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Comments Regarding CDC-2014-0012-0001.
Infant circumcision in the United States persists for several reasons.
CDC officials and medical professionals are products of the American circumcision culture, and pretend
to defer to parental wishes while providing vague potential benefits. To those forming circumcision
policy as well as medical professionals, performing circumcisions is both a money-making venture and a
validation of their own membership in the American circumcision culture.
Since medical professionals are only fulfilling parental demands for cosmetic surgery, their role as
educated caregiver licensed to provide the best medical advice is abandoned. They become simply a
drone-like circumcision operator. The CDC policy simply reaffirms this approach.
Pro-circumcision information, like the basis of this CDC policy is manipulated to show benefits while
masking or ignoring flaws and bias. Essentially, this policy is propaganda aimed to protect the financial
interests of the circumcision industry and affirm the American circumcision culture.
This biased information is further undergirded by the religious circumcisers who are protecting their
practices even though their position has nothing to do with American medical routine infant
circumcision.
Individuals who have a religious or cultural bias towards infant circumcision have no business assessing
circumcision for medical relevance. These individuals are already predisposed to circumcision and NO
SCIENTIFIC, MEDICAL or ETHICAL argument would stop them from circumcising as long as it is legal.
This applies to African tribes, Jews, Muslims and ANYONE from American families who have circumcised
for multiple generations. These people will always seek to justify only what they know, that is human
nature. One wonders how many of the individuals responsible for this proclamation actually have a
foreskin.
This CDC policy bias is obvious and appears to be truly the blind validating the blind attempting to force
more blindness.
Unbiased circumcision and foreskin related information based in real fact as well as information that
debunks the pro-circumcision propaganda exists but is ignored by this proposed policy. The studies used
in this pro-circumcision policy have all been generally debunked.
The Africa HIV studies are useful only for adult males in Africa and there is conflicting data in all these
studies. The current studies scream for more study, not making an unscientific leap that there is a
benefit in first world American infant circumcision based on third world African adults.
The limited statistics that purport benefit in the policy are not put into context. For example, the UTI
prevention position.
The UTI studies show that female infants get UTIs at a rate 4 or 5 times that of uncircumcised males. In
all cases of UTI (male and female), non-invasive antibiotic treatment is the proper treatment, not
circumcision. Essentially, several hundred boys would need to be circumcised to prevent ONE case of
UTI that should only be treated via antibiotics.
This policy on circumcision further ignores the rest of humanity, 70 to 80% of whom are not circumcised.
There are approximately 2.5 Billion males on the planet who are not circumcised. Surely, if the studies
used to form this policy were accurate, there would be actual, reality-based clinical data available to
back up the CDC’s conclusions.
Of the 1 billion or so circumcised males on the planet, nearly 80% are circumcised for religious reasons.
Those circumcised for American medical reasons number about 120 million. Thus the audience of this
policy comprise only 3% of the total living human male population (120 million / 3.5 billion) and only
12% of the total living human circumcised population (120 million / 1 billion).
Other than Israel, NONE of the top 50 Countries noted by the World Health Organization with
circumcision rates greater than 80% are first world Countries. Note that the United States is not on this
list as the US has a less than 80% circumcision rate presently. Nearly ALL the countries with high
circumcision rates are second or third world countries with significant Muslim populations with a
smattering of African nations thrown in.
No other western or first world country practices or promotes ‘medical’ infant circumcision. Their
medical and government policies reflect the exact opposite opinion from this proposed policy.
.
Information relating to sexual pleasure reduction caused by circumcision is not included in this policy.
The most sensitive part of the circumcised penis is the circumcision scar line on the underside of the
penis. The head/tip of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the head/tip of the Intact
penis. The Intact penis contains 4 areas more sensitive than ANY area on a circumcised penis.
The most sensitive part of the Intact penis is the line of skin where inner foreskin and outer foreskin
meet. When erect, this area is on the shaft of the penis. ALL circumcised males have these areas
removed during the circumcision surgery. Those without a foreskin seem to casually ignore this
information. Truly, if you those who created this policy had their foreskins, the policy would be in-line
with the rest of the developed world. (Study details: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17378847).
The other critical information not included in this policy is that of common penile issues as a result of
circumcision. Beyond the well documented issues of meatal stenosis, infections, poor surgical outcomes
requiring more surgery and deaths caused by the surgery, there are several proven negative
consequences resulting from circumcision in adult males.
Even with the 70% reduction in pleasure caused by circumcision, feeling more does NOT result in
reaching ejaculation faster. Circumcised men are 5 times more likely to experience premature
ejaculation. REDACTED
Further circumcised men are 4.5 times more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction (ED) than Intact
men. REDACTED
This policy really is just a regurgitation of the AAP 2012 Task Force Policy on Circumcision.
I suggest those responsible for this policy statement read the entire article published by the AAP
“Cultural Bias in the AAP’s 2012 Technical Report and Policy Statement on Male Circumcision”. The
article is written and signed by a large cohort of well-regarded international medical professionals.
I close my comment with their conclusion on the AAP 2012 Task Force’s position since it equally applies
to the CDC policy:
“The AAP’s extensive report2 was based on the scrutiny of a large number of complex scientific articles.
Therefore, while striving for objectivity, the conclusions drawn by the 8 task force members reflect what
these individual physicians perceived as trustworthy evidence. Cultural bias reflecting the normality of
nontherapeutic male circumcision in the United States seems obvious. The conclusions of the AAP
Technical Report and Policy Statement are far from those reached by physicians in most other Western
countries. As mentioned, only 1 of the aforementioned arguments has some theoretical relevance in
relation to infant male circumcision; namely, the questionable argument of UTI prevention in infant
boys. The other claimed health benefits are also questionable, weak, and likely to have little public
health relevance in a Western context, and they do not represent compelling reasons for surgery before
boys are old enough to decide for themselves. Circumcision fails to meet the commonly accepted
criteria for the justification of preventive medical procedures in children.”