Circumcision these days?

[NotCranky]

[quote=cvmom]Earlyretirement, just wanted to say thank you for the well-thought-out, heart-felt post.[/quote]
Yes indeed!

[scaredyclassic]

here;s a topic i have strong feelings about!

although jewish, and wearing the yarmulke, I am and have been opposed to circumcision for many years. joined NOCIRC in 94.

Also wrote a paper in law school arguing that male circumcision should be criminalzied and female circumcision should be legalized. was kind of a virtuoso performance in arguing both side of an issue…iMHO…

i am still suffering from my circumcision back in 1963 and am contemplating foreskin restoration surgery. I think the statute of limitations has run on suing the surgeon.

no circ for my 3 boys.

[scaredyclassic]

to me, male circumcision is so clearly wrong, in spite of the long tradition….

however, female circumcision needs a good lawyer to speak up for it…

[earlyretirement]

[quote=cvmom]Earlyretirement, just wanted to say thank you for the well-thought-out, heart-felt post.[/quote]

You’re welcome. Anytime I hear anyone talking about this subject I always give them my opinion on it.

[quote=desmond]
I guess understanding sarcasm wasn’t one of the things you did “very well”[/quote]

Sorry, I have never read any of that OP’s posts and I don’t know the personality’s on this board enough to know who is kidding or not. Trust me, I’ve read some very wacky things on this and other boards that wasn’t sarcastic in nature when I thought it was… 😉

[scaredyclassic]

http://www.nocirc.org

[earlyretirement]

Oh and if you think my situation was an isolated incident, just Google it.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/partod/msg1218152032703.html?14

http://www.circleofmoms.com/stay-at-home-moms/circumcision-question-581216#_

All sorts of parents have had the same problem. And the worst and most frustrating thing is that the doctor says “it’s just normal…give it time”. And you don’t know if it will correct itself or not. Our son was chubby when he was younger but not so much anymore and it is still like that.

So now we are struggling with, “do we go see another specialist” and “what happens if indeed they didn’t cut enough off”? Because even if we didn’t cut enough off, I can’t bare to think of having it done again but then we think about the potential for our son to say later in life, “if you knew when I was a baby they screwed up…why didn’t you fix it when I was a baby”.

I can’t tell you how frustrating it is.

[Navydoc]

Believe it or not, I suspect the pendulum on this is about to swing back in favor of circumcision. Why? I think it has a lot to do with the STD prevention benefits, which are not inconsequential. You do not have to be gay to contract HIV by “sticking it” in an HIV+ person. Ask most of Africa. There is a strong movement from WHO to encourage circumcision in countries with very high heterosexual HIV transmission. In circumcised males the female-to-male transmission is extremely low, even if the female has a relatively high viral load. I took care of a sero-discordant couple last year who conceived the old fashioned way, and he remains negative even after several years of unprotected intercourse. Marital life with condoms is not too appealing to a lot of people.

I agree that children today who are not circumcised are less likely to be teased than when I was a kid if they’re not circumcised, since many more boys these days are not having it done. The American Academy of Pediatrics is still officially listing the procedure as elective, and that has had a huge impact on the number of procedures performed, as many insurance companies and Medi-Cal wont pay for it.

As an obstetrician I don’t have a personal feeling on the subject, but the read I’m getting on the medical literature is starting to again favor circumcision based on the STD benefits. If you think this isn’t a factor consider this: that Hep B series your kid needed before they went to school is done in anticipation of adolescent sexual activity.

[earlyretirement]

NavyDoc,

Thanks for the follow up post. Yes, as you mentioned, I saw something in the paper the other day swinging back to saying some Academy recommended it.

As a physician, would you recommend to go to a Pediatric Urology specialist for another opinion even though our Pediatrician says it will probably correct itself later ?

We had it done before we moved to San Diego and I always just assumed that physician would never admit that it was done wrong and it was easier to say, “it will correct itself later”.

Our Pediatrician is very good and I didn’t want her to think we were second guessing her opinion. I try not to think about it but this post just reminds me of the regret I have in doing it.

[NotCranky]

I don’t mind telling my kids that because they are not circumcised they should consider at risk sex even more than the other adolescents. Sounds pretty good actually. Not sure cutting off some skin is a rational response to the std issue in the typical American child’s situation…or at least in ours. What would the Amish do? Seriously though, good food for thought,Navydoc.

[svelte]

The argument that male circumcision is A-OK because it reduced disease is oh so wrong.

It’s like saying we can cut down on breast cancer by cutting off all women’s breasts.

[Arraya]

A good book to read up on the history of circumcision and its expansion to the West is “Marked in Your Flesh” by anthropologist Leanard Glick.

Circumcision began in America, and in the rest of the English-speaking world in the Victorian Era, when it was introduced as a way to stop masturbation.

Circumcision didn’t stop masturbation, and “researchers” have been looking for “medical benefits” for it since… Maybe, after a century, they finally found something with the STD thing.

Why even look for benefits. Nothing wrong with a little ritual sexual mutilation. yahweh needs his tasty piece of penis flesh. Yumm

[Navydoc]

[quote=svelte]The argument that male circumcision is A-OK because it reduced disease is oh so wrong.

It’s like saying we can cut down on breast cancer by cutting off all women’s breasts.[/quote]

That will, in fact, dramatically reduce the amount of breast cancer. BRCA patients decide to do this often.

All kidding aside, this is how many public health decisions are made. In the absence of a percieved detriment to circumcision, the benefits may be considered to outweigh the risks. Not saying I agree with this, just what happens from a public health perspective. I’m not sure circumcision is quite comparable to bilateral radical mastectomy.

[Navydoc]

Early, I’m honestly not qualified to comment on this particular subject. Don’t spend much time with boy bits. I suppose if it’s not causing pain and isn’t a hygiene problem, waiting until he is older isn’t going to hurt anything. I’m guessing he’s old enough now that whatever would need to be done surgically is going to be majorly painful, and it might be best to allow him to make that decision himself.

Nice to be posting on Piggington on my first call night at Balboa since I was a resident.

[Fearful]

[quote=Navydoc]Believe it or not, I suspect the pendulum on this is about to swing back in favor of circumcision. Why? I think it has a lot to do with the STD prevention benefits, which are not inconsequential. You do not have to be gay to contract HIV by “sticking it” in an HIV+ person. Ask most of Africa. There is a strong movement from WHO to encourage circumcision in countries with very high heterosexual HIV transmission. In circumcised males the female-to-male transmission is extremely low, even if the female has a relatively high viral load. I took care of a sero-discordant couple last year who conceived the old fashioned way, and he remains negative even after several years of unprotected intercourse. Marital life with condoms is not too appealing to a lot of people.

If you think this isn’t a factor consider this: that Hep B series your kid needed before they went to school is done in anticipation of adolescent sexual activity.[/quote]
Heterosexual HIV transmission in USA = 0.0
Circumcising baby boys in the USA to protect them against HIV is ridiculous.
As far as vaccinating is concerned, I got my kids every possible vaccination. Yes, including HPV and Hep B.
And no, I didn’t cut the tip of my boy’s dick off.
I was circumcised and (1) it didn’t protect me from HPV (sorry, ladies, had warts) (2) never had sex with an HIV+ woman (or man) so being cut didn’t do me one bit of good.

Translating epidemiology from Africa to here is silly. Want to prevent AIDS, get people to use condoms and not share needles.

Don’t circumcise all baby boys without their consent to enable the few marriages between a HIV+ woman and HIV- man. In that case, he can get snipped on his own time.

All these arguments beg the question: Do parents have the right to cut a baby’s body long before the baby grows up and decides what choices to make? That baby that doctors are mutilating will not be sexually active for fifteen years.

If you cut the guy’s entire dick off, STD transmission is reduced to zero.

[Navydoc]

Your Data for 0.0 heterosexual transmission? Because here’s mine:

Estimated adult and adolescent AIDS diagnoses in 2009 and cumulative diagnoses since the beginning of the epidemic through 2009, by transmission route and gender
Transmission route 2009 diagnoses Cumulative diagnoses
Male Female Male Female
Male-to-male sexual contact 17,171 – 535,570 –
Injection drug use 3,207 1,982 173,351 90,102
Male-to-male sexual contact and injection drug use 1,608 – 73,006 –
Heterosexual contact 3,956 6,740 59,593 131,886
Other 159 157 96,977 7,185
Total* 26,102 8,879 882,074
229,173

* Because totals are calculated independently of the sub-populations, the values in each column may not sum exactly to the figure in the ‘Total’ row

These are 2009 numbers. I realize this didn’t cut-paste well, but if you look at the four numbers after the heterosexual contact, those are the new 2009 cases, male/female, then the cumulative numbers male/female. Heterosexual contact does exist, one of the reasons the male heterosexual numbers are so much lower is believed to be due to high proportion of circumcised males.

Just because you don’t want to believe in heterosexual transmission doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

[Author]

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