Even Dr. Andrew Weil is pro-circ!

[liseux]

I apologize if all of you already know this, plus the link is from 2003, so its old, but... Dr. Weil, Mr. Natural Health has the weakest, most pro circ crap on his site. http://www.drweilselfhealing.com/sho...&iPageNumber=5
How depressing.

[glongley]

Send him a letter. As with so many sources, no mention of foreskin function or ethics.

Gillian

[liseux]

I will. He will probably just dismiss me as a fanatic. Its funny how the pro circ people immediately try to dismiss us as emotional freaks, yet the pro circ POV is based entirely on emotion as it defies all logic. The pro intact POV is based on facts, science & common sense.

[pdx.mothernurture]

"Dr Weil is a proponent of integrative medicine...[integrative medicine]views patients as whole persons—minds and spirits as well as physical bodies—and considers these other dimensions in the diagnosis and treatment of illness...It considers simple, inexpensive, low-tech treatment methods especially when conventional approaches are relatively ineffective or potentially harmful."

http://www.drweilselfhealing.com/sta....asp?iPageID=8

[TigerTail]

Nooooooo!

eta: How many guesses about the good doctor's own penis status? Sigh.

[myfairbabies]

"It can help prevent infection and inflammation of the foreskin"

Umm, duh! If you cut off my breasts I could never have inflamation of the breasts because I don't have any! If I didn't have hands I would never have to deal with icky hand problems either!

"It’s an individual choice"

I wish people would realize that yes, it IS an individual choice, but it belongs to the person that owns the penis!

[Quirky]

Write letters!

[e-mail]

Here's mine:

Dear Dr. Weil,

As an avid reader of your website and Self Healing newsletters as well as of your columns in Prevention magazine, I was very disappointed to come across this page from your website on circumcision. One of the reasons I enjoy reading your articles so much is that they are evidence-based while at the same time considering the effects of modern medicine or alternative treatments on the whole person, body and spirit.

I have several objections to your column on circumcision.

First, you do not describe the structure and function of the foreskin. The foreskin is a sensitive, nerve-laden, functional part of the penis. It contains half the nerve endings of the penis and is more sensitive than the glans penis. It plays a vital role during sexual intercourse and facilitates sexual pleasure for both partners. You can learn more about the structure and function of the male prepuce from several sources, all of which are based on peer-reviewed articles published in medical journals:

The Prepuce: specialized mucosa of the penis and its loss to circumcision, Taylor, Lockwood, and Taylor, British Journal of Urology (1996)

The Prepuce: Anatomy, Physiology, Innervation, Immunology, and Sexual Function, Cold and Taylor, British Journal of Urology (1999)

The Prepuce (video)

The Ridged Band

Second, you state several times that circumcision is a personal choice of the parents, which ignores the rights of the baby to be treated holistically as an autonomous person with inherent human rights. Circumcision is considered non-therapeutic (i.e., cosmetic) by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Shouldn’t the choice to perform cosmetic surgery on the genitals be the decision of the adult to whom the penis belongs? It is disrespectful of the body and spirit of a newborn baby boy to make one of his first experiences after birth cosmetic surgery on his genitals and to take the choice of how his penis should look and function away from him by force. No one who has ever witnessed a circumcision can truly believe that it is what a baby would choose for himself or that it doesn’t violate his trust and his spirit.

The human body is a wonderfully designed system that functions best when all of its parts are left to operate as nature intended. Babies don’t need cosmetic surgery on their genitals at birth, and emphasizing that circumcision is a “personal choice” of the parents with “no right or wrong answer” does a grave disservice to expecting parents by failing to give them full information on the benefits of leaving their babies intact. I hope that you will consider taking down this page on your website and rewriting it to ensure that it contains accurate information on the foreskin.

Sincerely,


me

[phatchristy]

Originally Posted by TigerTail

Nooooooo!

eta: How many guesses about the good doctor's own penis status? Sigh.

:

Most likely he's cut, and feels a subconscious need to justify what was done to him.

[pdx.mothernurture]

Dr. Weil is also apparently a frequent guest on Oprah...

Jen

[~Megan~]

To me sounds like he is leaning toward being against it not for it. Says it can help with certain things but there are better ways to deal with those things and that is very painful. Better than most sources I've read.

I would write him a positive letter and encourage him to take a slightly stronger stance against it.

[Mommiska]

Quirky - great letter!

[Lula's Mom]

Great letter, Quirky!

[TigerTail]

I want to frame that letter & hang it on my wall. Damn.

[Quirky]

: : :

[Blarg]

Dunno about the rest of you, but it sounds like he's not exactly pro-circ. Like mamao'two, I think he's actually leaning against it.

The "it can help prevent infection and inflammation of the foreskin" part is pretty silly, yes. Obviously if something is removed then it won't get infected (at least not on the person's body).
But he takes a "however, these things can also be prevented by non-surgical common sense" stance.
I'm sure that his page would be enough to convince many of the soon-to-be-parents out there. If someone was walking the fence, I bet that would tip them over. It presents circumcision as a surgical operation with no real medical reason.

Please don't flog him. Appreciate that he's taken as much of a stance as he has. Just let him know that you would like him to go further, and remove the "it's a parent's choice" BS.

And there are more explanations than just "he's trying to justify his own circ". It's entirely possible that he's fairly anti-circ, but doesn't want to alienate patients. I don't support him making such a weak anti-circ statement just to avoid alienating patients, of course. But just saying... it seems like you guys are jumping all over him without giving him a chance.

[KMK_Mama]

I also think that he seems very wishy washy on the subject....like he is afraid as going to one side or the other.

I don't think Dr. Mercola has anything about circumcision on his website at all. I would be curious to know his opinion on the matter as well.

[liseux]

I agree, it could be worse, but the part that bothers me is the "look past the controversy" and that its the parents choice. His vaccine stance is similar, he says he finds all the anti-vax arguments "weak." I don`t want to flog the guy either, he seems like a pretty nice guy, but being intact is very healthy & its like he knows nothing about normal anatomy. When he says the part about UTI`s he could easily add that UTI`s are rare in breastfed intact infants & way more common in girls. I think the wording definitely leans a little more toward circing, acknowledging any health "benefits" is exactly what people want to hear when they are on the fence on this subject.

[enstar780]

I will write him a letter. Weil is pretty alternative and is into herbs and so on, and taking a less invasive approach to things, utilising alternative medicine, so I was quite surprised and disturbed to hear this.

Of course, circumcision can only be the choice of the person whose body it is when they grow up. It is wrong to alter the body of a child which is normal, since it deprives the person of the freedom to make choices about their own body later on, especially regarding life long alterations of it which can deprive the person of wonderful beauty or pleasure, or the ability to simply know what its like to have a complete body.

Circumcision goes very much against holistic systems of medicine, where every part of the body is important to the well being of the whole. You cannot remove parts without it affecting the whole person.

Circumcision denies us pleasure, a normal and healthy part of life experience. This certainly is not a good thing.

[phatchristy]

Originally Posted by KMK_Mama

I don't think Dr. Mercola has anything about circumcision on his website at all. I would be curious to know his opinion on the matter as well.

There's a previous thread on Dr. Mercola...do a search and find it. He's made very pro-circ comments. He is very uneducated apparently about this one.

[serendipity22]

Most probably Dr Weil has given circ very little thought.

I don't quite see how circ fits in with natural healing, it doesn't seem very natural to me.