US Doctors Back Circumcision 1264
ananyo writes "On 27 August, a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics concludes for the first time that, overall, boys will be healthier if circumcised. The report says that although the choice is ultimately up to parents, medical insurance should pay for the procedure. The recommendation, coming from such an influential body, could boost U.S. circumcision rates, which, at 55%, are already higher than much of the developed world. The researchers estimate that each circumcision that is not performed costs the U.S. health-care system $313."
I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
We were made this way for very good reasons, even if we don't understand them.
Imagine if somebody proposed the same thing for female infants. What would be the reaction?
Leave all minors alone. Let them decide when they turn 18.
$313? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that over the price of doing the surgery?
Because from what I could find, it's in the 2-3k range; so if you have to pay $2000 to save $313, that might not be the best idea.
$313 is worth it (Score:5, Insightful)
$313 is a small price to pay to not have one's privates butchered.
Jesus. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just practice good hygiene. How about we don't mutilate anyone's private parts against their will?
The problem i see here... (Score:5, Insightful)
...is that they harp on the issues of UTIs and STDs/STIs. Those are things that are easily avoidable, and not at all the fault of having a foreskin. If baby gets a UTI, mommy and daddy need to do a better job cleaning baby up and cleaning baby sooner. If, as a man, the person has issues with STDs/STIs, well gee stop being a moron having unprotected/risky sex Einstein.
Trying to lump the added medical costs is the same. The costs brought on are not due to the foreskin, they are due to the creators of the baby, and/or the owner of the penis.
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
We were made this way for very good reasons, even if we don't understand them.
Imagine if somebody proposed the same thing for female infants. What would be the reaction?
Leave all minors alone. Let them decide when they turn 18.
Paid for by the "Protect the Appendix" campaign.
Also; evolution doesn't make anything; it just ends up in some not-too-harmful-before-reproductive-age way after lots of mutations.
Not advocating circumcission, just saying that medical decission should be based on reality, not assumption or belief.
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't agree more. Never understood why parents feel the need to disfigure their children with no input from the child is beyond me. This should be something that an adult decides for his own reasons, not something to be decided for him.
Why do they do this in the US? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't circumcision (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, they're citing the African trials again as evidence for this, which... Why would they do that? Those trials took place in some of the poorest parts of Africa, they say nothing about efficacy of circumcision in places were soap is abundant. If there's so much debate around this issue, why don't they just do some trials here in the US?
I call bullshit... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want some of the truth about what a circumcision actually does I suggest reading the following:
http://www.norm.org/ [norm.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreskin_restoration [wikipedia.org]
Cue the creationists (Score:1, Insightful)
Shouldn't the creationists be against altering something that was clearly part of God's Great Design(TM)?
Oh right, most of them actually *support* circumcision. Bunch of hypocrites.
Re:I call bullshit... (Score:1, Insightful)
But, you admit that it was because of malpractice rather than the inherent nature of the procedure that is responsible for your condition.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Pediatrics - Only concerned with the health of kids, not adults.
You may be physically healthier, on average, without your foreskin. Only if you're not taught about how to properly take care of it. (So the data, framed in this way, will say that circumcised boys are healthier because improperly cared for un-circumcised boys)
The real problem is a social phobia about teaching little boys how they are supposed to wash and care for their penis. Instead, we just cut off the foreskin so we don't have to deal with it. Touching your "penis" is bad, after all.
Later in life it leads to abnormal masturbation, reduced sexual pleasure, and reduced pleasure of your female partner. - This study conveniently ignores these issues because they're not about children.
Re:Lies (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh, look, another person rationalizing a completely unnecessary and potentially dangerous medical fad started by crackpots obsessed with masturbation by cherry-picking a comment that is a bit loony.
Re:I call bullshit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod this gentleman UP please people.
I too have damaged genetalia due to a circumcision that I didn't want, had no say in and didn't need, fortunately the damage isn't too severe in my case. (turkey neck)
Please take a look at this, it's not for the squeemish, nor is it work safe.
http://www.circumstitions.com/Complic.html [circumstitions.com]
That is a rare occurance just like myself and wbr1, however NONE of them needed to fucking well occur in the first place.
Oh and can I just say, politically correct or not - women do not have any say in this topic of discussion, NONE, NADA, their opinion is utterly worthless on this topic - be it for or against. I've seen too many articles on this topic with facebook or twitter posts by women who think they have a right to comment on it.
The one I saw yesterday which got me fired up by a woman "your son, your decision" ugh.
This practice should be banned.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is also very light on numbers. It mentions a reduction in STIs and whatnot, but provides absolutely no quantitative data. How much are these infections and disorders decreased by? Are we talking a couple percentage points? Or dozens of percentage points? Furthermore, I don't see any definitive causes described. What I see is a correlation with some hypothesizing as to the cause but nothing which has actually been verified by scientific inquiry.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Which studies? Proponents of circumcision continuously invent a new reason circumcision is useful whenever the previous one is debunked. First it was to fight masturbation, then it was because it prevented penile cancer, then it was to prevent genital cancer among women, then it was because men would be too stupid to clean themselves if they were uncut, then it was to protect against AIDS. What will be the next reason, who knows but I'm sure they will invent one then say "prove me wrong".
Re:I call BS (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you were circumcised as an adult, how could you tell the difference?
why not give the kid a choice? (Score:5, Insightful)
I decided STDs weren't likely to be a significant threat to my infant son. If he wants to have part of himself chopped off when he turns sixteen, I'll give him all the info and support his choice. I think I can predict how it'll turn out, but I'm not kidding--I'll drive him to the hospital myself.
(And before anyone starts, the entire rest of the pro-circumcision argument revolves around an additional 9-per-thousand UTI infection rate. Yawn.)
Re:Lies (Score:4, Insightful)
The real problem is a social phobia about teaching little boys how they are supposed to wash and care for their penis. Instead, we just cut off the foreskin so we don't have to deal with it. Touching your "penis" is bad, after all.
Later in life it leads to abnormal masturbation, reduced sexual pleasure, and reduced pleasure of your female partner. - This study conveniently ignores these issues because they're not about children.
From TFA:
Perhaps the most powerful evidence in favour of circumcision comes from randomized controlled trials in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda. These found that, for men who have sex with women, circumcision reduced the risk of infection with HIV. (No protection was observed for men who have sex with men.) The South African and Ugandan trials also found that circumcision reduced infection rates for human papillomavirus (HPV) and herpes. The World Health Organization has already made circumcision part of its HIV-prevention strategy in sub-Saharan Africa, with a goal to circumcise 20 million men by 2015.
The AAP found that, in addition to preventing sexually transmitted infections, circumcision could reduce the rates of urinary tract infections and penile cancer, probably because the foreskin harbours infectious microbes as well as the immune cells targeted by HIV.... The task force also found no strong evidence that circumcised babies grew up with more urinary difficulties or sexual problems.
So... yeah. Reduced infection rates in children and adults, and no strong evidence of sexual problems at all. It doesn't matter if you could stop infection through education on how to properly clean the penis. Hell, HIV could be stopped dead in a few generations if people stopped having sex with multiple partners and/or used condoms. But guess what? The world doesn't work like that, and a measure that can help prevent disease with very few side effects can and should be used to help stop disease. Hence, the recommendation.
In a nutshell. (Score:5, Insightful)
US healthcare will pay for religious mutilation, but not for planned parenthood.
I think we've identified the core of what is wrong here.
Re:Lies (Score:1, Insightful)
Hi, I've read the data and reports. The majority of which is based on the US and Africa data.
Circumcision is better long term for a person. Less risk of VD, other diseases, as well as fungus. it's not even close. It's very clear. I would call the contrast 'stark'.
Re:US women prefer circumcised penises (Score:5, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_effects_of_circumcision [wikipedia.org]
Read down to the female preference and response section. 79% to 89% prefer circumcised based on the research quoted.
So yes, they actually do.
in Georgia and Iowa (US)...not exactly a widespread study
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Mutilation of children's bodies is generally considered to be harmful, yes.
When you're talking about physically cutting into a baby's body, the burden of proof lies with those who would cut, not those who would not. Quoting from an above post:
The British Medical Association said it had no policy on the issue because of the “absence of unambiguously clear and consistent medical data on the implications of the intervention."
As far as I'm concerned if the evidence is so ambiguous after all this time then there's no necessity for the operation. Look at it this way if it prevents the spread of HIV then why is the infection level in the UK a third of that in the US in percentage terms yet circumcision in the UK is very tiny
In the UK, there is no financial incentive for doctors to mutilate children. I tend to trust their version of affairs, rather than those with a financial incentive (the doctor is paid for his time, and the hospital sells the tissue).
Simon
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
The actual AAP report also doesn't focus as much on the African trails as the Nature article suggests, what they're really saying is that the cost of getting the circumcision and treating the nominal complications that arise from it is small enough that we should make sure that the option is available (i.e.: not prohibited) even if the benefits are dubious. They also mention some speculative reasons why removing the foreskin may help with infection - the inner surface is thin and susceptible to micro tears, etc. I still think they should do some real trails here before they make recommendations for here, but this is certainly a more reasonable position.
I personally don't think circumcision is something that should be done to a child who can't fight back, especially since most of the problems that it supposedly helps with don't come up until you're sexually active anyway, but I do recognize that using a condom is much easier for a circumcised person than it is for someone with a foreskin.
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Vaccines have been proven to prevent illness where no other easily available remedy or prevention exists.
With an intact foreskin, a condom, abstinence, or simple cleanliness will prevent illness depending on the type of contagion, all of which are easily available.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because there isn't a proven causal relationship, doesn't mean that there isn't one.
More to the point... has circumcision ever been shown to be linked to something harmful?
Yes.
Circumcision is an unnecessary and mainly cosmetic surgery picked by parents because of tradition and/or religion. Recent attempts to find medical justification for its existence are both new and almost laughable. It's a penile "nose job" for a baby so the baby isn't potentially made fun of for being "different" later on.
Unfortunately, circumcision is a surgical procedure. And no matter how "routine" and "minor" a surgical procedure is, it's only "routine" and "minor" until something inevitably goes wrong [go.com]. Rare, but horrible when it happens.
Promoting circumcisions to prevent STD transmission is the worst sort of self-serving justification. Why not promote mastectomies at puberty for girls to avoid the 1 in 7 chance of getting breast cancer during their lifetime? Or appendectomies for everyone? If your STD prevention strategy consists of promoting circumcision, instead of promoting safe sex education and prophylactic barrier distribution, your priorities are wildly skewed.
You really want your baby circumcised? Wait until he's 18, and give him the choice.
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
So I take it you're going to have a proactive surgery to remove your prostate? After all, prostate cancer is one of the biggest killers of men in North America, and nobody really needs it... it just gives your sperm an advantage (just like your foreskin).
While you're at it, why not permanently remove all hair from your body, as a way to reduce the formation of cysts? You could also remove all your teeth, as we don't need to masticate our food these days, we've got machines that can do that for us. Removal of teeth will reduce gum disease, thereby possibly reducing arterial and coronary illnesses.
Sure, there's reason to remove parts of the body, but the appendix has a useful purpose, as does the gall bladder, the prostate, the teeth and the foreskin. Pre-emptively removing something from someone else that can't be put back seems a bit extreme when lifestyle choices (yes, even the ones you make for your children) have a much larger effect on health.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, one problem with the major African studies was the variation in follow-up support given. Another problem is the difficultly of doing randomized trials (anyone who can be convinced to have his penis surgically modified can probably also be convinced to follow your safe-sex directions.) Thirdly, double-blind trials concerning STDs are a little difficult to do when circumcision is visible to all.
The US studies have similar problems: when a circumcision has an average cost of around $350, the parents opting for the child's surgery tend to be richer and more able/willing to spend on health care for the child. You would expect circumcision to be correlated with benefits to every treatable medical condition.
Re:Lies (Score:3, Insightful)
"Doctors pay dues to the AAP"
A) It's not even most doctors. You don't need to be a member to be a pediatrician. So your premise is based on ignorance.
B) Dr.s don't make a lot of money from it.
C) So what? that in know way means the procedure is unnecessary.
What are you going to trot out next? the more babies die from it lie? It caused issues in adult life lie?
You're post is yet another system of critical thinking and science dying in America.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-case-for-neonatal-circumcision/#more-3310 [sciencebasedmedicine.org]
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-kindest-cut/#more-431 [sciencebasedmedicine.org]
Re:$313 is worth it (Score:1, Insightful)
You know, your view is pretty ignorant and offensive to people who are circumcised. We're not butchered. The only people I've met who are against circumcision are people who are uncircumcised. That I'm circumcised was something I never, ever thought about until the past few years of running into idiots who tell me being circumcised means I'm deformed and this sort of terrible thing should be made illegal. It amazes me how stupid people are when it comes to things they have no experience with.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>my circumcised penis has been greeted with relief by a partner who found the natural look repulsive.
Interesting. If my "partner" said that my natural penis was repulsive, I would tell her that I'll circumcize my dick if she trims those ugly lips off her pussy (female circumcision). Fucking bitch. If the penis didn't need a foreskin, evolution would not have put it there.
For that matter why does God make his followers cut it off? Did God make a mistake when he put the foreskin on the male? Hmmm. But he's supposed to be flawless.
Re:The appendix is not useless (Score:5, Insightful)
The science is out on that. There is research, and I look forward to the results. But it is a hypothesis at this point, nothing more.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
THE STUPID. IT HURTS!
You mean the same “studies” that called the spleen or even the tonsils “useless” for decades, just because they didn't know the use? Until they realized that the spleen is the standing army (!) of the immune system. (And the tonsils are your front entry guards.)
The place where white blood cells reside, that learned to defend your body against past threats.
Yeeeah, totally useless. Let's remove it. We're totally not arrogant dicks with a god complex for acting like that...
Hell, how stupid do you have to be, to not see that obviously, there’s a reason we have the foreskin, since otherwise those without it would have long won natural selection.
All the arguments here are complete bullshit.
The "disease hazard" one: How the hell is it expecting to much, to pull back your foreskin and wash your dick once, every 1-2 days?? How is that a disease hazard and a justification in the first place?? And how, going by that logic, don't they also recommend removing your asshole, bowels, mouth and nose? Those are even more prone to be full of bad germs.
The uselessness one: I guess you never had one, and weren’t even given a choice to experience it. Because otherwise you'd know, that at least 1. it keep the glans lightly humid... which is its natural healthy state, and 2. protects it.
It's the same thing as a vagina, which also has a special humid fauna/climate as the normal state. Hell, it even is the same damn fucking tissue! What's so hard about this??
What kind of fucked up mind do you have to have, to go: "Well, considering it's a integral part of your body, evolved over millions of years, it clearly must be completely useless."?
So shut the fuck up with your blatant thought-terminating chlichees, if you can't even bring up actual arguments! Only idiots life FOX news pound on "facts" and "fair and balanced". Because he has no fucking idea of the difference between a observation, a hypothesis, a theory, and communication of bullshit.
I wish your whole damn backwards wasteland would just go ahead, and cut the Internet, so you can live your dream of The Dark Ages 2.0!
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as a circumcised male, I have never felt a loss for a bit of useless skin.
Meh. I know a girl missing her 4th toe on one foot that says the same thing. The fact that you don't miss it doesn't mean we should go around cutting them off.
Most of the women I've talked to about it say they find foreskins to be "ooky" anyways, particularly the ones that enjoy fellatio.
And that constitutes a reason to remove it on all infants across the board? That some girls who sucked a bunch of dicks, who probably got used to circumcised dicks then later found an uncircumcised one's foreskin a bit "ooky". It boggles the mind. You know, some of them find the loose skin around your testicles a bit ooky too...
If you want a circumcision go for it. As far as I'm concerned its in the same arena as nipple piercing and what not. Your body, your choice.
But to make it a mandated medical procedure based on this is insanity.
The rationale they are using for this procedure is roughly on par with extracting your teeth because brushing them and flossing them and caring for them is a lot of work. They get infected a need all kinds of expensive attention if you don't keep them clean... and sometimes even if you do they still break sometimes or come out crooked. What an expensive mess... for something we don't need. All our nutrition requirements can be met by food in pill and shake form anyways.
And besides some guys who got used to having their dicks sucked and gummed on by toothless whores find chicks with teeth... ooky.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there some evidence that Muslim and Christian men are less promiscuous? I would be very surprised to learn if that were true.
Re:The appendix is not useless (Score:5, Insightful)
Tonsils are not necessary part of the body either. Neither is the gall bladder. Hell, you can go on quite fine with one lung and no stomach either.
That do NOT mean you remove things.
Hell, you can cut transmission of STDs by just cutting everyone's dicks off. They are 100% not necessary for anything. We can bypass natural insemination with a syringe and tube, you know, like cattle and other farm animals. Would you pay the price??
The recommendations are retarded. 1 in 1,000,000 vs. 3 in 1,000,000 chance of cancer. They are saying uncircumcised result in $300+ extra costs per person, that means each penile cancer costs $150,000,000 dollars in costs. I'm sorry, but someone can't count. Or maybe they hope no one else does either.
Re:Circumcision or healthy lifestyle, which's bett (Score:2, Insightful)
It holds water from a policy setting standpoint. While sensible individuals would not benefit from the procedure, you do not set policy around sensible individuals, as they don't generally drag the rest of us down. I assume this organization is expecting their findings will be copied by the 3rd world, and are thus setting policies at the lowest level.
So far the only argument against the practice that doesn't sound like magical thinking is that perhaps the consequences were underplayed in the study. I'd like to have heard more about that, and less about the bizarre mysticism that Europeans apparently subscribe to around the sanctity of the human body. I was hoping doctors would stick to the facts.
As a parent... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a parent. Holding my newborn daughter in the hospital room, singing to her some of the songs we had played for her when she was in my wife's belly, trying unsuccessfully to choke back the tears of joy and amazement as I gazed into her eyes -- it was without a doubt the most amazing experience of my life. The idea of subjecting that beautiful, fragile, and innocent baby to the kind of trauma and pain that circumcision entails is something I could never dream of doing. Honestly, I'd rather walk into traffic or jump off a building.
And that's not even touching the logical arguments against circumcision, which are pretty much airtight.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact good sex ed works: Europe has lower HIV infection rates than the US.
This whole thing is basically "genital mutilation of children is fine because we can cut on education". Amusing fact: female circumcision will similarly risk rates. Will you support it?
The benefits are tiny (and only for adults), and the risks significant (for the kids). Also, what about the right of children to bodily integrity? If an adult wants to be circumcised, this is fine, of course, but this decision, so soon on the back of the German court decision? That reeks of religious lobbying.
Re:Lies (Score:2, Insightful)
Females have the exact-same problems with their pussy as males. In fact I'd say it's worse. If she doesn't properly clean it, she might get urinary tract infection. Which can be a precursor to cervical cancer.
Oh and let's not forget breasts. 5% of women will develop breast cancer..... that's a much higher rate than the 0.01% of men that develop penal cancer.
So let's cure that problem that same way we lop off penis tips. That's right. Lop off the breast buds for female infants, so they never need fear getting breast cancer. Oh. I see a look of horror on your face. You should have that same look at the thought of mutilating little boys (as they scream in pain & blood spills on the hospital sheets).
Re:Jesus. (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet it's most common in the United States, where circumcision is most prevalent.
It just absolutely baffles me that "hygiene durp durp" is our justification, here. You can cause a number of significant and even life threatening problems with poor oral hygiene, too, but I don't see anyone suggesting we take a jigsaw to the jaws of infants rather than teaching them proper oral hygiene as they grow up.
Don't get me wrong, I don't see how there's really any detriment to a grown man who was circumcised when he was like a month old or whatever, but I also would kind of demand a significant amount of legitimate reason behind taking a scalpel to a baby. Especially when so many reasonable solutions are out there. Like telling little Johnny when you teach him how to take a shower "now use some soap and a rag on your balls".
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is probably the reason why these posts all have zero replies:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3078759&cid=41159295 [slashdot.org]
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3078759&cid=41158715 [slashdot.org]
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3078759&cid=41158447 [slashdot.org]
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3078759&cid=41159125 [slashdot.org]
This whole thing is transparent as fuck if you ask me. Doctors get money, religious peeps feel better about forcing this on babies instead of making it a voluntary thing. And of course, the people who have no way to get their foreskin back either way rationalize it.
So, yeah. Whatever makes you feel better *tips hat* haha.
WITHOUT A TURTLENECK (Score:4, Insightful)
You get dick blisters.
Re:$313 is worth it (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel butchered. My parents have apologized for it.
Re:$313 is worth it (Score:5, Insightful)
The only people I've met who are against circumcision are people who are uncircumcised.
Hi, nice to meet you! Now you can't say that any more.
We're not butchered.
Technically it's 'surgically altered', but 'butchered' evokes my feelings pretty well.
That I'm circumcised was something I never, ever thought about until...
That's great! It doesn't seem to have bothered you.
But that doesn't change my feelings, nor does it change the ethics of the issue: My body, my choice. Right?
Re:Lies (Score:4, Insightful)
how many infants agreed to be circumsised?
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Jesus. (Score:4, Insightful)
You liken the foreskin to a hairlip and cancer?
You people are insane.
What did you expect from Americans? Rational discourse? :) )
(He he, I like to mock my fellow Americans.
But seriously, many Americans think that the foreskin is a birth defect. Not like one, but really is one. So no, they aren't insane, they just think that perfectly normal human males are circus freaks that needs to be 'fixed' by modern medicine. Nothing crazy about that.
Re:Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>How dare you call their health choice "mutilation"?
If I remove my breasts myself, it's an elective choice and perfectly legal. If it's done by somebody who holds me down and carves up my breasts with a knife, the law calls it "mutilation" because it was an involuntary act.
We should not be cutting off little boy's penis tips or little girl's breast buds, and I don't care if doing so would prevent penile cancer or breast cancer. The decision should wait until they are old enough to make the decision as legal adults.
Re:Lies (Score:3, Insightful)
They're sexually mutilating children. Children are incapable of giving consent.
I find it so ironic that when Arabs do it to little girls, they're evil monsters, but when Jews do it to little boys, it's considered perfectly acceptable.
Sick, sick people.
Re:Circumcision or healthy lifestyle, which's bett (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to be cynical or anything, but the studies were done by a group with a vested interested in promoting this lucrative surgical procedure.
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Except circumcision reduces pleasure during sex. It's a stupid religious practice, that people justify as meaning to reduce infection, but it's actually targeted at reducing pleasure and masturbation (I've heard it fails drastically at that). I live in Argentina. Do you know what babies get circumcisions here? None. Well, just the jews, and not all of them, only the actually religious.
It's an awful and stupid religious practice, and should be BANNED. Parents that do it should be punished with actual jail time. Let the kid decide if he wants to mutilate himself when he turns 18. Same should go for religion (no sex before 18? Fine. No voting? Fine. No religious teaching until 18 years old. Also, punishable with mandatory jail time).
In case it wasn't clear enough, KEEP YOUR FUCKING RELIGION AWAY FROM MY PENIS.
Re:Lies (Score:4, Insightful)
Infants become adults later in life. Adults who may have opted not to have an irreversible procedure to remove part of their genetals if it were up to them. What kind of parents would opt for something like that? Bad ones. That a board of pediatricians would recommend circumcision over a supposed savings of $300 or so in health costs is outrageous! Especially as the procedure has horrible side-effects [wikipedia.org]. It just goes to show how little we value individual sovereignty these days. Apparently it's worth less than $300.
Re:Lies (Score:2, Insightful)
Does that make it right? No!
And for the record, your ignorance shows...no FGM practices mutilate the vagina, rather they amputate the labia and the clitoris or the clitoral hood.
"Wash your hands" is so obsolete! (Score:5, Insightful)
Some naysayers mention that the kids on the other side of the fence did get some disease one day, even though they are nail nail-circumcised. That's because their parents let them play everywhere. They should practice playground-abstinence like my kids, and put on their preservahand gloves when they go to school.
Re:Circumcision or healthy lifestyle, which's bett (Score:5, Insightful)
a) The chances of your circumcision being botched leaving serious, permanent dysfunction are higher than the reduction in AIDS risk.
b) Your risk of AIDS is highly lifestyle dependent. The western world isn't Uganda, most people simply aren't at risk. Why can't people who chose risky lifestyles also choose to be circumcised, as adults? Why do we presume all babies are guilty...?
c) All the medical studies in favor of circumcision are written by people who make money from it. The only study you need is the observation that Europe isn't some aids infested den of rotting, cancerous dicks.
d) Masturbation with/without foreskin? Foreskin is best, no contest. Modern circumcision was actually started by the anti-masturbation movements in the 1900s to remove the pleasure from wanking (headed by Doctor Kellogg no less - the guy who invented cornflakes). Think about that before chopping.
Re:Circumcision (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously they aren't spending enough on education because you seem unable to read breakdowns.
2011:
DoD budget: 740 billion
DoHS budget: 48 billion
The remainder of defense spending is on veteran affairs (141 billion). I think we can treat that as justified, even if you would have chosen there not to be veterans.
Total tax receipts: 2300 billion
Of which is for social security: 820 billion
Total spendable tax reciepts: 1480 billion
Total spending: 3600 billion
Of which is for social security: 725 billion
Total spend: 2875 billion.
Total deficit :1395 billion
So we can clearly see that the defense budge comes nowhere near to filling the deficit. We could get rid of it all, sell all of the equipment to the saudis and next year, there would still be a budget deficit of 610 billion dollars. That's two thirds of all income tax raised.
To cover that we could of course put the federal income tax up on the average income from 23% to 40% (while ignoring the laffer curve). Yeah I'm sure everyone would love that. Use your head. Yes the defense budget is bloated and out of control, but damn it, so is everything else!
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
UK born and bred, no religion apart from the FSM.
Cut at 19, a few years after I started my sex life, solely for the reason of my foreskin being too tight [for my enormous...]. Simple operation. In and out in an hour. I walked to a friend's house in the evening. 32 stitches. Back to work a week later, and it could have been earlier but hey, I was being paid whether I went in or not. No wanking for three weeks. Can you imagine that at 19?!?
Before and after? Obviously better after because that's why I had the operation, but in truth, no real difference. No problems with soreness, dryness, or sensitivety; maybe a little bit more sensitive, and that's a good thing.
The wife, although I didn't meet her until a couple of years later, prefers the look. She says it looks like a mini erect penis.
Friends? It's amazing how many blokes in the UK have had it done when someone admits to it. 50% in my circle of friends, all done because of tightness. Half of those performed in adulthood.
The worst part? In hospital I had a group of students watching the examination. Standing there with my trollies round my ankles being told to pull the foreskin back infront of everyone was not pleasant. The surgeon pointing at my foreskin with his pen, telling all the crowd he'd cut just below the tight point was not something I'd want to repeat ever. I still imagine the students writting reports on the operation and that report still sitting on a hard drive somewhere.
NB: Post not checked for spelling or puns.
Re:Circumcision or healthy lifestyle, which's bett (Score:4, Insightful)
a) The chances of your circumcision being botched leaving serious, permanent dysfunction are higher than the reduction in AIDS risk.
b) Your risk of AIDS is highly lifestyle dependent. The western world isn't Uganda, most people simply aren't at risk. Why can't people who chose risky lifestyles also choose to be circumcised, as adults? Why do we presume all babies are guilty...?
c) All the medical studies in favor of circumcision are written by people who make money from it. The only study you need is the observation that Europe isn't some aids infested den of rotting, cancerous dicks.
d) Masturbation with/without foreskin? Foreskin is best, no contest. Modern circumcision was actually started by the anti-masturbation movements in the 1900s to remove the pleasure from wanking (headed by Doctor Kellogg no less - the guy who invented cornflakes). Think about that before chopping.
Thank you! The existence of Europe (and possibly South America and Asia--not sure what their policies are) alone trivializes TFA. But a country full of fat people arguing for mandatory circumcision to save a few bucks on health care (while ensuring an extra $500 or so in medical costs for 1/2 of all births) is like pushing your car to work to save on gas. If you want to save money on healthcare, put a $5 flat tax on all fast food items like many states have done with cigarettes. This circumcision nonsense is the male mirror of the HPV vaccine/cervical cancer debate from a few years ago. Shockingly, the manufacturer of the vaccine thought it was absolutely crucial to vaccinate all girls... because it (might) lower their chances of getting cervical cancer... and save money or whatever... think of the children!
Re:Circumcision (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], 30-50% sounds around right for a first-world country. Advanced civilization is expensive to maintain, and trying to cut corners - for example by cutting social security - tends to increase costs elsewhere more (you need more internal security to keep the people who have nothing to lose but their chains from revolting). The laternative is to descend to third world status, which is unlikely to result in people having more disposable income.
Perhaps you should think of the society in terms of a corporation: a company which pays most of its profits to its shareholders rather than investing them will be utterly crushed by its competitors and deliver far less value in the long run.
Re:Circumcision (Score:3, Insightful)
I would like to believe the government has an obligation to take care of me and support me in a style compatible with my personality. I would like to believe that there are a few fat cats out there that are ruining it for the rest of us and if it wasn't for them, the government would be able to take care of all of us. All it would take is taxing the heck out of these fat cats.
Looking back, though, it seems the government has had more than a few problems with mismanagement on a huge scale. They can't seem to get anything done without spending 10 times more than it was planned to cost. Government at all levels tend to increase in scope and expenditures until some kind of a external limit is reached.
It should be pretty obvious that the more money that is given to the US government, such as a 50% tax rate, the more money will be wasted, misspent and mismanaged. While some folks might not mind working half a year, every year, to support my granny it starts to grate on people when they understand that like a badly-run charity only a small fraction ends up in the hands of grannies. The rest is going to studies that prove cockroaches are really nasty critters or that we would all be in trouble if the oxygen level in the atmosphere dropped to 0%.
The most important thing to understand is that people in the US have a somewhat different culture than the rest of the world. In most of the rest of the world when a 70-year-old man is told he is dying it is a sad message but one that everyone understands is the way things are. In the US the response is to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to put off the date of death as long as possible. The disparity between these two things is why the US health care system is incomprehensible to a lot of people. A good part of the US population will never accept the "you're dying, accept it" message, and the spending caused by this will insure that the US health care system cannot function like the rest of the world. It also means that old people from the rest of the world come here to squeeze out a couple of more years if they can afford it.
The second most important thing to understand is that people in government aren't doing it because they feel an obligation to serve the rest of humanity. They are doing it because it will lead to power and riches for themselves. We can try to curb this, but that is the motivation. Giving these people more power and access to more money doesn't solve any problems for the rest of us on the outside, but it does make it possible for more and more people to get in on the gravy train that is government service. One possible outcome is that we all are working for the government and everyone is happy. That has been tried and it didn't work out very well.