Just another reason not to be cutting parts off baby boys' penises.

The record payout for a botched circumcision is $22.8 million. It was said at the time that the victim "will never be able to function sexually as a normal male and will require extensive reconstructive surgery and psychological counseling as well as lifelong urological care and treatment by infectious disease specialists."
Sure, cases like that (and deaths) are very rare, but why should they happen at all? If you look up the galleries of botched jobs, one thing that may surprise you is just how many jobs were botched cosmetically, rather than medically. Skin tags and skin bridges and hair growing half way up the shaft are not normal, but would not be counted as medical complications.

Mr. Mittleman, you are a man of evidence, consider this evidence:

Polio is a highly infectious disease, far more infectious than HIV. The polio vaccine is only 70% effective yet wiped the disease from the population in a single generation. The HIV studies claim a 61% protective factor from male circumcision but The US has the highest HIV infection rate of any industrialized nation. If circumcision had anywhere near the protective effect claimed, HIV would be virtually unknown wiht 80% to 85% of American males "vaccinated" by circumcision. The vectors of transmission would be sufficiently broken that the virus could not survive. In fact, the ethnic group with the highest circumcision rate in The US, African Americans, also has the highest HIV infection rate by multiple times.

The same is true of HPV. The estimated infection rate among adults is 70%. This is not mathematically possible if circumcision had any protective effect at all.

The same is true of genital herpes.

I suggest you study immunology before you take this into court. These studies are a campaign to promote male circumcision in The US in the face of a rapidly falling neonatal circumcision rate. The leader of this campaign is Robert Bailey, a professor of immunology at The University of Chicago. Bailey is fully aware of this clear conflict but Bailey has been on a campaign for more than 25 years promoting universal male circumcision in America. His studies are fraudulent and his promotion of these studies are resulting in deaths and mutilations in Africa. Bailey should be arrested and charged with complicity in the death of others and the harm of others and if found guilty, (almost a certainty with the evidence) sentenced to a prison term comminserate with the harm he has caused.

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1) Babies aren't going to be getting any STI's before they're old enough to decide for themselves whether or not they want part of their genitals cutting off. It's their body; it should be their decision.

2) These latest studies are from Africa. A 29 year study of males in New Zealand showed a slightly *higher* rate of STI's among circumcised men:
More ... (07)00707-X/abstract

3) If we found out that cutting off part of a girl's genitals reduced her risk of contracting an STI, would that make it acceptable?
This study shows exactly that: More ...

If female circumcision had caught on in the USA (it was promoted in medical papers till at least 1959, and practised till the early 70's), and western researchers were now looking for benefits of female circumcision as enthusiastically as they are looking for benefits of male circumcision, we'd now be getting news articles about how female circumcision help prevent STI's. It wouldn't mean that there aren't better ways to prevent STI's, and it wouldn't make it right.

Mark, if circumcision has any protective factor against HIV, HPV or any other infectious disease, we would observe stark differences in the infection rate in cultures that circumcise and those that don't. Those differences are not observed anywhere in the world. In Uganda where Bailey "conducted" his first study, virtually all of the men were circumcised during the teenaged years yet the country had a 29% infection rate. With a 61% protective factor, this infection rate is just not possible. Maybe a 2% or 3% rate at most but not 29%!

Female circumcision is only practiced in areas that also practice male circumcision and in those areas that do practice FGM, the women support it by a factor of up to 90%. This is at odds to the perception in the industrialized nations. Genital mutilation of either sex is a practice that is self perpetuating and the strongest advocates of the practice in either sex are it's victims. It seems obvious that the individual's perception of self worth is involved and the psychological need to have the best genitals for reproduction and a competition for that superiority. The idea that one has damaged genitals and is thus second rate is something they just can not tolerate. Thus, they advocate that others must be damaged so that they have no advantage in the reproductive sweepstakes.

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See our original story on the National News Desk at:

More ...

And for an added medical perspective the NYT has the details.

Even after adjusting for various sexual practices, the differences were reported to be dramatic. And researchers say there is no reason that these findings should pertain only to Africa.


More ...

Jane Akre: Reposting the same information does not change what I have written above. Did you read it?

The protective factor claimed for HIV and HPV and the infection rates found in the United States simply can not co-exist. How can you explain this contradiction? Unless someone can explain this contradiction, we can only assume the studies are fraudulent and were simply made up in an effort to promote circumcision.

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