Request for stats and random thoughts

[MelissaEvans]

This is a bit of an odd collection of thoughts... please forgive me for the lack of continuity.

I'm annoyed that the doctor's "information" they give doesn't say anything more than "it doesn't do any good, but it's still ok." When I asked one preggo (at the time) friend if she had done her homework, she said yes. Her doctor told her it didn't make a difference if her son was circed or not. Well, it might not matter to the doc, but it might matter to the son, and his wife, and even his mom if there's troubles breastfeeding. What a load of crap.

Frank, you mentioned breaking off an engagement because your fiance was adament about having any sons circ'd for religious reasons. I got the impression she was Christian of some sort (not Jewish though). If this is the case, doesn't it seem odd that a doctor would be performing a religious rite? Would she have her ped baptize her baby? Doesn't make sense.

Is there a way to request a study be done? I would love to know what percentage of convicted rapists are circ'd. Actually, I think it would be helpful to know what percentage of convicts X years old are circ'd vs how many boys born in the same year were circ'd.

Also, I've read here in a few posts that over 200 babies a year die because of circ complications. How many men die of penile cancer?

Thanks for putting up with my rambling.
~Melissa

[Frankly Speaking]

Re: Request for stats and random thoughts

Originally posted by MelissaEvans

Frank, you mentioned breaking off an engagement because your fiance was adament about having any sons circ'd for religious reasons.

As with a lot of stories about circumcision, there is an element of fact in that quote and a lot that is wrong. I did break an engagement but that is as far as the factual information goes. I was engaged to the grandmother of the soon to be born boy. The mother refused to talk to me and refused to read any of the information I sent her and went ahead with the circumcision. My fiance was saying she was passing information on to her daughter but in fact, she was strongly supporting her daughter's decision. We had many arguments (the first we had ever had) about this and I finally realized we had reached an inpasse and broke the engagement. The circumcision had nothing to do with religion even though my fiance tried to convince me that the Bible said boys should be circumcised and refused to back down even when presented with the scripture saying not to circ Christians.




Frank

[Sarah]

I don't know if this is a very fruitful tree to bark up. First off, correlation does not equal causation. if you look at the prison population in terms of racial breakdown to the population, a disproportionate number of blacks and hispanics are in prison compared to whites. Does that mean that more blacks and hispanics commit crimes? Or more get convicted? Is their criminality in any way tied to the fact that they were or were not circumcised? If blacks and hispanics are less likely to be circumcised- perhaps the proportion of the prison population who is intact is higher than the nation at large? Would that make a case that foreskins make criminals?

no.

not any more than a rapist being circumcised would prove that had he not been circumcised he would not have raped.

Yes, the USA has much higher rates of rape than other non circumcising nations. This does not prove anything.
Circumcised people do not need to be villanised, and to focus on them in that way, is not fair.

The damage of circumcision is awful enough without having to speculate on how far reaching the harm may be filtering into our culture. Let's focus on the obvious, infants who are victimized by adults...

the vast majority of circumcised men will never ever be a rapist, don't alienate them.

The correlation between sexual violence and circumcision might be drawn, not as a cause and effect concept- but as two parallel symptoms of a horribly sick society- which somewhere along the line has lost respect for individual rights and the precious privacy of one's own body.

Love Sarah

[Frankly Speaking]

Excellent, Sarah! Such is the case with much circumcision "research" such as the Williamson and Williamson study that showed women preferred circumcised men, Wiswell's UTI study, Castellauge's cervical cancer study, the AIDS studies in Africa, Melman's sensitivity study and ad nauseum. Just as you have shown, it is easy to construct a study to achieve the desired results. However, as you have shown, it is just as easy to shoot holes in them.




Frank

[nightowl1234]

RE: << I've read here in a few posts that over 200 babies a year die because of circ complications. How many men die of penile cancer?>>

1 in 100,000 a year are diagosed with penile cancer, which is very low.

The penis can then be circumcised.

20% of those diagnosed with penile cancer are in fact circumcised.

Unfortunately the cancer in a circumcised male is often overlooked since most doctors are of the opinion that a circumcised penis will not get cancer.
And of course the sooner cancer is diagnosed the more treatable it is.

[MelissaEvans]

Frank, I'm sorry I brought up sad memories and messed them up in the process.

Sara, you're right. I guess I watch too much CSI. In my perfect world, guilty = convicted and convicted = guilty. I guess I was just wondering if there was a correlation similar to abusive homes, but there's no way to tell.

Nightowl, thanks for the stats.

~Melissa

[pollyanna]

nightowl could you give me a link to that please

Pollyanna

[Frankly Speaking]

I'm not sure which you are looking for a link to, the deaths or cancer. Here is a link to the death statistics:

http://www.cirp.org/library/statistics/bollinger2001/

As far as penile cancer, I have never seen the actual research but the generally accepted figure is .9-1/100,000. To put it into numbers you can get your brain around, in a city of 50,000 people, one case of penile cancer can be expected every 156 years.



Frank

[Teresa]

Oooh. . . I didn't know about the penile cancer thing. What a great statistic that would be for those who use that rationale; "Every year X adult males s die in the US of penile cancer, but Y babies die of circumcision-related problems"

Based on Frank's example, I'm assuming that Y is >X.

It makes no more sense to circumcise a child to 'prevent' penile cancer than it does to excise a child's breast tissue to prevent breast cancer.

[nightowl1234]

Pollyanna, here is the link:

http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/cancer/fleiss/

But most of the information came from
What your doctor may not tell you about circumcision
By Dr. Paul Fleiss
Pg.151

RE:<<It makes no more sense to circumcise a child to 'prevent' penile cancer than it does to excise a child's breast tissue to prevent breast cancer.>>

From the same book:

Did you know that penile cancer is so rare that the government feels it unnecessary to keep statistics on it?

Did you know that

more American men contract and die of breast cancer than penile cancer

[Frankly Speaking]

There should never be a man who dies of penile cancer. If caught early and treated, it is 100% curable and at worst, may leave a little scarring where the affected skin was removed/treated. Catching it early is easy as it has clear indications and grows slowly. Only an idiot would let it go untreated to the point that he dies.

From the numbers I have seen, a baby is about 14 times more likely to die from circumcision than he is likely to have a curable case of penile cancer. Circumcision to prevent penile cancer is just a very dumb argument.


Frank