#1 QUESTION: Why would opponents of circumcision lie?
The pro-circumcision people are influenced by:
Religion
Church Lobbies that influence government
Religious people in high medical positions
Tradition
Dubious studies using quack science, conducted in 3rd World Nations by religion biased people
And Money
Circumcision was popularised a long time ago in desrt dwellers who didn’t have much soap and running water……..the world is a more sanitary place for most people since then.
Circumcision is the only topic that muslims, jews, and christian leaders agree on and work together to uphold.
***Please join our page:
Pro-Choice Intactivism - Ban the Infant Abuse of Circumcision Mutilation
http://www.facebook.com/EducationEndingCircumcision
Christians and Muslims join forces to fight circumcision ban
http://endmalecircumcision.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/christians-and-muslims-join-forces-to.html
Circumcision has become its own religion.
There are only 3 studies done concerning Aids and circumcision.
All three are done in Africa by the same people with the same agenda and funding sources and all 3 are fraud.
If your partner has Aids, and you are having unprotected sex, you WILL get Aids. Cutting your skin off and 20,000 nerves will not prevent it at all. That is crazy.
The church lobbies for this misinformation. This is just like the church opposing climate change, environmentalism and evolution. Religious scientists are bought and paid quacks spreading lies.
Why are ALL the studies done in obscure African countries? All shady and under the radar. All cut off from other professionals to observe. All in secret desert locations on converted christians. All on exploited poor people.
They are done on exploited, poor, forced to convert to christianity people in third world countries. What other studies in Africa do Americans base such life choices on? Isn’t odd that ALL are done in Africa? What kind of hospitals were they conducted in? Were they in tents? Were they in churches?
AIDS CIRCUMCISION FALLACY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlsUg0sdAtE
Circumcision AIDS Fraud
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6NAT118qA0
Male Circumcision & HIV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzDlUGRAZnQ
UN HIV Circumcision Study: A Fraud? - The Atheist Experience #603 - Do not miss this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AfPajxmfbE
Circumcision puts African men at risk
http://endmalecircumcision.blogspot.com/2012/05/circumcision-puts-african-men-at-risk.html
MEDICAL FRAUD - THE CIRCUMCISION HOAX - WHO’S PROMOTING IT AND WHY ?
There are plenty of excuses but no valid medical reasons for circumcision
There is no other drive so powerful than the desire to mutilate another’s genitals. It was easier to tear down the Berlin Wall and end communism in Europe than it is to end genital mutilation. Millions of males and females the world over are deprived of the right to normal intact genitals - and the question is why?
One effective tool in the propagation of this dehumanizing practice is the never ending search (a study) for reasons to legitimize and promote it. There has always been some claim of a medical benefit to popularize circumcision. As soon as it became evident that a claim had no validity you could be certain that there would be another reason to replace it. There is no limit to the extent these demagogues will go in order to pursue their goal - the genital mutilation of baby boys (who ultimately become men) in North America and other countries in the world.
The media has been the greatest promoter of male circumcision in North America. They are always ready to publicize the latest research in Africa, India, or some other remote part of the word indicating the possible advantages of circumcision. Why these studies were not done in North America, or why the results could not be confirmed by similar studies in Canada or the USA are never explained. Nor is there ever any explanation as to the relevance of studies done in Africa to justify circumcision in North America. As an example, several studies claim that circumcision prevents the spread of the AIDS virus or STD, yet advocates of circumcision are unable to explain why the USA (where the majority of males are circumcised) has the highest rates of these diseases of any industrialized nation in the world.
The church is spending good money to produce “facts.”
Lots of opposing facts come from Brian J. Morris of (www.circinfo.net)
There is major money pumped into that slick site.
Brian J. Morris (www.circinfo.net) and his Mandatory Circumcision mission
http://www.savingsons.org/2009/11/brian-morris-his-circumfetish-push-to.html
Brian James Morris is a molecular biologist and professor of molecular medical sciences at the University of Sydney, Australia. He is an avid circumcision advocate, who’s never heard an argument for circumcision he didn’t like. He’s the most vocal Australian circumcision promoter, stating that circumcision should be mandatory, and uses regular scare tactics in an attempt to frighten parents into circumcising their children.
Morris is also a member of the Gilgal Society, who publishes circumcision propaganda, fetish stories of young boys being circumcised while others masturbate, and other materials. Gilgal Society has doctors and (circumcision to prevent HIV) researchers among their members. Gilgal is headed by Vernon Quaintance, who was recently arrested for child pornography.
Morris is in regular contact with Jake H. Waskett, who is the number one Wikipedia editor of any articles on circumcision, or are even somewhat related to circumcision.
http://www.circleaks.org/index.php?title=Brian_J._Morris#Female_Circumcision
Crazy Man: Brian J. Morris
Brian Morris’ website links to 8 circumfetish websites (Circlist, Erotic Male Circumcision, Circumcised Kids, Circumcision Fetish, Cutting Club, Gilgal Society, etc), and 7 websites that sell devices to perform circumcisions. He’s a member of the Gilgal Society, a group that publishes circumcision porn, including circumcision fan-fiction stories of children being given wine and asked to masturbate whilst being circumcised.
Brian J. Morris is a very sick man.
REFERENCES:
1. Morris, Brian J. (2007-08-29). “Circumcision Websites & Online Discussion Groups”. circinfo.net. http://tinyurl.com/morrislinks-archive
Retrieved 2011-03-06. Archive: http://tinyurl.com/morrislinks
2. Morris, Brian (2007). Vernon Quaintance. ed. Sex and circumcision: What every woman needs to know.. London, England: Gilgal Society. http://www.circinfo.net/pdfs/GFW-EN%200712-1.pdf
3. Thomas, A. (2005). “Case histories and experiences of circumcision”. In Vernon Quaintance. Circumcision: An Ethomedical Study. Fourth Edition. London, England: The Gilgal Society. pp. 191. EMS-EN 0304-2. http://www.circleaks.org/images/d/d6/Gilgal_porn.pdf
4. Shaw, Tony. “Circumcision, an ethnomedical study: A review by Tony Shaw”. Gilgal Society. Gilgal Society. http://www.gilgalsoc.org/b_reviews/ethnomed.html
Retrieved 2011-02-28.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdGbXdEo93U
This article was originally on the University of Sydney website. Prof. Brian Morris now maintains a site called “Benefits of Circumcision”, www.circinfo.net, that is still hosted by the University.
Morris produces a vast amount of data, much of it from obscure sources. The fact that a claim goes unanswered here does not mean it can not be answered.
[REBUTTAL TO] MEDICAL BENEFITS FROM CIRCUMCISION
http://www.circumstitions.com/Morris.html
Brian Morris & His Circumfetish Push to Cut The World
http://www.drmomma.org/2009/11/brian-morris-his-circumfetish-push-to.html
CIRCUMGATE: UK Circumfetish Czar Finally Caught Red-Handed
http://joseph4gi.blogspot.com/2012/04/circumgate-uk-circumfetish-czar-finally.html
The 3 men in charge of the African HIV circumcision studies:
Robert C. Bailey is Professor of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago. He is not a medical doctor or even a medical epidemiologist, but rather holds degrees in Anthropology and behavioral epidemiology. Bailey is the principal investigator of the randomized controlled trial of male circumcision to reduce HIV incidence in Kisumu, Kenya, and he has served as a consultant to WHO, UNAIDS, UNICEF, the World Bank, USAID, the CDC, and other national and international governmental and non-governmental agencies. In Bailey’s trial, the circumcised group had specific instructions to abstain from sex and use condoms that the intact control group did not. Bailey has admitted that “repeated study visits and intensive behavioral counseling” of the circumcised men were needed to reduce risk behaviors.
Ronald Gray is a North American circumcision proponent and biased researcher looking for justifications to roll-out mass circumcision programs around the world. He headed one of the three RCTs being used by the WHO to endorse circumcision as HIV prevention. At their clinic, a music video promoting circumcision plays continuously. Gray published studies with Brian J. Morris.
Dr. Stephen Moses - Is Jewish.
All three trials were funded by the American National Institutes of Health.
Science, religion debated as evangelical takes top NIH post.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-09-11-science-religion-collins_N.htm
Jake Waskett is a member of Circlist who’s made almost 14,000 edits at Wikipedia to show a pro-circumcision bias. He’s known to lurk in parenting sites to convince expectant parents to circumcise. Waskett is not a doctor or medical professional of any kind. Waskett is a 34 year old computer software engineer in England.
The “Chief Expert on Circumcision” at the World Health Organization, also just so happens to be the inventor of the AccuCirc circumcision device. The World Health Organization is now endorsing male circumcision in South Africa.
Circumcision Unlikely to Have Major HIV Prevention Benefit Among Gay Men
http://www.aidsmeds.com/articles/hiv_circumcision_gay_1667_18826.shtml
Circumcision/HIV trials disputed
www.nationalreviewofmedicine.com/issue/2007/01_30/4_patients_practice08_2.html
Doctors’ Circumcision Recommendations Influenced By Personal Factors, Study Finds
10 reasons to stop male circumcision in fight against AIDS
It’s unethical
It’s hypocritical
It’s based on inconclusive evidence
It ignores what’s happening in the real world
It spreads dangerous myths about circumcision
It puts women at greater risk
It exposes men and boys to more risk
It’s not as effective as other methods
It’s a waste of money
It gives credibility to a dangerous practice that kills men and boys
http://endmalecircumcision.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/10-reasons-why-to-stop-male.html
Men with foreskins chased by mobs with knives
http://endmalecircumcision.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/uncircumcised-men-are-being.html
Zimbabwe MPs set aside political differences to promote dangerous circumcision together
http://endmalecircumcision.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/zimbabwe-mps-set-aside-political.html
“Circumcision of Zimbabweans a US Agenda”
http://www.zimeye.org/?p=44104
“Use Circumcision money to buy Food and Condoms”
http://www.zimeye.org/?p=42943
Zimbabwe still falsely claiming circumcision defeats HIV/AIDS
http://www.zimeye.org/?p=53896
Zimbabwe’s Circumcision drive “a waste of money”
http://www.zimeye.org/?p=42897
Male Circumcision and the HIV/AIDS Myth
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/male-circumcision-and-the_b_249728.html
“Male Circumcision Has No Role in the Australian HIV Epidemic”
http://www.afao.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/4528/BP0709_Circumcision.pdf
KENYA: Plea to ICC over forced male circumcision
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/92564/KENYA-Plea-to-ICC-over-forced-male-circumcision
Storm brews over forced circumcision in Uganda
South Africa: Forced Circumcision - Son Takes Parents On
http://allafrica.com/stories/200908120194.html
Uganda: 120 Ugandan girls traumatized after forced circumcision
http://blog.jaluo.com/?p=11324
Forced Circumcision
Two men were circumcised by force by residents in Kitale. The residents said that they were acting on the PM’s word.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3mD8PMQ39c
Nyeri man forced to undergo the cut
A man in Nyeri County was descended upon by his colleagues after they discovered that he was not circumcised. The hapless man was promptly paraded along the streets of Nyeri town stark naked and raising funds along the way to assist their colleague to undergo the cut at the Nyeri Provincial General Hospital.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1QBWWbXWck
Men in Africa now have to drop their pants in public to assert that they are circumcised
Women and Children in Portions of Africa are Being Sexually Violated by Men Who Believe That Sex With a Virgin will Cure Their AIDS
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/aids-virgins.htm
Staging sex myths to save Zimbabwe’s girls
Zimbabwe’s most prominent organisation fighting child sexual abuse is confronting traditional healers to take action over the myth that having sex with a virgin can cure Aids - one reason behind the rape of young girls.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6076758.stm
South African men rape babies as ‘cure’ for Aids
CHILD-RAPE EPIDEMIC IN SOUTH AFRICA
Fueled by widespread belief that sex with virgin cures AIDS
http://www.wnd.com/2001/12/12139/
If the foreskin were really a significant cause of heterosexual HIV transmission, then EUROPE, where circumcision is uncommon (unlike USA), would have a heterosexual HIV epidemic by now. It doesn’t! West and central European countries have the LOWEST levels of HIV in the world.
Interestingly, the USA, whose adult male population is 80% circumcised, has the highest HIV rate out of the industrialized nations.
In a letter published in The Lancet 368 (7 October 2006), Edward Mills of the Centre for International Health and Human Rights Studies in Toronto, and Nanci Siegfried of the Clinical Trial Service Unit at the University of Oxford’s Department of Medicine, wrote, concerning the 2005 RCT in South Africa: “The inferences drawn from the only completed randomised controlled trial (RCT) of circumcision could be weak because the trial stopped early. In a systematic review of RCTs stopped early for benefit, such RCTs were found to overestimate treatment effects… . The circumcision trial … is therefore at risk of serious effect overestimation.”
The results of the Ugandan and Kenyan trials were released to the media in early December 2006 in conjunction with UN World AIDS Day, two months before the studies were published in The Lancet. This unusual move produced worldwide publicity that was heavy on eye-catching headlines and light on details because—in the absence of the published studies themselves—few journalists took the time to dig beyond the press releases made available to them.
“Mutant statistics”
After the articles appeared in The Lancet, a number of scholars and scientists began questioning the studies’ methodology and statistical relevance. Charles Geshekter, an African studies specialist and Emeritus Professor of History at the California State University at Chico, has served on the executive council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Pacific Division. Geshekter cautions that the statistically small number of new infections in each group raises major questions about extrapolating such results to larger populations. In the Ugandan trial, 0.8 percent of the circumcised men tested positive after two years, while 1.7 percent of the non- circumcised men tested positive.
“Keep in mind that of all the participants, a total of 1.3 percent tested HIV positive; the other 98.7 percent remained HIV-negative,” Geshekter points out. Likewise, in Kenya, the claim of a 53 to 60 percent rate of risk reduction is based on 1.5 percent of circumcised men becoming infected, compared with 3.3 percent of those left intact. “These are microscopically small studies,” Geshekter contends. An economic historian, he describes the use of such numbers as “mutant statistics” that “take on a life of their own and can have a remarkably long shelf life. The more they get repeated, the longer their shelf life.” This is extremely important, critics observe, because policy decisions affecting millions of lives are based on headline-grabbing figures that may not reflect the reality on the ground.
A related issue that has raised scientific eyebrows is the African trials’ short duration, with initial results presented as definitive less than two years into the studies. “Any time you have a short time span and then extrapolate, small differences become amplified,” observes pediatric specialist Dr. Robert S. Van Howe, of Marquette General Hospital, Marquette, Michigan, who for many years has studied the issue of infant circumcision.
Confounding factors
Emphasizing that HIV infection is “driven by behavior, not by biology,” Van Howe suggests that behavioral factors could have influenced participants in the African studies, producing results that may not be replicated in a widespread circumcision of men, even within the same African countries. The Kenyan and Ugandan men—more than half of whom were unemployed when they signed up—were eager to join the studies, for which they were paid to take part in. The men received two years of free health care, as well as thorough and continual instruction in the importance of condom use. For these reasons, their experience was not reflective of the broader population in many parts of Africa, where a powerful stigma continues to be attached to HIV/AIDS and many are reluctant to undergo even routine testing, Van Howe and others note.
While the African studies’ claim of 53 to 60 percent risk reduction is based on the assumption of infection transmission through heterosexual activity—a broadly accepted assumption among most of the AIDS community—some researchers point to other highly probable but little-acknowledged sources of infection. In an article in the October 2007 issue of the International Journal of STD and AIDS, the authors state that an exhaustive review of studies linking HIV to sexual behavior among African adults accounts for only about a third of HIV infections. The rest, they argue, is likely transmitted through unsafe medical procedures, including injections, transfusions, and other contact with infected blood. In fact, a March 2007 article in Annals of Epidemiology, the official journal of the American College of Epidemiology, suggests that some HIV infections may result specifically from circumcision procedures.
Adding to these concerns are questions about the testing methods themselves. Geshekter explains, for example, that there are ten proteins said to be characteristic of HIV-infected blood. Yet depending on the country of origin, the medical authority in charge, and the location of the laboratory analyzing the test results, detection of as few as two of these proteins may be considered sufficient to earn the HIV label. He adds that HIV testing kits themselves, from all manufacturers, include a packet insert with a disclaimer stating that such kits cannot be used to conclusively detect HIV infection in human blood. Mathematician and former HIV researcher Rebecca Culshaw calls the HIV-antibody tests “some of the worst tests ever manufactured in terms of standardization, specificity, and reproducibility.”
As a result, critics say, large numbers of Africans suffering from diseases common among impoverished populations may be tossed into the “AIDS epidemic” pot, producing overly high figures. Although many in the AIDS advocacy field are motivated by a genuine desire to relieve suffering, some critics point out that most well-established AIDS-related research careers and professional reputations—and associated funding—remain inherently dependent on claims of an ever-increasing number of AIDS cases.
Many AIDS advocates contend that, rather than encouraging widespread circumcision, international funding would be much more effectively spent on an intensive, ongoing, continent-wide, and culturally sensitive educa-tional push involving proven methods of risk reduction, especially condoms. The cost of one circumcision in Africa ($70) is enough to buy 3,500 condoms—enough condoms for one man for every day for ten years, notes Dr. Robert S. Van Howe. Concern about widespread circumcision is particularly strong when it is described as a “virtual vaccine,” as it has been in some publica-tions. The fear is that, among newly circumcised African men, an unfounded belief in lifelong protection from infection could cause some to abandon any commitment to measures known to provide substantial protection, such as condoms, limiting sexual partners, and abstinence. Under-scoring this point, Thailand and Uganda have seen significantly reduced HIV/AIDS rates in recent years as a result of intensive educational programs, reduced visits to sex workers, and strong encouragement for 100 percent condom use among sex workers. A 2000 US Census Bureau paper also counts Senegal as a “success story,” noting that “programs put into place early in the epidemic have kept HIV prevalence rates low.”
Back in the USA
Whatever the case in Africa, public health professionals emphasize that studies on African men cannot be applied to American infants. The two populations share little more than the male biology, differing substantially in areas such as culture, conditioning and behavioral patterns, health risks, and access to medical care. Another key difference is that, in the US, there is no evidence of an AIDS epidemic through heterosexual transmission. The CDC, estimating 40,000 new cases of HIV infection each year in the US, puts the rate of new AIDS cases among males in 2004 at 25.6 per 100,000, and among females at 9.0 per 100,000. “Almost all ‘heterosexual female AIDS cases’ in the US are actually intravenous drug users,” Charles Geshekter maintains. “Heterosexual non-IV-drug users in the US almost never contract AIDS. This was pointed out by a definitive survey published in 1994. But the mainstream AIDS establishment ignores all of that.”
For parents considering whether to have a son circumcised for purported health benefits of any kind, physicians and public health officials stress that, even under ideal medical safety conditions, the surgery comes with inherent health risks, some quite serious. Among them are pain, hemorrhage, infection, complications of anesthesia or analgesia, damage to the penile shaft or the urethra, surgical mishap, and possible death, as well as postsurgery interference with breastfeeding and normal sleep patterns. There also may be physical complications such as skin tags, skin bridges, or extensive scarring of the penis, as well as loss of penile sexual sensitivity.
Increasingly, another risk has begun looming large on the public-health radar screen: infection by Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), commonly known as a superbug. This staph infection frequently is spread in hospital newborn nurseries by parents and caregivers whose skin or nasal mucosa may carry the bacteria. The risk is compounded by circumcision, which produces on an infant’s penis an open wound through which the life-threatening infection may enter. Moreover, newborns’ immune systems are immature and thus less resistant to infection.
Foreskin: A barrier to HIV?
On the other side of the health and circumcision equation, recent studies suggest that the presence of a certain type of cell in the foreskin of intact males may actually serve as a protective agent against HIV and other pathogens. Langerhans cells are known to exist in mucosa and on the skin’s surface, and are especially concentrated on the inner lining of the foreskin. In laboratory studies using an amputated foreskin, the HIV virus appears to attach itself to Langerhans cells, leading researchers to believe that they serve as “target cells,” providing the infection with a gateway for absorption into the body. Based on this research, the CDC has postulated that the “inner mucosa of the foreskin … is more susceptible to HIV infection.”
However, more recent studies offer another view of the role of Langerhans cells. According to a roundup of the relevant research published in March 2007 in the Journal of Cell Biology, it appears that, “rather than transmitting the virus … [Langerhans cells] trap HIV-1 and thus act as a barrier to infection.” That is why intact men also have a lower incidence of some types of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). However, experts suggest that when the cells are overwhelmed by a heavy viral load, their ability to protect against HIV decreases. As Dr. Robert S. Van Howe puts it, Langerhans cells are “the bouncer at the door. If the crowd is too big, sometimes infection slips in.”
The bottom line
As parents struggle to sift through the conflicting “facts” of circumcision and HIV, it is instructive to know that many research studies and published papers claiming circumcision’s medical benefits have been written by physicians and others, primarily North American, known to be advocates of circumcision. Likewise, whole-baby advocates point out that many of the recent news releases on the issue have been actively channeled to media outlets by some of the same circumcision supporters.
One thing is clear: Existing evidence worldwide does not support non-therapeutic infant circumcision. And despite the media frenzy around this issue, the African studies do not provide scientific data convincing enough to undermine or contradict this conclusion. As for protection against HIV, we know that neither circumcised nor intact men, or their partners, are free of this risk. Well beyond babyhood, responsibility rests with parents and society to instill a solid, commonsense approach in children, adolescents, and adults, and to create an environment of open discussion and reliable education about high-risk behavior********************************