WTF? "Half of all uncircumcised males will, over the course of their lifetime, develop some kind of medical issue related to their foreskin."

[missingwelliesinsd]

Question as a Brit in the USA. I just read this news article on the never-ending debate (in the USA at least) of whether it's better to circumcise male babies. Some paper just issued by the Mayo Clinic concluded that the benefits out weigh the risks 100-1 and it would be unethical to not circumcise a male baby just it it would be if you don't get immunizations for your child. WTF?

I know that circumcising can help reduce STD transmissions - but hey, just use a condom! What I can't believe is that "50% of non-circumcised males have medical issues with their foreskins." That would make 50% of most of the male population of Europe having foreskin issues at some point. Can this be right? I tend to think it's just American prejudice against foreskins after decades of snipping. I'm TTC and if I do and we have a boy, no way am I snipping the poor thing.

Here's the article:
jezebel.com/circumcision-rates-decline-in-the-u-s-1557539810

do you now believe that circumcised people have far lower rates of infection and genital skin diseases, not only in Africa but in London, UK?
The usual error of confusing parallel effects. You cannot assume one causes the other.

For example, if circumcision is done for religious reasons it's likely that religious people sleep around less and so are less at risk of disease.

babybarrister
"If you are suggesting Professor Bunker is bent then I am sure he would be delighted to hear that..."

I am not sure who you are aiming that at but all research has a bias.

cote
Those figures may be accurate but they cannot be taken to imply that circumcision reduces HIV infection, because they ignore all social and behavioural factors between circ and non-circ men and their partners.

"if circumcision is done for religious reasons it's likely that religious people sleep around less and so are less at risk of disease."

Of course. However, there are skin diseases on that table like psoriasis which are not contagious and hence cannot be caught from sexual partners.

Men with Psoriasis.........72% are uncircumcised
Lichen Sclerosus...........98% are uncircumcised
Lichen Planus...............69% are uncircumcised
Seborrheic dermatitis....72% are uncircumcised
Zoon balanitis..............100% are uncircumcised

... to name a few.

I realise that this is hard to reconcile with your preconceived ideas that circumcision could not and should not have any benefits but I don't know what to say. Except, "This is real, maybe it's time to accept that there are some real benefits".

This doesn't mean that everyone should be circumcised, so you can hold on to that belief But you will need to let go of the erroneous belief that circumcision does not decrease risk of infections and diseases.

Sally - I give you the 1st paragraph of the study I posted:

Context: It is well recognised that the presence of a foreskin predisposes to penile carcinoma and sexually transmitted infections. We have investigated the relationship between the presence or absence of the foreskin and penile dermatoses.

I'm not sure why you think you know better than the medical establishment, but you seem to think that all these studies that have been done involving thousands of people around the world were just all badly done and don't mean anything. Here, what they are saying is that the fact that circumcision decreases risk of penile cancer and STIs is so well documented and widely accepted that they didn't even need to do another study on those. Instead, they focused on skin diseases of the penis.

And there again, we see that these diseases are significantly less prevalent in circumcised men.

I'm afraid that the numbers (and reality) just does not support your preconceived ideas.

It still doesn't alter the fact that the small percentages of these ailments doesn't validate the removal of the foreskin of a child.

FFS are you blind?! yeh way to raise the level of debate cote

As I said many times before on this thread, that is a decision for parents to make for their children. We have decided like you and not circumcised DS. Others may have made different choices.

The point here, which I sincerely hope everyone got by now, is that circumcision has some very real, tangible, well-known, and recognised benefits. Therefore it is wrong to say "for no reason", "no real benefit" etc when talking about people's choice to circumcise their children.

No Cote no one has 'got any point' because a) studies are centralised and b) one C & W study is not representative of a whole demographic. The point of a debate is people exchange and present 'facts' and theories and experiences of their own. You will still have people disagreeing with you at the end of it whether you like it or not.

babybarrister
"So do you accept that save for any 'general research bias' - which must presumably also operate in relation to research showing that circumcision has no impact on any medical conditions affecting the penis - that this research by Professor Bunker needs to be taken seriously?"

I agree that the research should be taken seriously, but it is missing various factors.

Cote
"I'm afraid that the numbers (and reality) just does not support your preconceived ideas."

But this is taking the numbers at face value alone, as Caruthers posted when the percentages of infection in the general population are taken in to account the reality is that the significance reduction of these diseases in those that have been circumcised is very low.

And the numbers don't take in to account the percentage of circumcised men in the general population of the country.

You seem to be saying that it is all subjective and that there is no objective reality that can be determined through scientific studies.

Objective realities exist and can be understood through scientific method. Some have indeed been found on the subject of circumcision and are widely known and accepted in the medical community.

Sticking your head in the sand is not debate.

Refusing to understand a simple table that is written in black and white is not a debate, either.

"That study & table are American and not about UK"
"No. They are from Chelsea & Westminster Hospital in London"

"There are no uncircumcised values in that table"
"Yes there are. Here they are"
"Oh no I can't see them"
"Here, I'll explain again"
"Oh yes now I see, but it wasn't written correctly"

... and then:

"I still haven't seen figures for circumcised and uncircumcised men in e.g. UK with their infection rates"

Feel free to disagree but imho Are you blind? is an entirely appropriate response at the end of the above exchange.

There are other explanations for the extreme difficulty of the above conversation, of course, but they won't be any more flattering than the suggestion that he might have eyesight problems.

Why is the discussion about Men when it's quite clear that most people are objecting to this procedure being carried out on babies?

Cote

As you are not blind I am sure you know the difference between a study that looks at the general population, and a study that looks at infected people.

"Objective realities exist and can be understood through scientific method. Some have indeed been found on the subject of circumcision and are widely known and accepted in the medical community."

And yet much of the medical community is against non medical circumcision.

Leaving aside the sexually transmitted diseases, the only satisfactory prevention for which is the condom, the other diseases are more or less rare and and are generally treatable.

So we return to the situation where you can avoid infection of any part of the body by removing it before infection occurs.

My "preconceived idea" as you put it, is that it is wrong to cut off part of a baby's body to avoid a small chance of a not-very-serious disease occurring later in life when it could treated at that time, and when available treatments will very likely be even better. Or, if the adult man decides to reduce that small risk by having his foreskin removed, he can make that decision for himself.

But regardless of any consideration of disease, it is clear that the great majority of circumcisions are carried out because the parents follow religious or social customs and (in the US at least) are encouraged by doctors for some easy money.

I have already apologised for my stupidity (not blindness) in thinking that a column headed "Uncircumcised Patients" meant "Uncircumcised Patients"

I don't know who said "not about UK" but it wasn't me.

Piglet - What do you mean by "a study that looks at the general population"?

It is a study of genital skin diseases which looks at... people with genital skin diseases. What seems to be the problem?

I get a lot of styes...should I have my eyelids removed?

It was you, Piglet.

PigletJohn Sun 13-Apr-14 17:52:51
thanks, Cote. It's lovely to see a 14-year old survey from America with some UK figures in it but, again, I am puzzled that they show a table of the rates of problems, detailed in various ways, but they take care only to show figures for intact men.

CoteDAzur Sun 13-Apr-14 20:23:34
Piglet - It would be even lovelier if you would actually read it and see that it is a UK study carried out at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital in London, England.

I mean, if you look at a population of say, ten million people, it is useful to know if a million of them per year get, say, penile cancer, or breast cancer, or prostate cancer, then it is much more important than if, say, one of them per year gets it.

If, of the three examples I give, one of them was very rare, and one of them was very common, it would affect how much weight I gave to them.

You have possibly heard of the four-foot shark.

What are the medical benefits of circumcision in children cote?

Piglet - Prevalence of genital diseases in the UK are not unknown. Despite what you call your "stupidity", I'm sure you would be able to find them if you wanted to.