As a DailyKos newbie, you're probably not yet familiar with all the conventions around here. This guide can help you find your way as you stroll around the grounds and begin to participate. Some users only comment, while others choose to create a diary of their own, which is roughly analagous to a big conference room in which you decide what's on the overhead projector, and anybody can stop by and write comments on the whiteboard.
I want to share with you something important to be understood about writing diaries at DailyKos.
I want to know if you think this guy is serious, or if this is some kind of joke.
Prince George Citizen of British Columbia, Canada, published an opinion piece today by Neil Godbout, who is their news editor, entitled "Mothers can improve themselves by following these tips."
The opinion is so shocking to me that I keep checking the calendar to see if it had suddenly become April 1st.
Let's see what, if it is to be believed, this man is recommending...
This intriguing comment came from a most un-expected source:
I remain convinced that infant circumcision should be left to the parents (I do not believe what is done to girls is "circumcision."). But, I'm wondering whether that should only be the case when the parents affirmatively state it is required by their belief systems, religious or cultural. It appears to me it is not medically necessary to perform the procedure before the age of consent, and that only an affirmative statement of belief should be enough for a doctor or anyone else to do it.
I want to reach out to this person and all others who view ritual circumcision as important to their culture.
I ran across a fine article today written by Rio Cruz that I want to share with you.
It appears be 9 years old, but sadly it's every bit as applicable today:
If you take the time to look carefully at Auvert(1)/Bailey(2)/Gray(3), the three "Randomized Controlled Trials" looking at HIV/Circumcision, and the conclusions stated therein, it's easy to see it's a total load of steaming nonsense.
Let me emphasize that you, working in an office or a construction site or a restaurant or a taxi, you can easily see how totally unsupported the grand claims are. You just need to put on your thinking cap, and take a close look.
Why am I taking the time to walk through a process which demonstrates that the conclusions drawn from the African trials are unfounded? I'm doing it mainly because some community members have asked that I address the issue.
If you're an American, circumcision almost certainly affects or has affected you or someone close to you. Yet despite its pervasive impact, discussing it can seem uncomfortable in polite conversation. Maybe that's because it invokes the male sex organ, or thoughts of painful events. But one thing is for certain: The silence is breaking, and the floodgates are open. Aided by unprecedented freedom to publish, those hurt by circumcision, those denied their own choice by it, and others who know its harm are increasingly sharing their thoughts with the public.
An unanswerable argument against infant circumcision is made each time a male eventually comes forward to say "I wish I still had mine" or "I don't really regret that I was circumcised, but the decision should have been mine to make when I could." As a male, I think the choice should have been mine. That's why I vigorously support every person's right to keep the entire body they were born with.
Diarist's view already accounted for, the rest of the diary will be what other people have chosen to say publicly about it.
Recent media reports misrepresent the Health Department’s response to recent studies...
Circumcision enthusiasts had been gratified by the reported plan to encourage circumcision in New York City, despite lack of evidence in its favor:
We do not yet know what impact circumcision could have on HIV transmission in New York City, and we have not suggested or planned any initiative or campaign. Quite to the contrary, I indicated in an interview with the New York Times (the source of the misrepresentation) that I very much doubted that even 1% of men at high risk in NYC would undergo the procedure.
A diary riddled with inaccuracies was written today (including a false title), and referenced my user page in the first sentence, as if to rebut my diary series:
That's the message that some are desperately trying to get across. New York City disagrees.
The diary was very misleading, but I haven't the time to craft a full response right now. So instead I'll quote excerpts from some of the many excellent responses to a recent blog posted Friday 4/6/2007 by Julie Deardorff at the Chicago Tribune's Julie's Health Club, in which she asks for thoughts on circumcision in the wake of recent news out of New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene that they might promote circumcision in the city.
Every "journalist" in the United States covering health and medicine should be fired. Each and every one is utterly incompetent. Bringing you the latest medical studies in an accessible format so you can make intelligent decisions is apparently beyond the scope of what these people do for a living. They are a disgrace. It has been two weeks, and not a single one has published an article on this study. But one media's failure is another's opportunity.
In this diary, you'll get what the Mainstream Media think you don't need or want: A summary of the latest medical study addressing the impact of circumcision surgery on males.
Should you go beyond this diary article, study abstract, and press release to read the study in its entirety? Of course you should. If you'll soon be asked to sign one of those consent forms, doubly so. Because while failing to disclose this crucial information may invalidate proxy-consent, no lawsuit settlement or judgment will ever return what a circumcision removes. Now, on to the study.
Many of you undoubtedly pay less close attention than I do to news about the ongoing practice of circumcision. There have been several major news items since my previous diary on the subject.
Read on for article links, quotes, and brief commentary on five recent news items.
You may recall that anti-gaming legislation was slipped into the Port Security bill by the previous Congress, after failing to get it snuck into the Defense bill. Democratic representative Shelley Berkley had a few choice words about it:
"This section was added to the bill in an attempt to fire up the far-right anti-gaming elements of the Republican party in time for this year's election [2006]," she said on the House floor.
But even before the provisions required by this law became effective, further steps were taken to deny Americans the freedom to engage in internet-gaming.
It's one thing to analyze circumcision purely from the perspective of medicine and medical ethics. The same principles of medicine and medical ethics applied to other surgeries are applied to circumcision. From this perspective, the foreskin is given no special status, and it's removal is recognized as a 'non-conservative' treatment.
But there's another aspect to circumcision: Judaism and Islam treat this body part as very special and unique (their traditions require its sacrifice). Similarly (though perhaps without a 'scriptural' component), many cultures practice ritual circumcision (e.g. in Africa).
The United States is often described as a "melting pot" because a wide array of peoples and cultures comprise our population. But just as there are risks in eroding the "wall of separation" between religion and state, so too there are risks in not maintaining a strict wall of separation between religion and medicine.
The second wave of media bombardment is upon you, dutifully reporting the full release of results that were already massively hyped to you months ago, but now with more emphasis: There can be no question, you are told, that adult males massively reduce their chances of contracting HIV from heterosexual intercourse by undergoing a circumcision.
With hundreds of news outlets repeating this story (compared to zero reporting that adult circumcision reduces sexual satisfaction), the echo chamber creates what you are to believe is unquestionable certainty.
What is an intact adult male to think of all this, especially if applying the scientific method is not his profession? Should he be swayed that choosing to become circumcised will reduce his chance of contracting HIV?
American health care professionals genitally mutilated over a millions boys in 2006.
Two of the techniques used by American supporters of circumcision are Medicalization and Sequestration.
Medicalization seeks to confine the discussion to clinical measures of disease and complication rates.
Sequestration seeks to portray male circumcision as qualitatively distinct from all forms of Female Genital Mutilation.
Inherent in both the Medicalization and Sequestration tactics is the idea that the issue of male circumcision has no ethical component, apart from clinical measures of disease and complication rates.
Placing itself squarely in the sights of this cultural blind-spot is this article from the Journal of Medical Ethics, an international peer review journal for health professionals and researchers in medical ethics:
"Rationalising circumcision: from tradition to fashion, from public health to individual freedom—critical notes on cultural persistence of the practice of genital mutilation"
What follows are highlights from and commentary on the article by S K Hellsten.
Recognized by most medical professionals, and by all national medical organizations as not medically indicated in healthy male infants, circumcision remains a religious, cultural, and medicalized practice. Only in the United States are more than half of males circumcised as infants without religious or medical indication.
Today it is reported that tragically, a young boy has died, apparently resulting from his (religious) circumcision.
Unlike most circumcisions performed in the United States, religious circumcision relies on divine mandate for its justification. Like other religious mandates or practices which members of different religions or no religion may find strange or even unethical, religious circumcision is something its practitioners need to reconcile with modern notions of ethics and what has been learned from modern medicine since removing the male prepuce began over 4000 years ago (depicted below).
Asking a question can convey a lot of meaning, especially when it comes from your health care professional.
The purpose of this diary is to share experiences about American health care and giving birth to a son: Specifically, was circumcision offered to you even if you didn't raise the question?
In America, some elements of the medical profession encourage parents to submit their sons for circumcision. If you can spare a few moments, allow me to raise a few issues which I believe may lead you to respond "No, we'll take him home in his original, natural form."
This diary will gently raise a few issues for consideration by parents who will be making this decision for their son.
