Brace yourselves: NYT gets it wrong again - Page 2

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post #21 of 24

8/19/10 at 3:26pm

600 Posts. Joined 10/2007
Location: Somewhere over the rainbow
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Ugh. So much to complain about but the biggest for me is the idea that circ complication rates are low.

I found the original "Elsevier Global Medical News" story and this seems odd:

They looked at 6.5 million circumcisions from 06 to 09. The article states that to "estimate the incidence of circumcision-associated adverse events, the researchers tallied the rate of any of 41 different ICD-9 and CPT codes that could be such events during the 90 days following circumcision."

Ok, why are they "estimating" based on medical codes - why can't they definitively say how many complications there are?? Why only 90 days? I'm sure many complications only surface years later.

It states that there were no "mishaps" in boys aged 1-9. I'm sorry, I don't believe it. Ok, just a very quick google search found that there is between a 4 and 18.8 percent complication rate for a nose job. Don't tell me that there are NO complications for circ.

It states that as for "correctional procedures" the rate was 58 out of 100k for babies under age 1. We have no idea how many of that 6.5 million were in that age group but it's logical to argue that most of them were so, that means at least 4,000 babies needed corrective surgery 90 days afterward. How many beyond that???

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Here is a basic clue as to what garbage the CDC numbers and the Elsevier reporting are: the CDC makes clear from other slides and supporting information that the 3-year period covered was from late 2006 to late 2009.

Elsevier reported 6.5 million US circumcisions in that 3-year span.

Interesting. There were only 6.4 million US male births in those 3 years. Hmmm.

Even if you add the 300,000 or so "later" circumcisions to it, you still have a greater-than-100% infant circumcision rate. But they're telling us it's really 32.5%. And implying that this will have dire health consequences unless we act fast to reinstate circumcision subsidies at Medicare & private plans and also create a standardized "gauntlet" of their information that every new couple must endure and sign off on. The CDC is still trying to work out the kinks of how to ensure that doctors and hospitals target every mom/couple, since the CDC unfortunately doesn't have the staff to do it.

Sometimes I think I'm ready to give up. Why is it so vitally important to this small group of powerful people that the United States be a circumcised country? Why have they made it their life's mission to worry that foreskin stigmatizes a boy, then they create the stigma? Why are they so terrified, after a 100-year failed experiment with circumcision, of trying it the other way to see if we save money and improve health? Europe does it! What is so deeply upsetting about foreskin?

The best thing we can do is to inundate newspapers and web stories with comments from ourselves and every friend we can think of. There is no question it makes a difference, because I have heard comments from the bigwigs in the pro-circ movement that it deeply troubles them that public opinion seems to be running 70% against them -- and they see this most vividly when they get skewered for articles promoting circumcision. Hence, the PR push. They honestly thought this was going to be a cakewalk, an easy sell to a nation still in love with circumcision. They can't fathom where all the hostility to a quick, beautifying snip comes from.

Besides, it ensure that they and their sons will be in the majority; remember, they are obsessed with stigma. Since there is no way they're not going to circumcise, it's much easier for them if the whole country would just go along.

post #23 of 24

8/20/10 at 12:11pm