Sorry to jump in out of the blue, I haven't posted on here in ages.
I haven't checked it in a long time, but wikipedia's entry for circumcision has always been hotly debated, yet managed to contain equal amounts of procirc info and pro foreskin info. Now it reads like an ad selling circumcision using the AAP's new stance as selling point.
This entry is indeed very uninformed!!!
Who writes those entries?
Anyone does! That is the idea behind Wikipedia. Anyone with a medical writing background want to update it?
They need a note in the US section on the how the AAP policy has been specifically condemned by the comparable German pediatritions' group. The German section could also site that.
That's great. I was hoping there would be other medical organizations outside the US that would condemn the new AAP policy. Anyone else notice how U.S.-centric the English entry for circumcision was. I understand its a sort of community effort, but unfortunately I'm not familiar with how to make changes to the site.
The Wikipedia page on circumcision is completely biased misinformation. They changed the rules about medical articles to only accept the results of reviews (once they'd been written), so that they could totally ignore Sorrells et al. and others' enlightening work that overturned 40 years of unbelievable medical ignorance by showing that the foreskin is really sensitive. The main source of misinformation seems to have been Masters & Johnson's book on human sexual response (from 1966). The only information it had about foreskin was junk science (no sensitivity difference in intact vs. cut men). And that same misinformation is repeated on this Wikipedia page, by the AAP, and MOST doctors still believe it. Most doctors are clueless about foreskin (except how to hack it off). It's mind boggling that this ignorance persists.
Here are some of the points I think Wikipedia should include.
SENSITIVITY/SEX: It's very largely random how much sensitivity there was to begin with and how much remains after male circumcision. There are significant adverse effects of male circumcision upon female sexual satisfaction (Bensley & Boyle 2003). Surveys have found that women tend to experience vaginal dryness similar to female arousal disorder significantly more often when the male partner is circumcised (Bensley & Boyle 2001, 2003; O'Hara 1999). Women with a genitally intact male partner were significantly more likely to experience orgasm than women whose partner was circumcised (O'Hara 1999). A 2011 Danish study by Frisch et al. found that circumcision was "associated with frequent orgasm difficulties in Danish men and with a range of frequent sexual difficulties in women, notably orgasm difficulties, dyspareunia and a sense of incomplete sexual needs fulfillment".
STIs/HIV: The only randomized controlled trial into male-to-female transmission was published in 2009 when Wawer & Gray reported from Rakai, Unganda that the men circumcised were 62% MORE likely to infect their partners with HIV than the intact men were. There are at least 17 observational studies that have not found any benefit from male circumcision in reducing HIV transmission. Among developed countries, the United States has the highest circumcision rate and the highest rate of heterosexually transmitted HIV. Other countries have lower rates of HIV infection than the United States and do not practice circumcision. A recent study of Caribbean men was just published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine and found that "compared with uncircumcised men, circumcised men have accumulated larger numbers of STI in their lifetime, have higher rates of previous diagnosis of warts, and were more likely to have HIV infection." Foreskin makes condoms more enjoyable, tolerable, and appealing to men. Men with intact genitals are much more likely to choose to use condoms consistently.
Elective circumcision is always being promoted through misinformation. The Wikipedia page on circumcision is solidly biased misinformation. Wikipedia actually changed their rules about medical articles to only accept the results of reviews (once they'd been written), so that they could totally ignore Sorrells et al. and others' enlightening work that overturned 40 years of unbelievable medical ignorance by showing that the foreskin is really sensitive. It will not be easy to get this changed.
Maybe someone should start a petition for Wikipedia to stop spreading misinformation through such an obviously biased article on circumcision. It would at least help to increase awareness of this problem (of such centrally located bad information) whether it effected the wanted change or not.
The Wikipedia page on circumcision is completely biased misinformation. They changed the rules about medical articles to only accept the results of reviews (once they'd been written), so that they could totally ignore Sorrells et al. and others' enlightening work that overturned 40 years of unbelievable medical ignorance by showing that the foreskin is really sensitive. The main source of misinformation seems to have been Masters & Johnson's book on human sexual response (from 1966). The only information it had about foreskin was junk science (no sensitivity difference in intact vs. cut men). And that same misinformation is repeated on this Wikipedia page, by the AAP, and MOST doctors still believe it. Most doctors are clueless about foreskin (except how to hack it off). It's mind boggling that this ignorance persists.
Here are some of the points I think Wikipedia should include.
SENSITIVITY/SEX: It's very largely random how much sensitivity there was to begin with and how much remains after male circumcision. There are significant adverse effects of male circumcision upon female sexual satisfaction (Bensley & Boyle 2003). Surveys have found that women tend to experience vaginal dryness similar to female arousal disorder significantly more often when the male partner is circumcised (Bensley & Boyle 2001, 2003; O'Hara 1999). Women with a genitally intact male partner were significantly more likely to experience orgasm than women whose partner was circumcised (O'Hara 1999). A 2011 Danish study by Frisch et al. found that circumcision was "associated with frequent orgasm difficulties in Danish men and with a range of frequent sexual difficulties in women, notably orgasm difficulties, dyspareunia and a sense of incomplete sexual needs fulfillment".
STIs/HIV: The only randomized controlled trial into male-to-female transmission was published in 2009 when Wawer & Gray reported from Rakai, Unganda that the men circumcised were 62% MORE likely to infect their partners with HIV than the intact men were. There are at least 17 observational studies that have not found any benefit from male circumcision in reducing HIV transmission. Among developed countries, the United States has the highest circumcision rate and the highest rate of heterosexually transmitted HIV. Other countries have lower rates of HIV infection than the United States and do not practice circumcision. A recent study of Caribbean men was just published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine and found that "compared with uncircumcised men, circumcised men have accumulated larger numbers of STI in their lifetime, have higher rates of previous diagnosis of warts, and were more likely to have HIV infection." Foreskin makes condoms more enjoyable, tolerable, and appealing to men. Men with intact genitals are much more likely to choose to use condoms consistently.
why are you posting this here instead of on Wikipedia? POST IT THERE! and thereby "update" their page. PLEASE!
why are you posting this here instead of on Wikipedia? POST IT THERE! and thereby "update" their page. PLEASE!
Haha, I would fix Wikipedia if I could. But they've got the circumcision page on lockdown. Like I was saying, they updated their policy on medical pages to only accept the most recent relevant review once one had been published. That's how they get out of presenting the truth. It really would take something like a popular petition to force them to present the truth. The scientific literature abounds with weasely defenses of circumcision by circumcisers. As a member of Doctors Opposing Circumcision said, "Circumcision-generated emotions bias medical literature. [...] Most doctors favouring MC are circumcised themselves. Circumcision status ‘plays a huge role in whether doctors are in support of circumcisions or not’. Circumcised doctors often defend circumcision by producing flawed papers that minimise or dismiss the harm and exaggerate alleged benefits" (GJ Boyle, 2012).
Wawer & Gray's Ugandan RCT that found 61% higher male-to-female transmission rates in circumcised men did not even calculate that percentage increase anywhere in the paper. They left it up to the reader to do the math! (It's actually really surprising they published at all rather than just trying to pretend they had never done that study.) The literature that is the most popular and accepted is extremely biased. That's what's wrong with both Wikipedia and American medical education. This is largely a problem of patients needing to educate their doctors. And doctors don't actually need much instruction to notice that right in front of them they constantly see that circumcision causes massive penis desensitization that obviously becomes problematic usually within about 30-40 years of life. It's a really cruel trick to play on infants to make it likely they need pharmaceutical erection aids by middle age.
How were they able to change it like this and then get it locked down. I thought wikipedia was a sort of community project, who would be in charge of this lock down?
I would not consider wikipedia a reliable source of information on any subject.
well there you have it. just keep fighting the good fight. we will prevail... eventually...
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