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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NOCIRC Seems to be Unaware of Anesthesia
- From Edgar J Schoen MD
By Edgar J. Schoen, MD - Clinical Professor of Pediatrics
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Inaccurate
If anesthesia is the standard of care, why are there not civil penalties for the many, many circumcisions still performed without it?
There is ample evidence that circumcision has a lasting effect:
http://knol.google.com/k/george-hill/circumcision-and-human-behavior/2y9nanfagw8nr/13 #
But as the paper describes, some circumcised men react by trying to spread circumcision far and wide.
- GenitalIntegrityPolicy August 7, 2008 4:27PM
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Side: No
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Schoen is oblivious of the facts
While the AAP says infants should recieve pain relief, half of babied do not during their circumcision. And, most only receive EMLA topical creme, which is ineffective as numerous studies have show. The most effecitve is the ring block, but only a small fraction of boys get this, and even then it does not eliminate pain. In addition, most boys are not given post-operative pain relief.
Pain from the procedure can and does effect boys later in life. There are many studies which show this.
The pain and trauma of circumcision far outweighs any scant benefit it provides. We don't circumcise our girls (or pets), let's not do it to boys, either.
- Dan Bollinger August 9, 2008 5:37AM
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Side: No
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Anesthesia is used to dull the pain of the circumcisers
Schoen's objection is nonsense. It is not NoCirc that is unaware of anesthesia, it is the US medical profession that decided against anesthesia at the outset of the medicalization of circumcision, since anesthesia would interfere with the genital pain of the babies and children, which pain was an intended part of the "treatment". The circumciser quacks of the nineteenth century were, according to them, inflicting as much pain as possible and surgically removing as much sexual pleasure as possible. This medical policy against pain relief was not reversed until 1999, with the AAP's declaration that if circumcising is chosen, pain relief is "essential". How many babies did Dr. Schoen circumcise without using anesthesia during his long career as an active circumciser? So now suddenly Schoen has discovered anesthesia? The only way to prevent all the many pains of circumcision is to not circumcise. It costs nothing to do nothing, and doing nothing, in this case, is by far the wisest course.
- Van Lewis
August 18, 2008 2:04PM
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Side: No
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EMLA health warning
Health Canada has just issued a warning against the local anaesthetic cream (EMLA) that Prof. Schoen recommends, especially in the case of children:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/medeff/advisories-avis/public/_2009/emla_ametop_pc-cp-eng.php
and the manufacturers once warned against using it on babies, but stopped doing so for no apparent reason.
Anaesthetic only works for a few hours, but the pain of circumcision, when urine enters the wound, lasts for weeks.
"there is no evidence that European men, who are uncircumcised, have fewer emotional difficulties than do the 120 million American males who are."
- except that there are tens of thousands of US men who are so enraged by having been circumcised that they are going to considerable trouble to reverse it, and branches of NORM, the National Organization of Restoring Men, all across the US. There are none in Europe (except NORM-UK), for an obvious reason.
- Hugh7
March 18, 2009 7:54PM
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Side: No
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