Parents face so many difficult decisions when it comes to having a child: decisions about nursing, sleep patterns, discipline, teaching methods and, in the case of boys, whether or not to circumcise. In addition to being the most common surgery for males in the U.S., circumcision has been practiced in various cultures for centuries. Yet when it comes to the health and best interest of your newborn, is circumcision the way to go?
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Explanation:
Circumcision interferes with natural defenses. See:
(1). Berman B, Chen V, France D, et al., "Anatomical mapping of epidermal Langerhans cell densities in adults," Brit J Derm, 1983, 109: 553-558.
(2). deWitt L, Nabatov A, Pion M, et al., "Langerin is a natural barrier to HIV-1 transmission by Langerhans cells, Nat Med, 2007; 13:367-371.
(3). Fleiss P, "Immunological functions of the foreskin," Sex Trans Inf, 74, 364-367, 1998.
(4). Lee-Huang S, Huang PI, Sun Y, et al., "Lysozyme and Rnases as anti-HIV components in beta-core preparations of human gonadotropin," Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA), vol 96, no 6, pp. 2678-268. 16 March 1999.
(5). Modwig R, Valderrama E, "Immunohistochemical analysis of nerve distribution patterns within preputal tissues," J Urol, 1989. 141, Suppl 1: 489A (Abstract).
- DevilDocRetired
August 17, 2008 5:38AM
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Dr. Harpo you need introspection. You are open to criticism from Dr. Robert Lifton's "The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide." Lifton states:
"If you are curing a sickness 'anything' is possible. The image of a cure lends itself to the restorative myth of state violence and to the literal enactment of that myth. The key to understanding how Nazi doctors came to do the work of Auschwitz is the psychological principle I call 'Doubling': the division of the self into two functioning wholes, so that a part-self acts as the entire self. An Auschwitz doctor could, through doubling, not only kill and to contribute to killing but organize silently, on behalf of that evil project, an entire self-structure (or self-process) encompassing virtually all aspects of his behavior."
To continue the quote:
- DevilDocRetired August 20, 2008 1:59PM
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Dr. Harpo, Lifton continues with:
"In doubling, one part of the self 'disavows' another part. What is repudiated is not reality itself - the individual Nazi doctor was aware of what he was doing via the Auschwitz self - but the meaning of that reality. The Nazi doctor knew that he selected but did not interpret selections as murder. One level of disavowal, then, was the Auschwitz self's altering the meaning of murder, and on another, the repudiation by the original seld of 'anything' done by the Auschwitz self. Indeed, disavowal was the life blood of the Auschwitz self... Doubling can include elements characteristic of 'psychopathic' character impairment."
- DevilDocRetired August 20, 2008 2:12PM
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Dr. Harpo, Lifton also states:
"Doubling may well be an important psychological mechanism for individuals living within any criminal substructure... The SS doctor - deeply involved in the stark contradictions of the 'schizophrenic condition'... lay in the idea of doing constructive medical work within a slaughterhouse."
- DevilDocRetired August 20, 2008 2:17PM
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Dr. Harpo, again you use the Groucho Marx Syndrome and attribute NOCIRC's positions as 'myth.' By pointing fingers at someone else, your other 3 fingers are pointed at yourself. Circumcision has never been a substantiated medical procedure, but rather, as always, a ritual. Joseph Campbell in "The Power of Myth" simply stated:
"A ritual is an enactment of a myth. By participating in a ritual, you are participating in a myth."
And Richard Noll author of "The Aryan Christ" stated in an interview:
"Myth, then, becomes more important than fact."
- DevilDocRetired August 20, 2008 2:47PM
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Prevention of Kidney Infections
- From Edgar J Schoen MD
By Edgar J. Schoen, MD - Clinical Professor of Pediatrics
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Dr. Schoen is stuck in 1989
Dr. Schoen was on the AAP Task Force on Circumcision from 1987-1989 (look at his bio).
He is firmly stuck in that time era, despite his successors changing the stance he helped promote.
"The 1999 AAP Task Force on Circumcision abandoned the previous stance of the 1989 Task Force on Circumcision that circumcision may provide protection against UTI. The 1999 Task Force found that the bulk of the UTI studies were so methodologically flawed—by failing to control for confounding factors such as breastfeeding—that no meaningful conclusions could be drawn from them." http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/UTI /
Dr. Schoen is a broken record totally out of step the medical consensus. I doubt any data could change his bias against normal male genitals.
- GenitalIntegrityPolicy August 7, 2008 8:57PM
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Side: No
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This is outmoded
The studies that claim to show that circumcision prevent UTI are hopelessly flawed and prove nothing. None control for the very important confounding factor of breastfeeding. No medical society, therefore, recommends circumcision to prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs). The American Academy of Pediatrics does recommend breastfeeding of infants to reduce all kinds of infections, including UTI. Breastfeeding provides long-lasting protection against UTI, even after the infant has been weaned.
Breastfeeding works for both boys and girls. The risks of circumcision have been shown to exceed the risks of UTI, so circumcision is contra-indicated.
http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics ;115/2/496
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/UTI/hanson1 /
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/UTI/chessare /
- George
August 9, 2008 4:52PM
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Side: No
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