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Should all boys be circumcised?
Submitted by anthony on Fri, 2009-05-22 20:38
Article here. I don't know about you guys, but I found the picture a bit disturbing. Excerpt:
'Circumcision is the world's most common surgical procedure. But it is also among the most sensitive – politically, culturally and ethically. Even within the scientific community it is difficult to have a reasoned debate about the pros and cons, examining the evidence, without people taking sides. For several decades, the medical community has kept quiet about circumcision, mindful of the sensitivities around it. Doctors are broadly agreed that the operation is "not medically necessary" – except in a tiny minority of cases, for example where the foreskin will not retract. They say it is for parents and the public to decide about the ethics of circumcision for religious or other non-medical reasons.
...
Now new evidence has emerged for the protective effect of circumcision against infection with Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), the chief cause of cervical cancer in women, which is reduced by 35 per cent, and against Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV), the cause of herpes, which is reduced by 25 per cent. Circumcision probably also protects against syphilis, but the findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in March, were based on too small a sample to be conclusive.'
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Comments
If we can show through a few studies that removal of one's...
... eyelids reduces the chance of eye infection, should we?
Again, this all comes down to money. A baby's foreskin is worth 1,000s of dollars to a hospital. Here's a test for new parents: tell the doctor you want to circumcise your new baby but you want to keep the foreskin. See what he or she says in response. Then ask them if they know that the foreskins are sold by the hospital to skin care product companies. Watch the face drop as they realize the gig is up. Then finally ask them if they are aware of the many sources of information that confirm this thriving trade in baby's foreskins? Watch that dr. head for the door like the Devil were after them.
"A baby's foreskin is worth
"A baby's foreskin is worth 1,000s of dollars to a hospital." "...foreskins are sold by the hospital to skin care product companies."
These are interesting comments. I googled the subject and saw that it is mentioned in many blogs, but I could not find a reliable source. Anyone know of a specific company that buys foreskin?
I have worked in hospitals and specifically with tissue preservation and I have not seen any foreskins.
I am against circumcision, and I don't doubt foreskins contain valuable cells, I would just like more information before I repeat those comments, as I have not seen any reliable evidence of this.
Which brings up another issue, when I start my job as an RN at my hospital (I currently work as an intern). I am hoping to work in ER or Labor and Delivery. But what if I work in Pediatrics, and am called to be a nurse during circumcision? I guess I will have to say no.
News even to health care workers
This is a very well-guarded secret in hospitals. In fact you'll have trouble finding the exact entry for it on bills of sale or other kinds of manifests detailing 'human waste tissue' or similar such items. Not just in health care but in many areas of business, items deemed 'controversial' by management often get "off-listed" on things like bills of sale. Obvious examples of course are things like radioactive waste being discreetly shipped through some town or village in trucks or as is more common, by rail car, and the waste is labeled "Waste-Industrial-Special Handling Protocol Number <whatever>". That's code for "This stuff is HOT!"
Back to the question you ask-- to start with, look at this thread here on MANN:
http://news.mensactivism.org/node/8422
More:
http://zoeblunt.gnn.tv/headlines/13051/Foreskin_Face_Cream
http://www.humpjones.com/rear/entry/facial_cream_and_the_foreskin_mafia/
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/146761/human_foreskins_are_big_business_for.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreskin#Foreskin-based_medical_and_consumer_products
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2008/11/18/2008-11-18_vavelta_may_be_the_new_wave_in_antiaging.html
And on and on it goes.
Kris
Kris, did you just search the U.S.(for sale of foreskins)? I read somewhere that it is a relatively common practice in India, not that there's a lot you can do about that.
Hopefully you won't jeopardize your early career.
-ax
i am surprised
or maybe not so much
that nurses just entering the field are not being informed
as to their rights and responsibilities when it comes to
refusal to assist in a procedure that is morally objectionable.
NOWHERE in my reading did anyone mention male circumcisions as potentially being one.
probably a bad result of the complete female saturation of a profession.
Bush evidently tried to put some protections into place before leaving office.
the Brit's have some sort of "conscience law" as well, or did.
i KNOW i would cause problems if a partial birth abomination was attempted in my presence.
everyone seems to believe (probably based on his past "voting" record i would imagine)
the baby killing "one" will strangle all attempts to allow nurses to have a conscience.
picture me surprised!
The usual mischief
"Three landmark randomised controlled trials conducted in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda between 2005 and 2007 demonstrated that adult male circumcision reduced the risk of contracting HIV by 50 to 60 per cent."
Actually, two of these studies were stopped early, and the supposed protective effects of circumcision were exaggerated by the six-week period following the procedure during which the circumcised cohort were advised to wear condoms. The one study which adhered to the research protocols for it's 18 month duration (Kenya) showed no significant difference in HIV-rates among the circumcised and non-circumcised co-horts. Because all participants in these studies were offered circumcision at the study's conclusion, no follow-up research/confirmation is possible. These studies have been slammed by virtually all objective researchers who have critically evaluated the research methodology.
"Herpes is seldom fatal, but it causes significant illness and costs millions of pounds to treat."
Female genital thrush is also seldom fatal, but affects most women multiple times throughout their lives, causes significant distress and costs health services world-wide a significant amount to treat. Anyone up for universal labiaectomies? (By contract, thrush in intact [uncircumcised] men is rare and almost always an early symptom of Type-2 diabetes - the high sugar concentration in the urine feeds the yeast infection. This, combined with easier access to public health services among the poor, may explain in part why men in western-Europe and industrialised Asia are diagnosed at an earlier stage of the disease than U.S. and Australian men).
"The earliest Egyptian mummies (1300 BC) were circumcised."
When all else fails, circumcision advocates invariably fall back to mentioning the antiquity of circumcision as a status or tribal marking, as though that somehow justifies the practice. Astrology has been around for a while to, but does that add to it's credibility?
Minuteman
'...ready to deploy at a moments notice...'
Foreskins-thanks for the links
Thanks for the links. The valuable cells some companies are after are fibroblasts. Fibroblasts are present in all tissue. Only Fibroblasts of babies are valuable because stem cells can be derived from them. I have heard that aborted fetuses are used for stem cells/fibroblasts as well (don't know if there is any truth to companies buying aborted fetuses, but it would be a much better source than foreskins).
This all sounds sick, but I just don't believe selling foreskins is a big business.
To comment on nursing:
Nursing is a female dominated field. All nurses I have worked with have been highly consciences people, and would not assist in anything they found morally objectionable. We are in high demand and can stand up for ourselves. We do not need contracts or government to tell us what is right or wrong. I don't know how most feel about circumcision, but I know historically circumcision has been done at the hands of male doctors or male religious figures (mohels ?) performing the operation.
To name a few procedures that I will not assist in: abortion, circumcision, birth control, fertility treatments, and extreme cosmetic surgery. I also have mixed feeling about immunizations (not sure where I stand on the issue, but I would hate to inject 100's of babies only to find out years later that immunizations cause autism or retardation)