Circumcision

[BeeXxX]

Hi, I posted a few days ago about my little one having club feet.
Well the same little one (9 weeks old) has been circumcised today...I understand some people don't agree with it, but it is personal choice...I'm just wondering if anyone who's little boys have had this done have any advice on handling the discomfort??
My older son had the procedure last year (he was 7 weeks old) and he was alright but my little one seems to be unsettled which is understandable. I used savlon and Vaseline with my older son but just wondering if there is anything else I can do or use. TIA x

When you look up the last thread, take care to read the study that shows the significantly higher incidence of non-contagious genital conditions in the Department of Dermatology, Imperial College School of Medicine, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London, England.

No I don't.

Try posting a link to an actual study rather than one that requires a password, and I'll look at it.

Hmm weird - not sure what happened there! They're free open access links
Reposted with correct links (though many 'actual studies' are restricted to subscribers - it doesn't make them less robust )

Though if its not the Mallon study you're referring to anyway, perhaps you could be a little less oblique?

Hi Cote

Do you mean this study?
archderm.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=190052

It looks at both contagious and non-contagious penile disease.

If so you may be interested in the criticism it generated in terms of poor experimental design and lack of accountability of lifestyle factors
archderm.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=478270&resultClick=1

As we've said before there are benefits to circumcision in regions without access to regular washing facilities/healthcare but that argument is difficult to support in the modern-day UK - what we can say is that those facilities exist but that education/understanding of risks may be a barrier.

Interestingly the Mallon paper does not look at disease epidemiology or compare the number of non-circumcised diseased individuals with non-circumcised non-diseased individuals in the general population and so you cannot make any assertions as to the risks of not being circumcised.

For example: "All patients with Zoon balanitis, bowenoid papulosis, and nonspecific balanoposthitis were uncircumcised" is meaningless unless you know the prevalence of those diseases in the non-circumcised population - they may only occur in non-circumcised men, but if they only occur in (for example) one in a million non-circumcised men, then you'd be circumcising a million babies (who would have to undergo an unnecessary surgical procedure) to protect one of them from future disease. Is it a justifiable cost-benefit?

Assuming that circumcision is the best way of reducing risks is a flawed argument - it's the same 'precautionary mutilation' argument that is still used to try and justify tail docking in dogs - yet for spaniels for example, you'd have to dock over 300 tails as puppies to prevent one adult tail amputation due to injury.

Additionally the study does not account for significant risk factors such as number of sexual partners (which you may assume to be lower in religious communities where marriage is encouraged and circumcision is also practiced) so its impossible to separate the confounding factor of the number of sexual partners a person may have from the perceived 'benefits' of circumcision.

The study does also not look at educational attainment, hygiene practices or barrier contraception use, so you cannot assume that the non-circumcised men presenting with disease in this study were engaged in these protective practices despite living in modern Britain. If they weren't then that may account for the differences between the two populations.

Overall its not a particularly strong paper - you could just as easily conclude that religious belief confers protection by limiting the number of sexual encounters a person may have (if they had investigated this confounding factor)

Read through this thread from last week.

Check out my posts from Mon 02-Nov-15 09:56:23 and Mon 02-Nov-15 11:26:06 for studies.

Brilliant post sunshine! I was wondering how reliable the studies regarding circumcision and the prevention of HIV infection were.

Of course the studies I posted are reliable. Have you even looked at one?

I thought I wouldn't waste any more time on this, but here it goes:

[[http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(14)00036-6/fulltext Comprehensive Risk-Benefit Analysis of Infant Male Circumcision
May 2014]]

Scroll down to Table 4, where you will see an extensive list of myriad contagious diseases and how much circumcision decreases men's risk of contracting them.

Note that the figures are fold increase (as in 3-fold, 10-fold etc) and not %.

Studies from which those numbers come are cited to the right of each figure.

Risk of heterosexual HIV infection is 2.4-fold higher for the uncircumcised.
Risk of UTI for babies is 10-fold higher in the uncircumcised.
Risk of sphylis is almost 2-fold higher in the uncircumcised.
etc...

And then take a look at this study about non-contagious skin conditions that circumcision largely prevents:

Table 2:

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
etc.

It is from the Department of Dermatology, Imperial College School of Medicine, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London, England. So much for "Oh but we live in the UK with access to soap and water, so circumcision can't have any benefits here".

Wow CoteDAzure I'm impressed with this study,this is the kind of information I would have liked to produce yesturday had I the brain capacity and been able to use the correct terminology.

Except the studies Cote is citing (one of which is the one above that's already been criticised) do not adjust for number of sexual partners, education level, hygiene practices or a million and one other confounding factors why circumcised males (who are more likely to be religious and less likely to have had numerous sexual partners) may have lower levels of disease.

Unless you do all of that you are assuming that the two populations are the same in all aspects except circumcision. They won't be and do all the review is demonstrating is correlation not causation.

These are different things

It worries me that you're posting this directly below my post which links to the criticism of one of these studies and outlines it's flaws.

But if you consider that 'impressive' science then I'm not sure how to make the flaws any more obvious!

And why type London, England? Everyone knows where London is.

Just saying

I copied the full address, that's why.

If that it all you have found to complain about, I will consider this matter settled and you educated about the benefits of circumcision

Sunshine - If you are not satisfied with the standards of ALL the scientific studies I have posted, maybe you should contact Mayo Clinic which has published that article I linked to. Let us know how it goes

In much of your verbose posts, you answer the Straw Man (which nobody has argued) that the benefits of circumcision do not justify systematic circumcision of all infant boys. You might be right about that but we are not talking about what public policy should be on this matter. What we are talking about is whether there are benefits to circumcision. And the answer to that is 'Yes', as anyone can see from the bulk of all available research.

Circumcision has benefits in Sub-Saharan Africa and it has benefits in London (UK ). Whether those benefits are important enough to have this procedure done to one's child is a matter of consideration for each family.

And where's your evidence sunshine that circumcised men are less likely to have had numerous sexual partners due to their religion? What about the promiscuous ones? Or the ones with 7 wives? Or someone that's been divorced/widowed/remarried several times?
No really please don't find any evidence - i'm just playing, I'm sure you'll be able to dig some up from somewhere though clever you.