Brian Morris, Circumcision proponent

This video shows how Brian Morris unblinkingly and unthinking approaches circumcision, wanting to universally amputate foreskins.

It should make us all worry about believing in something too strongly, because it can blind us to the truth….as Mr. Morris to clearly illustrates.

Circumcision of babies for proposed HIV prevention unethical and illegal


Circumcision of babies for proposed HIV prevention unethical and illegal

Dear Dr Tshabalala and Mr Maxon,

It has recently come to our attention that the KZN-Natal Health Department is planning to encourage the universal  circumcision of infant boys in an attempt to curb HIV infection rates.

We hope that you have had time to review such ideas over the Christmas break and have decided not to continue with such a drastic plan, which would violate several aspects of current law, most notably the Children’s Act number 38 of 2005, as well as the National Health Act.


Children’s Act

According to the Children’s Act, children can only be circumcised for ‘medical reasons’ related to current pathology of the foreskin, not for prophylactic reasons. In other words, circumcision of a foreskin is now illegal unless the child has a current medical pathology that can only be remedied by the amputation of the foreskin. It is Important to realize that it is extremely rare for a newborn male infant to have a pathological condition of this nature. If a child happens to have a mild condition such as phimosis or a urinary tract infection, less drastic remedies must always be used in a genuine effort to resolve the problem without resorting to circumcision.  In other words, infant male circumcision is only legal if it can be proved that such a serious measure is genuinely  in the best interests of the child, a standard that can only be met in extraordinary circumstances,  and only after several more conservative treatments have been attempted and failed.

These legal stipulations exist for what should be obvious reasons. Circumcision is a serious surgery that is inevitably traumatic for the infant, and is irreversible. Circumcision that is deemed “successful” always results in a significant loss of sexual sensation and capability. A healthy foreskin is important for normal sexual functioning when the child becomes an adult. If the guidelines imbedded in current law are not followed, once the child becomes an adult he will have a strong basis for accusing the KZN-Natal Health Department of having violated his basic human right to a complete body.

The standard for a legitimate prophylactic reason to circumcise a baby boy would be much higher than can be met by any existing medical danger, including the possibility of eventually contracting HIV. No credible scientific basis to justify the removal of healthy tissues in male children for HIV prevention has been found, and circumcision performed on that basis violates a child’s right to bodily integrity and medical ethics. Since the infant is being circumcised to ‘possibly’ prevent HIV, there is no immediate medical need, making circumcision illegal, unnecessary, and unethical.

Medical circumcisions require a valid ICD-10 code to indicate the medical reason for the circumcision and thus define whatever  pathology the doctor believes justifies the circumcision. The written consent of  both parents is also required. This documentation will become a permanent record of the basis upon which the circumcision was performed, available for scrutiny at any later time in which the legitimacy of the reasons for the circumcision are questioned by the child, his parents, or others.


Religious circumcision

Doctors cannot act as agents of a social custom in the Health Department, and thus cannot perform a circumcision on a child unless it is medically indicated; that is, unless an actual current medical disease exists and is deemed to be so serious that circumcision is necessary. Circumcision for religious reasons are not for the Health Department doctors to carry out, since they carry no immediate health benefit and are a social custom. These should be performed by a Jewish or Muslim doctor privately, and according to the regulations of the Children’s Act, including the completion of the appropriate consent forms (see attached).


Legal action

The KZ-Natal Health Department will be opening the door for  legal challenges should they go ahead.

The medical records of any children that are circumcised in your departments are required to be kept until the age of majority of the child. We will be supporting these children to take appropriate legal action against the KZN-Natal Health Department and individuals promoting the proposed agenda of routine neonatal male circumcision despite these warnings. Parents of children will also be encouraged to take legal action whenever they become aware of legal stipulations in current law that were willfully overlooked.


No scientific basis for circumcision of babies for HIV prevention exists.

While we are aware of the well-known randomized control trials (RCT’s) used to justify the circumcision of consentingadults in order to provide some protection against HIV, we would like to remind you that there are currently no RCT studies in existence showing that circumcision of infants reduces their chances of acquiring HIV later in life. Any suggestion that such evidence exists is inferred and not based on medical fact. Willfully proceeding with plans for routine circumcision of infant boys with no valid medical reason, therefore provides legal and medical justification to sue. Since the KZN Department plans to proceed at least 12-14 years before the child becomes sexually active, by which time a vaccine may be present, and since ways exist to educate young people about how to protect themselves against HIV, it is unreasonable and inhumane to assume that a radical genital modification doomed to fail in its intended purpose and doomed to bring great unhappiness on a massive scale is necessary to achieve these aims.


Circumcised men still acquire HIV at an alarming rate, and circumcision is no permanent safe-guard against HIV infection.

Only a condom is proven to reduce HIV acquisition over repeated exposures. Any circumcised man having regular unprotected sex over time will ultimately carry the same risk of HIV exposure and increase the risk of his partner, especially if he falls prey to the belief that he is protected from HIV. Already, throughout Africa, men are beginning to believe that they do not need to wear a condom because they are circumcised.

We would be happy to engage your department in face-to-face discussions and to provide you with any information you may require to assist you in adjusting your present position.

This letter will be uploaded to our website in the interest of public knowledge. Please also find supporting articles attached.

Sincerely,

Shelton Kaye

Co-director

NOCIRC-SA

nocirc-sa.co.za


Infant Circumcision - The Last Acceptable Abuse

 

Circumcision can be seen as a form of mutilation and a form of abuse when done to a child or baby against it’s will and the systematic routine practise of this disgusts me. In hospitals all over America right now, babies are strapped into a plastic mould called a ‘circumstraint’ with two arm restraints and two leg restraints and a clamp fitted onto the end of each baby boy’s penis which is fixed so tightly it crushes the tissue, damaging the penis, just so there is less blood when they make the incision and cut off the foreskin. It’s a pretty horrific and barbaric practice.

“There is reason why they call it ‘cut’ – because you loose something.”

It is not a normal act to lob off a piece of skin and flesh from a baby. When you think about it, anyone caught doing this in any other circumstance would be imprisoned. Under the guise of religion and tradition however, it slips under the radar. What would happen if, let’s take Scientologist’s as an example (as they are considered a relatively new religion) announced to the world that all their babies were to have their ear lobes removed at birth as standard practise? There would be outrage from most if not all communities of the world. And why? – because it’s a very weird, unnecessary thing to do and morally wrong to permanently change a baby physically, cause it pain and scar it, emotionally and physically. However, because people have been practising circumcision for many years, it’s deemed as being perfectly ok to do – even though it’s no different to removing an earlobe, nipple or eyelid. There is absolutely no good reason to cut off a boy’s foreskin, unless in adult life it is causing complications and the reason is medical. Even circumcision for women is deemed ‘wrong’ by the western society, but for men it’s supposed to be okay?

How does this affect you if you are religious? Well, it states nowhere in the Koran anything at all about circumcision. Nor do you have to be circumcised if you are a Jewish – it is simply a ‘gesture’ of dedication, but not necessary. The main culprit of circumcision is actually Americans.

The reason why American’s first started the procedure in 1870’s was because they thought it ‘cured’ ‘diseases’ such as ‘masturbation’ and ‘madness’. It was done to children as soon as they were born as a sort of ‘vaccination’ against these ‘diseases’. In the 1890’s there was also an attempt to make it law for all “Negro boys to be circumcised so as to reduce their sex drive and protect white women from rape.” Dr John Harvey Kellogg’s, of Corn Flake fame, was a huge supporter of this, and actually wrote in a book in 1877 that he thought the procedure should be done to babies with no anaesthetic so that the baby would have an emotional pain memory to learn not to masturbate;

“The operation should be performed without administering an anaesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment.

“In a way, he was right to assume that circumcision will affect the sexual habits of the individual. In recent scientific demonstrations, it is shown how a cut penis often does not perform correctly or naturally during sex and can be problematic for both men and women. There is not enough skin to accommodate an erection – therefore there is no ‘give’ necessary for more pleasurable sex from the perspective of the person being penetrated. Essentially you are being poked hard and awkwardly which can cause pain and discomfort. The edge of the head of the penis, called the ‘coronal ridge hook’ is not protected by bunched up foreskin on cut penis and so it not only scrapes the lining of the vagina/**** when being withdrawn but it also looses the vacuum to hold in the natural lubrication. The vagina was designed with the foreskin to create this vacuum to hold in the man’s ejaculation – it helps procreate. No vacuum means less sperm are trapped and getting pregnant, if that is your aim, can be more difficult. Not to mention it is very difficult to masturbate without having to use lubrication – another opportunity for someone to sell you something you don’t need and making the natural spontaneity of sex and masturbation into something synthetic and artificial.

The very common and weak excuse about cleanliness and that cut men are cleaner or healthier is misguided. All of our body gets dirty and builds up dirt – earwax, mucus, nails, hair – we wash them all and survive, do we not? Nobody tells us to cut fingers off at birth just in case they get dirty, do they? There is absolutely no evidence to say it is healthier to have a cut penis, apart from the view that is if you have no foreskin you therefore automatically eliminate any remote chances of it being infected in the foreskin simply because you do not have one to be infected, but to the same example, if you remove children’s teeth then the chances of them having tooth decay is zero simply because they have no teeth to become decayed – that doesn’t mean that a child’s teeth will become decayed if they are not removed, obviously. Or even breast tissue – working on the same principles of that argument, we should remove the breast tissue of every newborn baby girl just in case they develop breast cancer in the future – ridiculous and flawed.

The actual practise of circumcision can also be very dangerous and it is a very major procedure to be undertaking on a newborn child and has been fatal in some cases. Doctors have quoted it is a barbaric act, unnecessary and the British Medical Association claim it is a completely unethical practise and that the reason why it is still going on and not being challenged is because it is a multi-billion dollar industry. Up until now, Americans have had to pay for healthcare and therefore pay to get a child circumcised – if Americans suddenly realised it was wrong to cut up a child’s natural penis there would be a huge impact on the health industry and fat cats would loose a hell of a lot of money – billions in fact. So basically, to save them loosing money – you or your child looses a necessary and natural part of your body. Mutilating and hurting new-born babies to make a buck – ahh, the American dream.

Finishing here a beautiful quote from ‘Elizabeth Blackwell’, who in as early as in 1894 clearly pointed out how absurd and arrogant it is to think that God and/or nature could make a mistake in the making of not only ‘man’ but all male mammals on the earth;

“Circumcision is based upon the erroneous principle that boys, i.e. one half of the human race, are so badly fashioned by Creative Power that they must be reformed by the surgeon; consequently that every male child must be mutilated by removing the natural covering with which nature has protected one of the most sensitive portions of the human body. The erroneous nature of such a practice is shown by the fact that although this custom (which originated amongst licentious nations in hot climates) has been carried out for many hundreds of generations (by Moslems and Jews), yet nature continues to protect her children by reproducing the valuable protection in man and all the higher animals, regardless of impotent surgical interference.”

More circumcised men are HIV positive

More circumcised men are HIV positive

STORIES BY MUSA SIMELANE
http://www.times.co.sz/index.php?news=20909

MBABANE – Even though male circumcision is considered to have a protective effect for HIV infection, circumcised men have a slightly higher HIV infection than those who are not.

The Times SUNDAY can today reveal that government has known this for close to three years.

It is contained in the Swaziland Demographic and Health Survey (SDHS) of 2007 which still prevails.

This report summarises findings of the 2006 survey carried out by the Swaziland Central Statistical Office (SCO).

The report places the infection rate for circumcised males at 22 per cent while for those uncircumcised stands at 20 per cent.

HIV stands for Human Immuno Deficiency Virus. It is the virus that can cause the acquired immuno deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

The report states that the protective aspect of male circumcision is based in part because of the physiological differences that increase the susceptibility to HIV infection among uncircumcised men. However, the relationship between HIV prevalence and circumcision is not in the expected direction.

“It is worth noting that the relationship between male circumcision and HIV infection may be confounded by the fact that the circumcision may not involve the full removal of the foreskin, which provides partial protection,” stated the report.

But additional analysis is needed to determine if this lack of a relationship between male circumcision and HIV infection is a result of confounding factors or represents the true situation.

In 2007 government introduced a policy on male circumcision, which has a goal of halting the spread of HIV infection to achieve an HIV-free generation.

Cited in the report is that to meet this objective, male circumcision services, as part of the national comprehensive HIV prevention package, would have to be availed to men of all ages.

To maximise the health benefit for HIV prevention, the primary targets of the services are men who are HIV-negative, in the age bracket of 15-24 and also newborn babies.

Additional information collected by the SDHS in the 2006 to 2007 period revealed that eight per cent of men age 15-49 were circumcised.

“Older men are markedly more likely than younger men to have been circumcised, which the rate peaking at 20 per cent among men aged 35 -39 years. Urban men (13 per cent) are more than twice as likely to be circumcised compared with rural men (six per cent),” said the report.

Also discovered is that the rate of circumcision among men is slightly higher in the Hhohho and Manzini regions compared with the rate in Shiselweni and Lubombo.

Meanwhile, the belief that circumcision can provide a considerable measure of protection against HIV infection has been questioned by academicians and medical professionals of repute.

Last week Occupational Health Specialist Dr Cleopas Sibanda questioned the rationale of circumcision to justify it being adopted as part of the national HIV and AIDS prevention strategy.

“What exactly happened in Uganda as far as HIV and AIDS and population demographics are concerned to correctly attribute the observed previous decline in their national HIV and AIDS statistics to wholesale male circumcision?” Sibanda was quoted as having asked.

But he noted that circumcision for the wrong reasons can be very dangerous, in fact it has increased episodes of diminished consistent use of condoms and increased incidences of HIV and AIDS affected populations.

Three primary sites where circumcision is performed

* PSI’s Litsemba Letfu Clinic in Matsapha

* Family Life Association (FLAS) Mbabane

*Manzini Nazarene Hospital

Conference tells AAP, CDC: “Don’t cut babies”

July 31st, 2010 by ICGI

An international conference has delivered a clear message to US medical bodies not to recommend any infant genital cutting that is not strictly necessary, organizers say. The 11th International Symposium on Genital Integrity ended at the University of California at Berkeley this evening.

“We learned how circumcision does much more harm and less good than most people imagine,” co-organizer Marilyn Milos said, “and how circumcision instruments have particular risks—as we were reminded last week when a boy was awarded $10 million for a tragic botch.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control are both considering revising their currently neutral advice about neonatal circumcision in the United States, following claims from trials in Africa that it reduced the rate of HIV transmission from women to men by 1.8%. Over three trials, the rates were 2.49% of non-circumcised men and 1.18% for circumcised men.

“We heard how the African trials are irrelevant to the US, where HIV is mainly transmitted by sharing IV drug needles and sex between men,” Milos said.

“The AAP should have learned from its recent experience with female cutting, that even a token nick is not acceptable, and male circumcision and intersex reassignment are much more extensive than a token nick,” Milos said.

Speakers came to the symposium from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, England, Ireland, Italy, and New Zealand.

Tomorrow the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC), one of the conference organisers, marks 25 years in existence.

For more information, contact Marilyn Milos, RN, (415) 488-9883, or Georganne Chapin, (914) 806-3573.

Circumcision Rates Plummet in USA: 2 Out of 3 Boys Escape the Knife

August 14th, 2010 by ICGI

The US male infant circumcision rate is now 32%, according to the CDC. This is great news for Intactivists and even better news for the more than one million boys who are now remaining intact every year. This means that their efforts have been successful in continuing the steady decline of an unnecessary surgery upon defenseless infants.

The genital integrity community is astonished and happy that the US circumcision rate is now below one-third. Intactivists had been predicting that the 50/50 point wouldn’t occur until 2011 or 2012. This is a huge drop. And, social change can happen quickly. Circumcision has been in the news a lot lately, primarily from the efforts of Intact America.

Intactivists have responded variously to this news. Some are giddy and self-congratulatory, others question the “too good to be true” number, while others are ignoring it because it came from their opposition.

But most of the credit goes to parents who are learning more about circumcision before making the decision. What many are saying is that their decision wasn’t based on whether or not circumcision was beneficial or harmful, but that it is not their place to decide on elective surgery for their child. They figure that since it is his body, not theirs, that he can make the decision when he is older. By leaving him intact, they are leaving him with a choice, not living with an irreversible condition.

The statistic was released during a presentation at the AIDS 2010 conference in Vienna, Austria, late last month. Presenters were C. El Bcheraoui, K. Kretsinger, and R. Chen from the CDC, and J. Greenspan from SDI Health. The CDC hired SDI Health, one of the country’s largest health-care analysts, to do the research. They looked at 21% of hospital records for the last 4 years and found that the circumcision rate has continued to drop, from 56% in 2006, to 32.5% in 2009. SDI Health has worked with the CDC on previous studies. US circumcision rates peaked at about 85% in 1979.

Less than 1/10th of one percent of adult males opt for circumcision, indicating that circumcision has never been medically useful. But, with more boys remaining intact, they will later be at risk for circumcision from mis-diagnosis of penile conditions, and from doctors prescribing amputation to treat them instead of first trying less invasive treatments.

[Source]



Distributors reject call to stop using circumcision clamp

09 Jul 2010
Sapa

CAPE TOWN — The southern African distributors of the Tara KLamp circumcision device have rejected a call for it to be put on hold until safety concerns have been addressed.

The call was made yesterday in a joint statement by the Treatment Action Campaign and the Southern African HIV Clinicians’ Society.

Tony Lawrence, spokesperson for distributors Carpe Diem Enterprises, said, however, that the statement contains numerous allegations about the clamp which are “totally inaccurate, unjustified and unfounded”.

“We are determined to correct the views of all the parties concerned, as the experiences of our medical doctors across the country can attest to the efficacy and ease of use of the [clamp].”

He promised a full response later.

TAC and the doctors said they encourage voluntary male circumcision as a way of reducing the risk of heterosexual men contracting HIV and the human papilloma virus.

In a controlled trial of the Tara KLamp at Orange Farm in Gauteng, circumcised men using the clamp reported worse pain than men using the forceps-guided method of medical circumcision.

That trial was stopped early due to the unacceptably high rate of adverse events, and the researchers have “strongly” cautioned against using the clamp on young adults.

The clamp is attached to the foreskin, and after about a week the device, along with the foreskin, usually falls off. But in some cases the device does not fall off, forcing the patient to have it removed surgically.

“Currently, the balance of evidence shows that the [clamp] is unsafe for use on adolescents and adults,” TAC and the doctors said.

“The [clamp] must be withdrawn from sale and distribution for adolescent and adult circumcision throughout sub-Saharan Africa, until the device’s safety concerns are addressed.”