstein's book [Relates to circs in babies]

Denmark: 3 circs/1968 school age children up to age 17, examined annually over a period of several years = 0.15% [Oster 1968 - author noted that in all 3 cases, circ was believed to have been avoidable] [Relates to circs in childhood and adolesence.] p. 127

Finland: Finnish National Board of Health had compiled national case records for the year 1970 on phimosis and paraphimosis. Cases of these were 0.023% in men 15 and older, but the Board of Health guessed that the number having a circumcision for these problems was not higher than 10%. Wallerstein made an estimate based on 25% of these cases getting a circumcision, resulting in an adult (>15 y/o) rate of circumcision in Finland in 1970 of 6/100,000 [1/17000 = 0.006%]. They also said that surgery for the <15 age group was even rarer than for >15. [Dr. A S Haro, Private communication, Helsinki, Finland, Oct 24, 1973]. p. 128

Gillian

[Quirky]

Mama, since you're writing a research paper (for a grade?), make sure you have the spelling right: it's circumcision, not circumcism.

www.cirp.org is the best site for lots of medical papers, plus analysis, relating to circumcision.

[dmpmercury]

Mama, since you're writing a research paper (for a grade?), make sure you have the spelling right: it's circumcision, not circumcism.

It isn't for school. I'm just using it to spread the word and to really learn about it. It is spelled correctly in the paper thatnks to spell check. Spelling and grammar are not my strong points. I don't proof read message board threads so I do tend to make spelling and grammar mistakes and typos. I will read over my papers and have my friends who are good with grammar check it over for me.

I did find the info and it was from Finland with the stat of about 1 in 16,667 men. I got it from the cirp site but thanks for posting the actual study it came from.