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An article from yesterday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
"$2.3M awarded in suit over botched circumcision
Monday, March 30, 2009
A Fulton County jury has awarded $1.8 million in damages to a boy whose penis was severed in a botched circumcision.
The state court jury gave another $500,000 to the boy's mother in the decision rendered Friday.
The case involves a child, identified only as D.P. Jr., who was born at South Fulton Medical Center in 2004. In a suit filed two years later, his mother contended that the doctor who circumcised him removed too much tissue and that his pediatrician failed to respond when a nurse complained of excessive bleeding.
The tip of the penis was placed in a biohazard bag and might have been reattached if a urologist had attended to the boy within eight hours, one of the mother's lawyers, David J. Llewellyn of Atlanta, said.
The jury found that both the pediatrician, Dr. Cheryl Kendall, and the physician who performed the circumcision, Dr. Haiba Sonyika, were negligent. South Fulton Medical Center was absolved of liability.
The pediatrician's lawyer, Roger Harris, said he disagreed that the jury's decision indicated that Dr. Kendall was negligent because she didn't go to the hospital. He hinted at an appeal. "We believe there was error committed during the course of the trial," he said.
Dr. Sonyika's lawyer could not be reached for comment.
Llewellyn said the money awarded by the jury is to cover the cost of medical treatments and psychiatric counseling for the boy and his family. The jury did not award punitive damages. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is not naming the mother to avoid identifying the child.
"This case does point out one of the dangers of circumcision that every parent must seriously consider when having the procedure done," Llewellyn said. He contended that parents are not told of the risks of the procedure."
This little boy's parents should have investigated the dangers of neonatal male genital mutilation before allowing the procedure.
When he reaches sexual maturity, no amount of money or psychiatric counseling will ever replace the tip of his penis in functionality.
#1 - Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:55 PM EDTA new or expecting parent should consider the well thought out opinion and well presented facts at SF EXAMINER
Why todays parents are saying no to circumcision
"In the US, most hospital circumcisions are done to the Bris Periah standard of removing every ounce of foreskin and, in a large percentage of cases, some shaft skin).
Foreskin: The foreskin comprises around 50% of the movable skin system of the penis. In fact the average foreskin if spread out, would be about 15 square inches. The average adult foreskin has three to four feet of blood vessels and amazingly between 10,000 and 20,000 specialized erotogenic nerve endings of several types. All of this is removed.
Ridged Band: The ridged band is comprised of soft ridges near where the inner and outer foreskin meet. This is the primary erogenous zone in an intact male penis.
Meissner's Corpuscles: Meissner’s Corpuscles are thousands of coiled fine touch receptors. This is arguably the most important sensory component of the foreskin.
Other losses include:
So while the adult penis "works" when circumcised, it is arguable that it doesn't come close to the experience it is designed for. I was always under the impression just a little extra "flap" of skin was removed -- such an old myth. "
Sorry no links.
Why todays parents are saying no to circumcision
IN SF Examiner April 9.
What risk does a child have of getting an STD? Leave him alone and let HIM decide when he is old enough!!
#2 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 9:22 AM EDTWe share thoughts on this.
Also proper condom use should be taught rather than cutting off part of a boy's penis. A condom is cheap and does a far better job of protecting both partners, not to mention cutting the rate of unplanned pregnancies.
Encouraging wiser selection of partners and discouraging condomless sex with random partners would also go a very long way.
The surgery IN THE USA is now a serious risk. Search MRSA and circumcision. Beth Isreal in Boston has had several bad MRSA problems with circumcised babies. The risks are real, the sexual loss is real and this should not be done to babies. The STD data shows no advantage to circ of babies in US. The rsik of MRSA is higher than getting HIV one's the entire life. A baby died in the UK in 2008 from circumcision wound. Stop this madness. His body his package his choice to have the whole thing.
As a 39 year old getting circumcised soon, I wish my mother had done it to me. I hate foreskin!
#3 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 9:32 AM EDTWell, she certainly had no way of knowing if you'd want it. Now you can make an informed choice.
For every man who decides to have it done by his choice, there are many MANY more who lament having the decision stolen from them and wish it hadn't been done.
For every man who decides as an adult to have this done, there are many MANY more who lament the decision being stolen from them. You have the right and ability to decide. Men circumcised as boys don't.
Circumcision is a fraud. Once again a bad article leaves out that this is the male pleasure zone that is cut off. The health advantages are manufactured.
A first New Zealand study found differences between of STI between circumcised and intact men a second much larger study found STI with the split 23.4% circ and 23.5% “uncircumcised”. If you look on the web the second big real study got little press. This Uganda study with the low % difference is all over the media. The 30% or whatever is from about 10% risk to about 8% risk. A recent US cohort study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases showed only the total number of lifetime sexual partners affected the risk of new (incident) HPV infections and there was no difference in the risk of new (incident) HPV between circumcised and natural men.
In May of 2008 a medical survey showed Uncircumcised (natural) Fared Better as Circumcision appeared to have an effect on rates of genital warts:
* 4 ½% of circumcised men reported having genital warts
* 2.4% of uncircumcised men reported having genital warts-- again in the US.
How do they make such a big deal out of the Uganda Study? Don’t we have data that shows ripping and cutting baby genitals doesn't avoid new HPV infections! Doesn’t the mostly cut USA have quite a bot of HPV?
#4 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 9:35 AM EDTWe only have problems here in the States with issues like HPV because a lot of our people have outdated back-water religious ideas about sex and sexuality.
They're making a big deal out of the only studies that back them up. But it doesn't work to take the stats from a country without wide condom availability and transfer those stats to a country where any Planned Parenthood will hand you a bag of condoms for free regardless of age just for walking in the door.
I'm in my 30s and would like to be circumcised for various reasons but I don't exactly know where to start. Do I just call up my primary care doctor and tell him I want it done? After years of wrestling with it I'm finally ready to take the plunge but don't know how to go about it.
#5 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 9:40 AM EDTIf you contact your family doctor, he/she can refer you to a urologist.
Well, either that or you can get an exacto knife and do it yourself; a couple beers, plenty of band-aids on hand and you're good-to-go.
I'm kidding; call your doctor. Circumcisions are not to be done alone at home. :-D
Hey Josh, I'd lik to hear what you have to say in a year, after you mutilate your penis.
Josh, making sure you know circ. removes 65%-85% of your sexual receptors see Sorrells et al. touch test and John Taylor's Frenulum Delta (and its lost to circ) for functions. Know that keratinization numbs like condoms do.
Before plunging in decide on what type of circ. you want: high/low, tight loose? If it is a matter of wanting the glans exposed, the best circ. then is one that preserves all the sexually erogenous receptors. This is done by doing a sleeve resection at the base of the penis. The scar will be hidden at the pubes. The foreskin will be laid out flat against the shaft by being pulled back. A very competent surgeon is needed, as with any circ., that has done this before because there is the risk of cutting/nicking the dorsal nerve resulting in numbing the end 1/3rd of the penis. here again you have the choice of how loose.
I was cut 60 years ago. And the surgeon or doctor did a botched job of it. It was lop sided, and generally a mess. About 15 years ago, I read that you could streach the skin back, and within 6 months to a year. I now have a foreskin. I have never worried about getting STD or what ever, Because I take good care of myself. and my little friend.... I agree with Scott, let the kid decide on that when he gets older. It's his penis.
#6 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 9:43 AM EDTI think it should be up to each male. He can make an educated decision when he is old enough. It should not be forced upon him.
#7 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 9:45 AM EDTI think the story here is that some US medical professionals are so obsessed with trying to find a purpose for circumcision that they are fudging data and overestimating insignificant facts. The non Africa studies do not show lower HIV rates for cut. Thee last Afruica study was partially funded by our tax dollars and by Bill and Malinda Gates. Odd that this 20 -30 % change of risk (from 10% to 8%) , where cut men used condoms more and cut men certainly did not have sex some of the time is considered at all. In another Gates funded study HIV positive men and their wives showed CIRCUMCISED men were passing HIV to women at a higher rate. But that study was a dead end so they don’t talk about it. The end of course is to promote circumcision. In particular it is to widen the base in the USA. The US, due to the internet was slowly realizing that not only does circ not make you healthy, it can cause all sorts of problems. People also realized (and in the pre-internet days natural men did not talk about it) that circ removes about 20,000 fine touch nerve endings and the most sensitive part of the male genitals. It is like losing your lips or your fingertips. You may ask why do these people push this barbaric ritual as a health practice?
If you had advocated something, and done something to thousands and it was revealed as bad, it is a natural reaction to defend it. This also applies to men that have been cut. NO man wants to hear that there member somehow has a problem. This also applies to mothers that had their son cut. There is this huge body of resistance to natural in the US. People must recognize the obsession of the medical people. None of this data, if it was not cooked up (and it is at least indefinite as condoms, behavior, sex - they did not know everything) is worth ripping and chopping off a baby boys most sensitive part in a developed country that has good water.
Someone said this obsession and this push for mutilation is hate or anti male sexuality, I think it based on embarrassment and an obsession with trying to find a reason to do this amputation. Let us Americans at least ask the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Neonatal [male] Circumcision when they review the policy on circ to have at least one natural male doctor (Someone that knows first hand the joy of these body parts that are amputated) included in the review as well as at least some consideration for the function and make up (thousands of fine touch nerve endings) of these parts. That would be the minimum.
The real story is the obsession (as a UK med said on this story) of American circumcisers trying to keep the practice going in the USA. You see they have skin in this and they want the practice to continue, as otherwise they would be shown to be heinous genital mutilators.
#8 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 9:55 AM EDTThe receptors lost are equal to the receptors in all ten fingertips. An amount equal to the pores of the face.
Intact America: The AAP circumcision review task force is headed by Dr. Susan Blank, an Assistant New York City Health Commissioner in charge of the Bureau of Sexually Transmitted Diseases Prevention and Control. Chapin said Dr. Blank, who has made public comments in support of circumcision, must ensure the AAP considers all factors involved in an honest and open assessment, including underreported but very real risks to the baby including bleeding, surgical error, infection and, in several cases reported recently, even deaths.
Circumcision is nothing more than genital mutilation stemming from silly religious beliefs. I hope as time goes on that more and more people will abandon the practice.
#9 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:00 AM EDTActually the Circumcisions (genital mutilation) that were done for religious purposes were small blood-letting (remember Abraham DID IT TO HIMSELF!!!!) It was a blood brother type of thing that got out of control in the 1500s when some rabbis decided that that Jews were looking too much like the non-Jews (Goyam) and the rabbis (most were doctors)wanted them to be more obviously Jewish! SO- radical cutting of the foreskin became the lastest rage with the Jews...and well everything else is HIS-TORY!
Most MDs were Jewish and they needed to validate why they were mutilating their sons so they made it look medically necessary. I have other ideas about causing pain at birth and control of our population...but I know I sound like a nut case already, so just think about the limbic imprint that this kind of pain causes RIGHT AFTER BIRTH.
And what's the rush? The foreskin protects the sensitivity of the penis LATER IN LIFE! Viagra sales are up...buut not the circumcised penis folks..huummm?
An alien (not someone form overseas), would first find all genital cuttings odd. If asked if the Alien agreed with male cutting (should all boys be circumcised?) the Alien would ask if it is useful for the entity pleasuring itself. That is does the part give one pleasure.
I can answer for males, THE ANSWER IS F yeah.
Welcome to the planet baby boy, we have just removed your main pleasure region. WAAAAAAHHHH.
interesting read from Glick's "Marked in Your Flesh": "that the Lord's covenant and his two definitive promises (prodigious reproduction success and a lavish land grant (all of Canaanite land) appears first in Genesis 15, an earlier J text but with one crucial difference, there is no mention of circumcision." "To seal this covenant the only requirement is that Abram offer several sacrificial animals- a heifer, goat, ram, dove, and one other bird. Here we find no mention of circumcision, no change of name, no mention of Isaac or Ishmael." "Like a number of their neighbors, the ancient Israelites had practiced circumcision, but not as a mandatory rite and probable seldom on infants; nor did they associate it with the idea of covenant."
It was the Judean Priests who wrote Genesis 17 (P text) 13 centuries after Abraham's putative lifetime that called for male circumcision of infants. A initiation rite not so much for the infant but of the father who must circumcise his son himself for he is cognizant of the event whereas the infant is not. These type of circ.s were the cutting off the acroposthion (the part that hangs past the glans). No damage of tearing the foreskin from the glans and no amputating the part covering the glans. The radical circ. like we do happens centuries later. The Torah says not to mark the body, this jives with the earliest Judea.
I dont think that male genital mutilation is the key to stopping the spread sexualy transmitted dieases. Maditory amputation of a body party is a disgustign idea. How about we start funding research of the benifits of female circumcision and watch how out raged people get but its ok to disfigure men? I agree with that people are just trying to justify the ritual butchering of penisis.
#10 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:03 AM EDTThere is evedence that female circumcision lowers HIV infection.
Conclusions: A lowered risk of HIV infection among circumcised women was not attributable to confounding with another risk factor in these data. Anthropological insights on female circumcision as practiced in Tanzania may shed light on this conundrum.
There is evendence that female circumcision lowes HIV infection:
Conclusions: A lowered risk of HIV infection among circumcised women was not attributable to confounding with another risk factor in these data. Anthropological insights on female circumcision as practiced in Tanzania may shed light on this conundrum.
Promoting condom use would got a lot further than any of this. But thanks for the Nazi-Pope saying condoms actually spreads AIDS (what a @!$%#ing idiot), Catholics are even more adamant that condom use be discouraged, no matter the risks.
At the time of creation, men were given a choice - Fore Skin or Fore Thought. Most chose to keep the fore skin, sacrificing fore thought, and leaving that activity to the women of the world.
Sadly, the men demanded that, because they had 2 heads that they be leaders of the community.
Anything will be better than the mess we see now.
#11 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:04 AM EDTLike my father, I am uncircumcised. I was instructed as a child on how to clean my penis when bathing and I have had no problems with my intact penis. I am glad that my foreskin was not removed due to the fact that it adds so much pleasure to intercourse by keeping my penis extrasensitve.
#12 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:05 AM EDTAbsolutely not. I had it done later in life and though I don't regret it if I had it to do over again I wouldn't. We're so oversold on procedures that alter our nature. Such a shame we can't learn to be proud of who and what we are naturally.
#13 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:06 AM EDTI choose circumcision at age 5. Keratinization hit hard during puberty years and certainly felt loss of sensation. Infant circ. tears the foreskin from the glans causing scarring from the cut up to include the tip of the glans. This has been the biggest mistake of my life. Had my doctor said I would loose sensitivity, I would not have done it.
Definitely yes. It makes the blowjob experience better for the receiver and the giver.
#14 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:14 AM EDTThere are more important things here than blow-job pleasure, like infections that come with this procedure, and I guess you don't realize that the foreskin makes the head more sensitive by preventing it from rubbing against fabric of your clothing and toughening up. Since your view is about pleasure, not being circumcised is more pleasurable due to the sensitivity.
If you ever blew, you would notice that some heads are rougher than others. An intact head is slippery cool. Rough sucks in itself and is caused by tearing off the foreskin from the glans just like tearing the nails from the finger. 4% infant circs. already have natural glans separation so are slippery not rough.
Absolutely yes. It makes the blowjob experience much better for the receiver and the giver.
#15 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:16 AM EDTthere are so many 'intelligent design' and 'darwinian evolution' advocates who believe that their cause is better - why cant reason out that if circumcision was needed, then intelligent designer GOD or evolutionary force would have eliminated it. this is one of hte abrahamic practices from thousands of years ago being done for no reason.
i have not been and if i beget a son, i will ensure that he is not circumsized.
#16 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:17 AM EDTThen what about the appendix and the remnants of a nictitating membrane in the human eye?
The appendix has been shown to provide a safe haven for bacteria that is used to repopulate your digestive tract after infection or antibiotics.
Just because we haven't figured out 100% of human biology, it's no excuse for the mutilation of infant genitals.
Why not give teen girls mastecotmies and wipe out breast cancer? It's a very common disease and breasts don't really servce any useful purpose since baby formula has been perfected.
#17 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:18 AM EDTGood point. And btw - amputation of the penis would result in near 100% prevention of STDs. Why not do that? Sperm can be retreived from the testes and everyone can be artificially inseminated.
And let's remove the clitoral hood while we're at it and lower STDs there too. You know, rather than encourage condom use, which will also help prevent unplanned pregnancies.
I read a study on why so many people circumcise boys and not girls. Mutilating girls has never been wide-spread outside of a few small areas, unlike circumcision. Making the decision to NOT mutilate a boy can make many men feel on the subconscious level that there is something wrong with themselves, so opt to have their babies cut up to feel better about what happened to themelves.
I agree with Jackno! He's obviously done his homework.
CIRC IS TORTURE! Watch a video of one and you'll agree. My husb and two sons aren't circ'd. My husb and his family aren't circ'd and none of them have had a problem with it. I will be honest with my sons about HIV and sex - just like I would if I had girls and/or circ'd boys. They will have to be responsible, like their father and I have been.
And, zivo24: my husband's penis doesn't look "untidy" - but I'm sure a lopsided or botched circ would definitely look "untidy." It looks natural, like a penis should look. It's a nice size, too - it doesn't look small. I'm not just saying that 'cause I'm super-biased, either ; )
There are a lot of body parts we don't "need" - no reason to go removing them at birth!
#18 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:22 AM EDTWash, don't amputate
#19 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:24 AM EDT
Agreed. My husband and I decided before we were even married that we would not circumcise any of our future children. We will have to make an extra effort to teach the boys to wash themselves in the bathtub, but I would rather have to teach them then to cut off a piece of their body.
NO, all males should NOT be circumcised (MUTILATED)! It should not even be an option at birth. Later on in life, once the male reaches a certain age, he can make his own decision as to whether or not he wants this done. Or if somebody is prone to infections, etc., and it's medically necessary, then it can be done. But as for taking a healthy newborn baby and mutilating his body is completely ridiculous! And if parents are too lazy/stupid to teach a young boy how to practice proper hygiene down there, then they should be arrested for child neglect!
#20 - Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:25 AM EDTCompletely agree, the hygiene debate is laughable and shows extreme ignorance. What if we eliminate the irresponsible uneducated people foolishly having unprotected sex, spreading these diseases? What would be the benefit then? Absolutely nothing.
I have four boys and none are circumsized, even though I am.
Excellent post. Thank you.
same goes for fluoridation vs brushing teeth!
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If I had to do it over again on my two boys I would not do it. I figure, the tip is always exposed and the males lose their sensitivity.