MASS CIRCUMCISION CAMPAIGNS: The Emasculation and Harassment of Africa
We intactivists keep saying time and time again; the promotion of circumcision is going to make the HIV/AIDS problem WORSE, because it gives men and women a false sense of security, and an excuse to forgo condoms, which, even given the so-called "evidence," would still supersede circumcision. News outlets and organizations report that men are already saying they don't have to wear condoms, and that it is hard for women to convince emboldened circumcised men to wear condoms. In a Botswana sex scandal, a woman claims that the health minister she slept with couldn't have infected her with HIV because he's circumcised. (The research says SHE can't infect HIM IF she were HIV+.)
In response to questions about risk compensation, circumcision promoters like PLoS and Richard Wamaiassert flatly that the evidence for it "doesn't exist," that the evidence that does exist (theirs, of course) says that risk compensation isn't a problem. However, absence of evidence is not equivalent to evidence of absence.
there is a concern about the increased chance of infection with the injecting of local anaesthetic, as the puncture holes from the needle would be in the diaper area surrounded by urine and faeces, below the area of the circumcision [...which raises questions about the risk of infection at the much bigger circumcision wound itself...]
UGANDA: 220 men forcibly circumcised
UGANDA: HIV campaign confused with circum-rape: no effect on HIV rate
ZIMBABWE: 6 years for kidnapping, forced circumcision
UGANDA: Forced circumcision campaign stopped
UGANDA: Men flee "life-threatening" forced circumcision
UGANDA: Prisoners forcibly circumcised
KENYA: Circumcision forced on men and women - boy dies for refusing
UGANDA: Pretty women entrap intact men for enforced circumcision
SOUTH AFRICA: Taxi drivers fear forced dircumcision
Are people aware that, as in FGM, boys and men also die as a result of their initiation? That boys and men are also being circumcised out in the African bush with crude utensils by amateurs? That many boys and men do in fact lose their penises to gangrene, forcing them to live their life in shame? Why are these facts only a problem when we talk about female circumcision?
Here is a list of reports of boys and men suffering complications, or dying as a result of annual initiation rites:
EASTERN CAPE: Doctor who showed botched circumcisions defended, attacked
SOUTH AFRICA: 27 die from circumcision
SOUTH AFRICA: 29 die: ANC wants faster inquiry
SOUTH AFRICA: 23 die from circumcision
SOUTH AFRICA: Nearly 80 circumcision deaths
SOUTH AFRICA: More than 15 die from circumcision
SOUTH AFRICA: 33 die from circumcision
SOUTH AFRICA: More than 20 die from circumcision
SOUTH AFRICA: "Time to stop this practice"
FREE STATE, SOUTH AFRICA: Four more circumcision deaths
SOUTH AFRICA: Hospitals running out of beds for botched circumcisions
EASTERN CAPE: Circumcision deaths resume: 15 this season
EASTERN CAPE: 42 Circumcision deaths in three weeks
EASTERN CAPE: 20 circumcision deaths
The WHO endorsement of circumcision as HIV prevention has served to embolden forced circumcision wars among rival tribes, and to endorse traditional initiation practices which put the lives of boys and men in danger.
Would the WHO ever endorse female circumcision, even if this were "research-based?"
No. For the reason that they know that it would result in the de facto endorsement of human rights violations. They would not do anything that would "play into the hands of FGM advocates."
So why the different set of rules for male circumcision?
Why the blind eye and deaf ear to the forced MGM inflicted on boys and men?
[http://joseph4gi.blogspot.in/]
Evidence Circumcision has failed America on STI prevention
[ http://joseph4gi.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/united-states-infant-circumcision-fails.html
]
117
Deaths from Circumcision?
But many circumcisions, especially religious ones, are
done after an infant leaves the hospital, including after he and his
mother have had time to have a secure mother-infant bonding. They are also done
when there is more time to detect physical problems that can preclude an infant
from having a routine circumcision, especially with a day or two of his birth.
Thus, the number 117 fails to say anything about those circumcisions.
[ http://thecircumcisiondecision.com/circumcision-death/
]
Circumcision
Deaths
Some babies die of complications of circumcision.1 There
has been a need to assemble information concerning death from complications of
circumcision in one convenient location. This page is designed to fill that
need.
[ http://www.cirp.org/library/death/ ]
Septicemia
secondary to circumcision
A child was born without incident in a West
Virginia hospital and was circumcised before discharge. Two days later, the
baby boy was brought to a health center where the doctor did a follow-up
examination. Four days after that, the child was rushed to a hospital emergency
room after developing a fever and undergoing seizures. The ER physician
telephoned the doctor who had performed the circumcision and decided not to
admit the child. The next morning, the mother brought the infant back to the ER
where he suffered more seizures and was noted to have a greenish cast to the
penis. That afternoon the child was transferred to a medical center, where he
died 4 hours later.
The
cause of death was found to be septicemia derived from an infection secondary
to the circumcision. Both physicians were sued for negligence for failure to
admit the child to the hospital on the first visit to the ER. After 6 months, a
settlement of $150,000 was reached.
[
http://www.circumstitions.com/death.html#septicaemia ]
In
the three African trials of adult circumcision, complication rates for adult
male circumcision ranged from 2% to 8%. The most commonly reported
complications were pain, bleeding, infection, and unsatisfactory appearance. There
were no reported deaths or long-term sequelae documented.16, 17, 18, 45, 46
[http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/prevention/research/malecircumcision/risks.html]
Circumcision does not appear to reduce H.I.V.
transmission among men who have sex with men, Dr. Diekema said. “The degree of
benefit, or degree of impact, in a place like the U.S. will clearly be smaller
than in a place like Africa,” he said.Two studies have found that circumcision
actually increases the risk of H.I.V. infection among sexually active men and
women, the academy noted.
[
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/science/benefits-of-circumcision-outweigh-risks-pediatric-group-says.html?_r=0
]
Hartmann: circumcison can't be consented to by parents
and advocats trivialise the physical mutilation
Infection after circumcision is rare if the
circumcision has been done by a doctor in clean conditions and you have taken
care of it as instructed.Any infection usually starts in one particular place
around the cut line rather than all around it at once. The affected area will
be particularly swollen and red. Yeah infections aren't totally uncommon.
What's worse is that complications (which you, as a parent, can't control) are
much higher. Your baby has a better chance of having a penile
complication.
The ANC ruling party in South
Africa is calling for a shift to a modern method of male circumcision
after 30 more deaths due to the use of ritual circumcision were reported on
Tuesday. The deaths were caused by blood loss and infection, while some were
due to exhaustion and hypothermia since the bodies of the boys were pushed to
the limit.
The latest round of circumcision deaths
doubles the toll for 2013. Besides the 30 dead boys, more than 300 young males
from the Eastern Cape province have been hospitalised due to the botched
procedure. Unlike clinical circumcision which is done by doctors and over in
half an hour, while the ritual circumcision done in rural area include physical
challenges, deprivation and isolation.
Circumcision is an unnecessary procedure
that is painful and can lead to complications, including death. No
organization in the world currently recommends this. Why should we routinely
remove normal, functioning tissue from the genitals of little boys within days
of their birth?
Last month, the Bundestag hurriedly passed
some strange new legislation: the “Circumcision Law” guarantees the right for
parents to have their children circumcised. This was the government’s answer to
a passionate and uncomfortable five-month debate over the practice, in which
religious minorities and their supporters clashed with a cabal of doctors and
politicians over tolerance versus children’s rights?
German men may differ from one another in
many ways, but in one aspect they are strikingly uniform: very few of them are
circumcised. This may not come as a shock given the low circumcision rates
throughout Europe. But it does set them apart from expat populations – many of
whom come from countries like the US, where over 70 percent of adult males are
foreskin-less. In Germany this figure is a mere 10 percent, including 2 million
Muslim Who have gone under the knife as part of widely observed religious traditions
dating back centuries.
The case involved a four-year-old Muslim
boy who had suffered complications following a circumcision conducted by a
doctor. The judge ruled that circumcision constituted “grievous bodily harm”
that violated the boy’s right to bodily integrity. Although the case only made
circumcision a criminal offense in the jurisdiction, the decision threw the
practice into legal uncertainty, causing doctors to withhold from performing
the procedure awaiting further legal clarification.
Overnight, a half-nation of self-professed
torchbearers of enlightenment from across the political spectrum decried the
practice: petitions were signed, articles published, passionate political
speeches held. Words like “fundamentalist”, “primitive” and “violent” were
thrown around by politicians, columnists and bloggers uncritically. An open
letter from 600 anti-circumcision doctors and therapists to the government
highlighted the possibility of trauma and the risk of complications from
circumcision while also pointing out how uncivilised the act is: “We must
finally open your eyes: one does not hurt children!”
Circumcision was as backward culturally as
it was dangerous medically. It didn’t belong to Germany. Of course,
circumcision is not at all confined to Muslims and Jews, and not even to
religious folk. Although the practice seems to be declining in the Western part
of the world (fewer US parents circumcise their kids now – only 50 percent did
in 2010 versus 90 percent in the 1970s), no country has of yet outlawed
circumcision, and only a handful have restrictions.
In Sweden, for instance, anesthesia must be
administered during circumcision, which has made many doctors reluctant to
perform the procedure. In most countries, however, the procedure is allowed and
even encouraged.
Proponents point to plenty of health
benefits: many empirical studies have shown that circumcision may reduce
infections and certain types of cancer, as well as the spread of sexually
transmitted diseases. Circumcision is endorsed by the World Health Organisation
and encouraged throughout Africa as a way to prevent AIDS. And the influential
American Academy of Pediatrics recently changed their position on circumcision
from neutral to “pro-choice”, saying that the procedure should be available to
parents and covered by insurance.
Dr. Franz says he first became aware of the
issue only because of patients coming to him with problems following
circumcision. Particularly in the case of Muslim circumcisions, he purports,
which generally take place in early childhood, the potential for trauma is
great.
“A five-year-old boy is extraordinarily
libidinous, narcissistic and focused on his genitals... and many also have lots
of fear (particularly of castration) surrounding their genitals. One can assume
that such a traumatic experience, in the sense of an actual injury, will have
an impact.”
Does this mean that one third of the
world’s male population (664 million men!) suffers from a castration complex?
Dr. Gahr admits that it is still unproven whether circumcision results in
trauma – it is just too difficult to separate that one act from the jumble of
minor traumas children suffer. Many say that empirical evidence of trauma,
individual case studies aside, is simply not there, while health benefits have been
proven time and again.
They cry from rooftops that circumcision is
desirable because it promotes cleanliness and prevents disease. I will NOT
advise any parents to chop off the arms of their babies so that they can clean
the armpits better. We do NOT live in the desert. We shower
daily. It is extremely painful, as anesthesia cannot be used on new born
babies. Circumcision is undoubtedly no picnic in the sunny park for the
poor baby. If the penis gets infected the baby is traumatized for
life.
In USA circumcision has become half over
the past 3 years. The reason is in USA every year on an average 113
babies die from circumcision-related infection. If 20 or 30 babies
died because of a product, that product would be recalled. Why do we
recall things that cause lower numbers of death but keep a surgery that causes
deaths annually? Deaths that could have easily of been avoided if not for the
surgery?
What a great fall from the seventies when
more than 90% of American-born males were circumcised. Routine
infant circumcision for nonreligious reasons is not practiced in first-world
countries except the United States. The Royal Dutch Medical
Association, which expresses the strongest opposition to routine neonatal
circumcision, does not call for the practice to be made illegal out of their
concern that parents who insist on the procedure would turn to poorly trained
quack practitioners instead of medical professionals.
Another article published in the
international medical journal, The Lancet reported that the effect of infant
circumcision pain was irreversible in most cases.
In their report which received much
publicity, the researchers noted that neonatal circumcision may induce long-lasting
changes in infant pain behaviour because of alterations in the infant’s central
neural processing of painful stimuli.
Other negatives of neonatal circumcision
include bleeding, wound infection, scarring, and complications of general and
local anaesthesia.
Poor surgical skills have led to cases of
traumatic injury to the male organ or death.
Last month, people looking to make a quick
buck, allegedly “hijacked” the traditional male circumcision rituals that
killed 36 boys over nine days in South Africa.
“Over the years, this century-old culture
has been slowly corrupted and eroded to give way to commercial interests,”
South Africa’s Health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi told MPs during a debate about
the alarming number of deaths among boys.
Reports say at least 36 young boys died
from hypothermia and haemorrhaging over a period of nine days during the annual
winter school recesses, from May 7 to July 7, when many boys undergo
circumcision to mark the passage into manhood.
At least 28 boys have died at registered
initiation schools in the Mpumalanga province during the circumcision season.
"My experience as a pediatrician has
convinced me that circumcision makes the penis dirtier, a fact that was
confirmed by a study recently published in the British Journal of Urology.1 For
at least a week after circumcision, the baby is left with a large open wound
that is in almost constant contact with urine and feces--hardly a hygienic
advantage. Additionally, throughout life the circumcised penis is open and
exposed to dirt and contaminants of all kinds. The wrinkles and folds that
often form around the circumcision scar frequently harbor dirt and germs.
Thanks to the foreskin, the intact penis is
protected from dirt and contamination. While this important protective function
is extremely useful while the baby is in diapers, the foreskin provides
protection to the glans and urinary opening for a lifetime. At all ages, the
foreskin keeps the glans safe, soft, and clean.
The actual rate of death from
"medical" circumcision is unknown. A rate can be calculated from Gairdner's
paper of one death in 5600 circumcisions, but that was in England in the
1940s, and it must be lower now. Grimes (1978) gave a figure of two
deaths per million, but citing a 1953 study. A Brazilian study finds a
rate of one death in 7692 circumcisions. It is certainly more than one in
1,200,000 since there is on average more than one in the US every year. The
problem is that deaths indirectly due to circumcision, such as that
of Dustin.
Another circumcision death
An 11-day-old boy has died died at UC Davis
Children's Hospital in Sacramento, California, two days after being circumcised
in the nearby town of Lodi.
According to his grandfather, Brayden Tyler
Frazier had been taken to the doctor when he was a week old because he had been
sleeping constantly and not eating. His parents had also noticed that his
neonatal sticks and pricks had not healed quickly, and had to stay bandaged for
two days or more.
The doctor in Lodi sent them home with
instructions to monitor his condition and after two days, he was circumcised.
It was later discovered that the wound had continued to bleed. He was taken
back to the doctor, then to Urgent Care, then to the ER, and then transferred
to UC Davis Medical.
He had "generalized bleeding" and
an unidentified infection.
Over the two days after his circumcision,
he went into seizures and a coma, and died.
Circumcision Deaths
Some babies die of complications of
circumcision.1 There has been a need to assemble information concerning
death from complications of circumcision in one convenient location. This page
is designed to fill that need.
Deaths occur secondary to loss of blood or
systemic infection from the circumcision wound.
A few deaths are reported in the medical
literature.
Other medical literature discusses the frequency
of those deaths.
A few deaths are reported in the popular
press.
There is reason to believe that many deaths
from circumcision are attributed to other causes.
For example, if a baby were to die of
meningitis that was contracted through the circumcision wound, the death may be
attributed to meningitis while ignoring the fact that the baby would not have
had meningitis if he had not been circumcised.
Doctors are highly motivated to conceal the
true cause of circumcision death. Neonatal circumcision has no medical
indication and is now considered to be an
unnecessary7 non-therapeutic8 operation. It is unethical to carry out
such operations on minors who cannot consent for themselves.9
Consequently, most doctors who have a baby
die after a circumcision would prefer to attribute the results of his unethical
operation to secondary causes, such as infection or bleeding, while ignoring
the primary cause, which is the circumcision that resulted in the infection or
bleeding. It is, therefore, very hard to identify the total number of deaths
that occur from circumcision. One senses that one may be seeing only the
"tip of the iceberg," with the vast majority of deaths from
circumcision being concealed. The deaths undoubtedly cause an increase in infant
mortality. Male infant mortality is higher than female infant mortality. It is
not known how much of this increased mortality is due to the practice of male
circumcision.
Several doctors have given estimates of the
number of deaths that occur each year. Douglas Gairdner reported 16-19 actual
deaths a year in England and Wales from neonatal circumcisions in the
1940s.10 Sydney Gellis believed that "there are more deaths from
complications of circumcision than from cancer of the penis.11 There are
various figures for the number of deaths from penile cancer ranging from 200 to
480 deaths per year. Robert Baker estimated 229 deaths per year from
circumcision in the United States.12
There are several case reports of death in
the medical literature. These are deaths from various
infections.2-5,13-15 Sauer reported the death of an 18-day-old infant from
Staphylococcal bronco-pneumonia.5 Hiss et al. reported the death
of an infant in Israel from haemorrhage and hypovolemic shock after ritual
circumcision.21
There are several newspaper accounts of
boys who have died after circumcision. These are from bleeding and from
complications of anesthesia.16-17,19-21,22-36
Several coroner's reports of deaths from
circumcision are known to exist.18 38 Demetrius Manker died from
blood loss in Dade County, Florida on June 23, 1993.18 The coroner's
report on the death of a previously healthy one-month-old infant, Ryleigh Roman
Bryan McWillis, less that 48 hours after his circumcision,24 is available.
Baby Ryleigh died of hypovolemic shock, after exsanguination caused by
hemorrhage at the circumcision wound.38 39 Ryleigh's mother said,
"I unplugged his life support at 5 a.m. on the 22nd of August, one month
and one day after he was born."39
Despite the abundant evidence of death from
circumcision-related-causes, the March 2009 Circumcision Policy
Statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics omitted any mention of
possible death from circumcision-related-causes, thereby helping to keep
American parents uninformed of the possibility of death following
circumcision.
Many African tribes have initation
ceremonies in which a youth or young man is initiated into manhood. The youths
are sent to a camp in a remote area where initiation ceremonies, including
circumcision, take place. The circumcisions are carried out by persons without
medical training. African tribal ritual circumcision produces reports of death
or serious injury every year.28-36, 39,40 The Mail and
Guardian reports seven dead in the Fall of 2003 and a total of 250 dead since
1995.36
Circumcised baby 'almost died'
By LORNA KNOWLES
14 June 2000 Daily Telegraph (Sydney,
Australia)
A SYDNEY GP circumcised 14 infant boys
without adequate anaesthetic and caused one baby to "almost bleed to
death", a tribunal heard yesterday.
Dr Aladdin Matter is accused of
professional misconduct over the circumcisions of the babies, aged from 32 days
to eight months at his Greenacre rooms between March 1996 and July 1998.
The Health Care Complaints Commission
alleges the procedures were contrary to a condition of his registration imposed
by the Medical Board in 1996. The commission alleges in circumcising an
eight-month-old boy, identified as Child N, on May 31 1997, Dr Matter: failed
to provide adequate analgesia or anaesthetic; removed an excessive amount of
the outer foreskin; failed to remove part of the inner foreskin; failed to stop
the bleeding and failed to provide adequate post-operative care. "He
(the baby) was admitted to the New Children's Hospital, having almost bled
to death," Lisa Stapleton for the commission alleged. The
hearing continues.
Ritual Circumcision Causes Death of 30 Boys
in South Africa (GRAPHIC VIDEOS)
The ANC ruling party in South
Africa is calling for a shift to a modern method of male circumcision
after 30 more deaths due to the use of ritual circumcision were reported on
Tuesday.
Our initiation ritual is leading to
genocide, claims African tribal leader as deaths from botched circumcisions
soar
§
In the Eastern Cape, 39 young men have died this year
alone from complications following the procedure
§
Health department looking at setting up clinics to carry
out the operation
Botched circumcision procedures in remote
parts of South Africa are killing young men to such an extent that it has been
labelled 'genocide' by a local health official.
The initiation, from youth to adulthood, is
carried out as a cultural tradition across the country.
But this year alone, 39 young men have died
from unsafe operations in the Eastern Cape, and over the last seven years,
there have been 462 reported deaths.
The problem has reached such crisis levels
that the Eastern Cape's health authority is looking into setting up facilities
manned by surgeons and other medical staff to safely carry out the procedure.
Sizwe Kupelo, spokesman for the EC Health
Department, told Dispatch Online: 'The custom has nothing to do with
an actual surgical procedure, it will remain a custom but it's the cutting of
the boys that is important. How this is done needs to be closely looked at as
some boys are getting infected and ending up in hospital.
'This is very close to genocide,' he said.
THE CAUSE
In the invisible, parallel world of Earth's
they kill half the bacteria in the ocean every day, and invade a microbe host
10 trillion times a second around the world. There are 10 billion
trillion, trillion viruses inhabiting Planet Earth, which is more stars
than are in the Universe -- stacked end to end, they would reach out 100
million light years.
Over tens, hundreds and millions years, our
ancestors have been picking up retroviruses (HIV is a retrovirus) that
reproduce by taking their genetic material and inserting it into our own
chromosomes. There are probably about 100,000 elements in the human genome that
you can trace to a virus ancestor. They make up about 8 percent of our genome,
and genes that encode proteins only make up 1.2 percent of our genome making us
more virus than human.
Occasionally, a retrovirus will end up in a
sperm cell or an egg and insert its genes there, which then may give rise to a
new organism, a new animal, a new person where every cell in that body has got
that virus.
In 2009, MIT researchers have explained why
two mutations in the H1N1 avian flu virus were critical for viral transmission
in humans during the 1918 pandemic outbreak that killed at least 50 million
people -- believed more than that taken by the Black Death, and higher than the
number killed in World War I.
The 1918 flu pandemic -- commonly known as
the Spanish flu -- was an influenza pandemic that started in the
United States, appeared in West Africa and France and then spread to nearly
every part of the globe in three waves lasting from March 1918 to June 1920,
spreading to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. It was caused by an
unusually severe and deadly Influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1.
Microbes have evolved with us over the
millennia, shaping human civilization through infection, disease, and deadly
pandemic. Beginning with a dramatic account of the SARS pandemic at the start
of the 21st century, As our move from hunter-gatherer to farmer to city-dweller
accelerated, we became ever more vulnerable to microbe attack. With
increased crowding and air travel putting us at risk, Crawford wonders whether
we might ever conquer microbes completely, and whether we need a
more microbe-centric view of the world.
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