Posted on 04/04/2007 11:49:14 PM PDT by neverdem
New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is planning a campaign to encourage men at high risk of AIDS to get circumcised in light of the World Health Organization’s endorsement of the procedure as an effective way to prevent the disease.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is just beginning to convene meetings and design studies to help it formulate a national policy, New York City is moving ahead on its own.
In the United States, “New York City remains the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner, said in an interview. Referring to H.I.V., he said, “In some subpopulations, you have 10 to 20 percent prevalence rates, just as they do in parts of Africa.”
His department has started asking some community groups and gay rights organizations to discuss circumcision with their members, and has asked the Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs city hospitals and clinics, to perform the procedure at no charge for men without health insurance.
A spokeswoman for the corporation said it was “having conversations” with the health department but had not reached a decision.
“As you know, the research on this is pretty recent,” the spokeswoman, Ana Marengo, said.
In three recent clinical trials in Africa, circumcision was shown to lower a man’s risk of contracting the virus from heterosexual sex by about 60 percent. On March 28, the World Health Organization officially recommended that countries adopt the procedure as part of their AIDS prevention plans.
No spontaneous outcry for circumcision has arisen in New York, Dr. Frieden conceded.
“This is not something that has a lot of buzz,” he said.
But he added that even 1,000 circumcisions in the right subgroups might slow the spread of AIDS.
For example, in Manhattan...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
C.P. and B., just pinging you because you were referenced.
According to a study recently published in the British Journal of Urology the foreskin is the most sensitive part of a male's penis. Cutting off the most sensitive part of a male's penis is harmful, especially in light of the fact that HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases can be prevented with abstinence, monogamy with a faithful partner, and consistent use of condoms.
It also cuts your chance of getting a carcinoma of the penis down to essentially zip, amongst other things.
Cancer of the vulva is more common than cancer of the penis. If someone proposed cutting off a girl's labia to prevent cancer of the vulva, most people would be outraged. In my opinion there is no ethical difference between using cancer of the vulva as a justification for cutting the genitals of girls and using cancer of the penis as a justification of cutting the genitals of boys.
The foreskin is not a birth defect.
All boys are born with a foreskin unless he has a congenital abnormality. The foreskin is a normal part of the male anatomy.
How is this article advocating “forcing it on them” and to disagree with your view almost definitely is not depraved, misguided though it may be.
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Perhaps you are right insofar as this particular article is concerned but the general practice is to circumcise infants which is most certainly forcing it on them and that is depravity in my book and always will be. I was replying to a comment, not the article.
I have a friend who was circumcised. He couldn't walk for a year after.
all of this with essentially zero side effects.
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This is where you err and there is probably no way to convince you that you are in error. As far as the health benefits go they are controversial to say the least. You might never advocate mandatory circumcision but for millions of male infants it is mandatory as it is done in the first few days of life when they have no defense and this is why I so strenously object to the practice. And for the record I don’t for one second believe that God ever commanded anybody to be circumcised.
Then you need to read your Bible more.
Gen 17: 9-14 Then God said to Abraham, "As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."
“”Lower a man’s risk” is as opposingly vague in degree, as the irreversibility of genital mutilation.”
Oh, brother. Another one of the “CIRCUMCISION IS GENITAL MUTILATION” screamers.
Yawn.
That means a tonsillectomy is “throat mutilation”, plastic surgery is “facial mutilation” etc.
Sheesh.
Circumcision is not a religious requirement for Christian males. The Book of Acts chapter 15 in the New Testament is very clear on that point of Christian doctrine.
Christian parents in the United States who circumcise their sons for so called religious reasons are replacing almost 2,000 years of established Christian doctrine with their own modern ideas.
bfl
There’s lots of info about this particular procedure in the Bible, both old and new testament. If you want to talk about God’s opinion you might have to ignore your own.
I am very familiar with the scripture and I said I don’t believe it. If someone today claimed that God commanded such a barbaric practice nobody would believe it. I grew up in a Christian church, not Jewish and circumcision was not considered a requirement at any time, there is no need to remind me of scripture which I have already said that I reject. Circumcision of infants in Christian families is a practice resulting from lack of courage in challenging those who claim that there is some medical reason for it. There is not.
Those Muslims who insist on female circumcision insist that it is also commanded by God but the same people who quote Abraham to me reject the practice of female circumcision, somehow what is considered barbaric when practiced on females is considered to be doing the child a favor when practiced on males. Yes, I know the two are not precisely the same but both are genital mutilation.
Read no. 52 please.
G-D commanded Abraham to circumcise as a sign of the covenant, not in order to "correct" any divine "mistakes."
AP’s version ...
http://enews.earthlink.net/article/hea?guid=20070405/46147440_3ca6_1552620070405-600818415
Thanks for the link.
Removing a fingertip decreases the risk of acquiring an ingrown fingernail. Removing toes eliminates the risk of athletes foot or ingrown toenails. The medical benefits of cutting off fingers, toes, or foreskins do not significantly outweigh the risks and harms.
Thomas Wiswell claimed that circumcision reduced the risk of urinary tract infection by a factor of 12. No other researcher has been able to reproduce his results. Good science is reproducible, bad science is not reproducible. Wiswell's claim regarding UTI and circumcision is bad science.
ensure that you will never have penile cancer
Cutting off a girl's labia would ensure that she will never have labial cancer.
or eliminate balamitis and phimosis
There are effective non-invasive methods of treatment for balanitis and phimosis. The British Medical Association says, "to circumcise for therapeutic reasons where medical research has shown other techniques to be at least as effective and less invasive would be unethical and inappropriate."
all of this with essentially zero side effects.
The foreskin is the most sensitive part of a male's penis according to a study recently published in the British Journal of Urology.
The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis.
How much can a person cut a girl's genitals before it should be called genital mutilation? Does genital scarification of a girl qualify as mutilation? Genital scarification is a form of genital cutting that is less damaging than male circumcision.
Parents in Africa who cut their daughter's genitals are also offended by the term "mutilation". For that reason I prefer to use the term genital cutting instead of genital mutilation.
That means a tonsillectomy is "throat mutilation"
Should parents be allowed to remove their child's tonsils for cultural or religious reasons like they are able to remove their son's foreskin for cultural or religious reasons?
In your opinion is there any other normal, healthy part of a child's body, besides a boy's foreskin, that is ethical for a medical doctor to cut off for cultural or religious reasons?
When your penis falls off to penis cancer, don’t come crying to me. That’s all I can say.
:P
No smoking, either. That just makes it worse.
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