CDC rec to counsel all males about benefits of circumcision

canigraduate · Dec 8, 2014

The fact that any woman would actually reject a man because part of his body hasn't been cut off is just astounding to me. Many in the intactivist community refer to foreskins as "bimbo repellent" and are frankly grateful that it might run off women shallow enough to act like that, protecting our sons from women not worthy of them.

It looks like you took yet another comment and twisted it beyond recognition. How does a "better sexual experience" have anything to do with "reject a man because part of his body hasn't been cut off?"

"Bimbo repellent?" Seriously? There are so many things wrong with this.

I can't take you seriously anymore and now I am just laughing at the outlandish things you post.

Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN · Dec 8, 2014

You've clearly never been the parent of an intact son. I've had to tell doctors and PAs to get their hands off both my sons because they were about to forcibly retract their foreskins when they were infants and toddlers....

WOW. I fired a pediatrician after my older intact son's 1-year well baby check because he instructed my husband to start trying to retract it. I wasn't there; he had taken the baby to the appointment. But no provider has ever tried to. And sneaking it into a consent form??!? WOW. Good for you actually reading that consent form!

allnurses Guide · Dec 8, 2014

The member-Care Information Gap: Preventing Improper Care of Intact Boys | Dan Bollinger - Academia.edu

This is not a peer-reviewed scientific article. I went and reviewed the website it is on, and it will basically publish anything. The "journal" that it comes from is not in PubMed, which usually means it does not meet criteria to be archived. Add a Journal to PMC I also looked in "Powersearch" that pulls from all types of digital media, and it is still didn't come up. The journal claims to be peer-reviewed, but seems to be nothing more than a dumping ground of articles that cannot be published anywhere else based online source.

Acceptability of neonatal circumcision by Hispanics in southern Florida Here is an article that doesn't support your view point, but it is close enough in context that the reference list should provide some information to support your view point about poor understanding of uncircumcised males in the U.S. The difficulty will be in finding the right words for the search term without being to generalized.

allnurses Guide · Dec 8, 2014

Again, not America. How do the STI rates compare in industrialized countries that largely do not circumcise? Does the UK have a higher STI rate than the US? Even this quote doesn't seem very compelling from a statistical point of view. "Borderline." "No link." "Similar prevalence rates."

I already posted a systematic literature review and meta-analysis that stated by country where the studies were done, which included the U.S., Europe, and Australia not just Africa. So again I call BS to the claim all these studies are done in Africa and have no correlation to U.S.

You cannot do a simple comparison of country with socialized medicine to the U.S. and say that is proof that male circumcision does not work, because they have lower circumcision rates and lower STI rates. You would have to account for people that delayed care/treatment based on not being insured, the social stigma differences if any between countries, and the public health policies between the two countries.

http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/419-adolescent-sexual-health-in-europe-and-the-us

allnurses Guide · Dec 8, 2014

All anecdotal! Useless! Must be double blind peer reviewed and controlled!
Excluding all personal experience is to exclude valuable data.

Actually, anecdotal evidence is still just anecdotal evidence. It is worthless when trying to make a complex public health decision. The only thing that anecdotal evidence is worth using for is to develop research studies, which often times start with descriptive studies if they come from anecdotal reports. These reports can then be taken together in a systematic approach that looks for common themes.

allnurses Guide · Dec 8, 2014

Fear-mongering. Which is what I fear the "counseling" we would get would be. The circumcised sons can also get HIV and cancer.
STIs are a huge, complex public health issue, but this isn't the answer.

Then cite some peer-reviewed scientific literature. You like every other anti-circumcision person on this thread cannot provide any peer-reviewed scientific literature to support your point of view. It is all "my experience" this or "take my word for it" well that is not how science works, if you cannot provide any peer-reviewed scientific literature to support your view then cannot debate whether male circumcision will work as public health measure or not.

allnurses Guide · Dec 8, 2014

I responded to your post suggesting that anti-religious feelings/bigotry was the reason behind resistance to infant circumcisions in Europe by sharing a bit about the cultural background about my country. I find it slightly ironic that your response to this is to tell me to research anti-Semitism in Scandinavia on the internet. You do realize that I actually live here and can probably offer you (if you're willing to listen) some insights of my own that you can't really get on the internet.
You could listen to what I have to say, or you could come live here and decide for yourself. To genuinely understand a culture, any culture, it's my conviction that you need to be "immersed" in it.
Well, I read your links. Some of them were quite unpleasant and reminded me why this world is full of conflict.
One of the links is an article about three Jewish men visiting Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark and titled "An adventure in anti-Semitism". I think that the title itself is rather inflammatory, but what does the article say? (I'll only comment on Sweden, for the sake of brevity and because it's the country that I hail from).
It seems that these three men encountered "some Somalian Muslim girls in hijabs" who made some very rude comment of a sexual/derogatory nature and the other incident involved "a group of Arabs" who yelled at them, shook their fists and spouted rude comments aimed at Jews and Israel. They also saw a swastika on an elevator door somewhere.
None of the described incidences are in my opinion acceptable behavior. I'm not sure why you think this is an example that Scandinavian culture is anti-Semitic though. This is clearly a conflict that originated thousands of miles away from Sweden and now the two parties happened to be in Stockholm when these altercations took place. I don't know who carved the swastika into the elevator door. We do have some, but not that many, domestic neo-nazi types so it's possible that this was a local "artist". (Yes, I do use that word with a good portion of contempt in this scenario).
As I said, the described incidents are unacceptable. One thing that struck a cord with me though, the way these two sets of antagonists that the three men encountered were described in the article, actually has discriminating/ derogatory undertones too. It's evident that there's a lot of bad blood
between the groups of people.
The article about the "Swedish comedian" was even more depressing.
What kind of an online news media outlet is this any way? I question it's quality. The comments made by its' readers were by and large quite hostile and sounded somewhat unbalanced.
Here are some of the readers comments to this article:
(the one above is a partial quote).
(To be fair, another reader questioned if this last one was appropriate).
wtbcrna, I realize that you wanted to show me anti-Semistism in Scandinavia but what I'm seeing here is something else, and it's quite ugly. I have never seen comments like these directed at any nationality, ethnic or religious group in our local online papers. Most of them are moderated, and the majority of the comments I saw, would violate TOS.
Ok, moving on to Wikipedia...
This means that 98.6 % of the populations disagrees with the negative/vilifying statement as it pertains to Jewish people and 92.7 % disagree with the same statement when made about Muslim people.
I never claimed that we are 100% free of bigots and racists. They exist and people in minorities whether due to religion, origin, sexual orientation or other criteria certainly on occasion encounter prejudice in different forms. However, the vast majority of Scandinavians are quite tolerant people. Believe me or don't, there's not much I can do about it.
What I did claim is that our stance on circumcision isn't based on anti-Semitism or anti-Islamism and I stand by that claim. It is and has been tradition and a children's rights issue.
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You are in my opinion evading the issue here. I'm not asking if there are any other parts of an infants body that we routinely remove. I'm asking which other HEALTHY parts would be acceptable to remove.
The question that I pose is of an ethical nature. Is it acceptable to remove a body part that is healthy from a person who hasn't been informed or consented, but may become diseased in the future? What is the acceptable standard between risk/reward? Do we weigh in factors as available treatments, the seriousness of the potential disease and it's incidence (is it a rare or common disease/condition) we're trying to avoid)? If it's acceptable, does this include all body parts that a person can sustain life without or does "someone" get to decide which parts are acceptable and which ones aren't?
Using the argument that removal of other body parts haven't proven medically beneficial is completely irrelevant in a discussions on ethics. The reason their is available data on circumcisions is that they've been performed on large populations for cultural or religious reasons.
Thankfully we don't have the cultural or religious tradition to surgically remove breast buds on female infants or to amputate both legs on all children, and it's hardly going to be approved for scientific trials either since it would be deeply unethical (and barbaric).
However, if we had I'm sure that we'd see the incidence of breast cancer drastically reduced and osteosarcomas of the legs would probably fare similarly for the latter group. Do you actually question that a removed body part won't be vulnerable to disease in the way that one that's still attached to a living body is?
I realize that you support circumcision of male infants and that the tradition also as I perceive it, carries a significant amount of cultural and/or emotional value to you. I would assume this makes it more easy to accept the practice, you sound like you were socially conditioned to do so. Please correct me if I've misinterpreted this.
My question can still be asked on an ethical basis. What other healthy body parts would be acceptable to remove on an infant shortly after birth for possible future health/medical gains for that individual?

So are you claiming that antisemitism has not played any part of the cultural influences in your country or any European countries including male circumcision. This is based on what your personal opinion or actual peer-reviewed scientific research?. There is a perception by the minority groups in these countries that these decisions about male circumcision are being made at least in part by antisemitism and anti-Muslim groups. There are several articles on this subject, but most are in the form of opinion pieces from Jewish people living in these countries. The article below is one I found that at least went through a peer-review process for publication and was found on Pubmed.

http://www.ima.org.il/FilesUpload/IMAJ/0/39/19771.pdf

There is no other part of the human anatomy that has been shown that can be removed that will decrease penile cancer, cervical cancer, STI, female infection, and UTIs with no statistically significant loss of function and has shown in some studies to actually enhance performance once the penile foreskin was removed.

There should be absolutely no reason for the CDC not to provide unbiased information on male circumcision to HCPs, if Europe's equivalent to the CDC doesn't want to do that is a fine.

guest64485 · Dec 8, 2014

At the risk of spawning more replies that have nothing to do with what I'm writing, I think its humorous that you, wtbcrna, quoted me a meta-analysis which states "However, these results should be evaluated in light of the low quality of the existing evidence and the significant h eterogeneity across the various studies. Well-designed and prospective studies are required for a further understanding of this topic."

Anyway, while I've been a supporter of the CDC, the older I get the more I see that getting the interpretation of experts around the globe is far more important than relying only on your local experts. The path of American medicine has not always been right, especially in the area of ethics. So I just wanted to post to support macawake, that its very important to look at the world interpretation of studies before coming to your own conclusions.

allnurses Guide · Dec 8, 2014

At the risk of spawning more replies that have nothing to do with what I'm writing, I think its humorous that you, wtbcrna, quoted me a meta-analysis which states "However, these results should be evaluated in light of the low quality of the existing evidence and the significant h eterogeneity across the various studies. Well-designed and prospective studies are required for a further understanding of this topic."
Anyway, while I've been a supporter of the CDC, the older I get the more I see that getting the interpretation of experts around the globe is far more important than relying only on your local experts. The path of American medicine has not always been right, especially in the area of ethics. So I just wanted to post to support macawake, that its very important to look at the world interpretation of studies before coming to your own conclusions.

At least I provide peer-reviewed scientific evidence, and I provide the links to the sources. I don't try to hide the good or the bad in any of these sources.

There will probably never be a true large scale experimental study where we line up a bunch of males into two groups where one gets circumcised and the others do not get circumcised in the U.S., and then follow the subjects for several years along with their sexual partners. That would be a considered the highest quality study to compare the differences. Anything less than that is considered by some authors to be low quality studies.

Do you have any peer-reviewed scientific literature to support why the CDC is providing biased information or why it shouldn't provide information on male circumcision or do you want to debate about my knowledge on how to evaluate research articles?

mycurlygirls · Dec 8, 2014

I am so glad that more and more health care professionals are speaking out against routine infant circumcision!

In my 14 years in the NICU, I have come to view the practice as unnecessary at best, harmul at worst.

So very glad most of our parents decide to leave their boys be!

klone, MSN, RN · Dec 9, 2014

We definitely run in different circles. Most females I know feel the opposite, that uncirced is a better sexual experience. I've been with both. Never noticed a smell difference either, as someone mentioned. That's more of a man hygiene thing regardless of circ status.

At risk of TMI - my husband is intact (and is in fact the first intact man I have been with). I have found no difference in smell/odor between circed and intact. I completely agree that it has everything to do with personal hygiene, not status of foreskin.

I have also found that my best sexual experiences have been with my husband, but I suspect that is more a function of our relationship, rather than presence of a foreskin. But, who knows? Maybe his foreskin gives him sexual superpowers. :)

Red Kryptonite · Dec 9, 2014

Not super powers, but more tissue in the right spot to stimulate the privy parts.