Good News From Israel

HERE'S something I was glad to see in my Facebook news feed today.

Baruch Hashem!

Link to the actual article in the Forward can be accessed here.

REPOST: Preemptive Heart Surgery - A Thought Experiment

Hey there, readers... It's been a while.

Happy New Year, by the way.

I'm still here, but life gets in the way of my intactivism.

I wish I had more time to devote to this. If could, I'd be here 24/7.

Unfortunately, I'm not so blessed when it comes to time and money. I have to go to work to support a family like a lot of you.

Perhaps one day I'll have more time to devote to this important cause.

For now, I'd like to repost a thought experiment I saw on Facebook.

When I read it, it reaffirmed to me just how fucked up doctors pushing male infant genital mutilation as "medicine" really is.

Until the next time, stay safe.

All the best for a happy and prosperous 2018.

Thought Experiment - Preemptive Heart Surgery

Imagine you went to your doctor for a routine check-up. Your doctor becomes concerned and tells you, you immediately need heart surgery. There is no second to waste. He tells you the longer you wait, the riskier and more complicated the surgery will become.

You go under the knife the next day.

You wake up with a huge scar in the middle of your chest and a new pacemaker.

Now imagine you find out you didn't actually need that surgery. The surgery was 100% optional and there were much simpler and safer ways to maintain your good health.

The doctor shrugs off your concerns. "Well I suppose it wasn't strictly speaking, 'necessary.' You could have been cured by simply cutting down on red meat and going for a walk once a week. But I figured you wouldn't be responsible enough to do that. And since I decided you wouldn't be responsible enough, I decided it would be better to go through surgery now rather than later when you might really need it."

How mad would you be?

Think about that. Think about your response. You bear a permanent scar on your body and your heart is forever changed just because one person thought you wouldn't be responsible enough to maintain your own body and health.

Wouldn't you feel mutilated? Wouldn't you feel forever violated?

Now look to the circumcised men and children in your life. Can you really explain to them why they needed surgery to alter their genitals when they could have been better protected by simply learning the correct (and much easier) way to bathe?

Surgery, when there are easier and safer ways to attain the same or better result is unethical, and is in fact, criminal.

Routine Infant Circumcision is not ethical.

Circumcision Censorship at Twitter?

I've been very active on Twitter recently (@Joseph4GI if you're interested).

All had been going more or less very well.

That is until this morning, when I tried posting the following:

The first time I tried posting this was on my phone, but I kept getting the error message "We're sorry, something went wrong. Please try again in a minute."

I must have kept trying for about a half an hour, when I realized something was wrong.

Then I went to my tablet and tried re-typing my message and posting there.

Same deal.

Finally, I went to my PC and tried posting again.

This time, I only get the message "Sorry, something went wrong."

Then I take the above screen shot and tweet that.

That went through just fine.

I try retyping the above tweet again, and I get the same error message.

I think something is amiss, and I'd like to know what it is.

FACEBOOK: Two Close Calls on my News Feed

Just posting the latest tragedies, or near-tragedies that surfaced on my Facebook news feed.

(Unless there is medical or clinical indication, all male infant circumcision is a tragedy.)

First up, another story where a child nearly bleeds to death. The child is put in the NICU and the doctors had to cauterize the wound to stop the bleeding.

Another child turns black and blue, and is given urine retention problems by his circumcision. Apparently, the boy's bladder had to be drained with a neonatal feeding tube as a catheter.

This happened at Dothan, Alabama.

The poster "doesn't know what they did to cause these issues" (Really? You don't think the fact that the child was needlessly circumcised had ANYTHING to do with it?), but apparently the child now has iatrogenically induced UTI at 4 days old.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

I say these things every time I post tragic stories on here.

The risks of male infant circumcision include infection, partial or full ablation, hemorrhage and even death.

Unless there is medical or clinical indication, circumcision is purely cosmetic, non-medical surgery.

Under any other circumstance, reaping profit from performing non-medical procedures on healthy, non-consenting minors constitutes medical fraud.

Being an elective, non-medical procedure, any risk is unconscionable.

In 2012, the AAP admitted in their circumcision policy statement that the true rate of circumcision risrks is unknown.

What I post here are only stories that have surfaced on Facebook, but doctors and hospitals are not required to report on adverse circumcision outcomes, doctors have financial incentives to misatribute deaths and complications due to circumcision to something else, and parents agree to be complicite to hide their shame.

The risks and complications of circumcision are real, and it should concern Americans that organizations like the AAP are not interested in documenting them.

List of Deaths and Complications Documented on This Blog:
FACEBOOK: Another Baby Fighting For His Life Post Circumcision

MADERA, CA: Another Circumcision Complication

CIRCUMCISION BOTCH: Another Post-Circumcision Hemorrhage Case Surfaces on Facebook

LAW SUIT: Child Loses "Significant Portion" of Penis During Circumcision

CIRCUMCISION BOTCHES: Colombia and Malaysia

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: This Time in Russia

FACEBOOK: KENTUCKY - Botched Circumcision Gives Newborn Severe UTI

FACEBOOK: Circumcision Sends Another Child to NICU - This Time in LA

GEORGIA: Circumcision Sends a Baby to the NICU

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: This Time in Italy

FACEBOOK NEWS FEED: A Complication and a Death

INTACTIVISTS: Why We Concern Ourselves

MALE INFANT CIRCUMCISION: Another Baby Boy Dies

CIRCUMCISION: Another Baby Dies

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: Yet Another One (I Hate Writing These)

Another Circumcision Death Comes to Light

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: Yes, Another One - This Time in Israel

FACEBOOK: Two Botches and a Death

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: Child Dies After Doctor Convinces Ontario Couple to Circumcise

ONTARIO CIRCUMCISION DEATH: The Plot Thickens

Joseph4GI: The Circumcision Blame Game

Phony Phimosis: How American Doctors Get Away With Medical Fraud

FACEBOOK: Two More Babies Nearly Succumb to Post Circumcision Hemorrhage

FACEBOOK: Another Circumcision Mishap - Baby Hemorrhaging After Circumcision

What Your Dr. Doesn't Know Could Hurt Your Child

FACEBOOK: Child in NICU After Lung Collapses During Circumcision

EMIRATES: Circumcision Claims Another Life

BabyCenter Keeping US Parents In the Dark About Circumcision

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Circumcision Claims Another Life

TEXAS: 'Nother Circumcision Botch

New York Herpes Circumcision Problem:
NYC: More Herpes Circumcision Cases Since de Blasio Lifted Metzitzah B'Peh Regulations

BUSTED: Agudath Israel of America's Antics Revealed

NEW STUDY: Ultra-Orthodox Mohels Don't Give Babies Herpes

NEW YORK: Two More Herpes Babies, One With HIV

NEW YORK: Metzitzah: Two mohelim stopped after babies get herpes

NEW YORK: Yet Another Herpes Baby

Rabbis Delay NYC's Metzitzah B'Peh Regulations - Meanwhile, in Israel...

While PACE Holds a Hearing on Circumcision, Another Baby Contracts Herpes in NYC

Israel Ahead of New York in Recommending Against Metzitzah B'Peh

New York: Oral Mohel Tests Positive for Herpes

Herpes Circumcision Babies: Another One? Geez!

Mohels Spreading Herpes: New York Looks the Other Way

Circumcision Indicted in Yet Another Death: Rabbis and Mohels are "Upset"

Related Post:

INTACTIVISTS: Why We Concern Ourselves

"American Circumcision" Wins Best Documentary Film Award at the Lone Star Film Festival

It had been a long time coming.

When I first heard of this film, it was in the making, and I was excited to know that yet another film was being made to raise awareness of the issue that is male infant circumcision, this time focusing on secular circumcision as it is performed by doctors on male infants in America.

The first such film that I ever heard of and I followed was CUT: The Film, by Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon, which examines the subject of male circumcision from a religious, scientific and ethical perspective.

Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon wearing tefillin in protest against the latest AAP Statement

The particular thing about Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon is that grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home, and he criticizes the practice of male infant circumcision as a Jewish male.

This time, the film "American Circumcision" is a film written by a secular, non-Jewish male, who criticizes male infant circumcision as it is practiced in America; 80% of American males are circumcised from birth, and they are overwhelmingly non-Jewish males circumcised at hospitals by doctors.

When I first mentioned Brendon Marotta and his film to other intactivists, their reactions weren't very encouraging.

The reactions tended to be something along the lines of:

"Oh that guy? He's been saying he has a film in the work for years. I wish him the best, but he keeps saying he's about to release his film every year and nothing."

My heart sank.

Something inside me told me that I should still root for this film, though I should not hold my breath.

I joined the relevant groups on Facebook and even became friends with Brendon Marotta on there. Sure enough, updates that the film was "almost finished" always found their way on my news feed. I very recently joined Twitter, where I noticed there was a profile for Brendon, his film and every thing.

As on Facebook, I kept seeing updates that the film was "almost finished," and that they were just getting ready to release it. Little by little, these updates began to blend in with the background as I started to tune them out.

That is, until my eyes caught an update that not only was the film screened at the Lone Star Film Festival, "American Circumcision" won the Best Documentary Film Award!!!

Brendon Marotta holding the Lone Star Film Festival Best Documentary Film Award.

 I couldn't believe my eyes. Could it be true?

I waited for a little longer, and this news was followed by Tweet after Tweet of congratulations, and finally a personal note on his experience with the film's reception.

The screening of @circmovie at #LSFF was truly incredible. People laughed at the right parts, cried deeply at others, and some even stood to applaud at the end. Full theater, great screening.

— Brendon Marotta (@bdmarotta) November 13, 2017

That's when I decided this news warranted a blog post, especially since the film is scheduled to be screened again at the Social Justice Film Festival in Seattle, Washington, this Sunday, November 19th, appropriately International Men's Day.

And so with this blog post I shout out to Brendon Marotta; congratulation on the completion of your film, and on receiving the Best Documentary Film Award. Your long hours of patient, hard work have paid off. I wish your film much success. May thousands be reached as a result of your work.

Readers interested in viewing the film at the Social Justice Film Festival can purchase admission tickets here. I include the trailer below:

External links:
Official American Circumcision Film Website

Official Social Justice Film Festival Website

#LSFF #SocialJustice #FilmFestival #InternationalMensDay #i2

Pulmonologists May Query Child Circumcision Status

Just as I logged onto Facebook today, I was notified that somebody tagged me in a post.

It took me to this. (Original poster's name has been blanked for privacy.)

Apparently, somebody has referenced one of my blog posts and used it to reference yet another possible risk or complication of male infant circumcision.

Here is the text from the Facebook post:

"My son's pulmonologist asked me if he was circumcised. (He's not) When I asked him how that was relevant he replied "Circumcision can cause a lung embolism" I said "He's almost NINE! Wouldn't that have happened during, or sholtly after the circumcision?" He said "Not at all. The trauma of circumcision can show up years, possibly DECADES, later. People never want to see the connection."

Of course, this is only from a post on Facebook and I need more sources to confirm that doctors are asking this, but the point is, this could be yet another adverse effect from an elective, non-medical procedure.

One can only hope the AAP is keeping an eye out.

And perhaps they are, but only to cover the backsides of their members, a great majority of whom profit from the procedure.

Related Post: 
Drs. May Ask If Baby Is Circumcised for a Hearing Test - Here's Why

RESEARCH: Male Infant Circumcision Named a Possible SIDS Factor

Intactivists have always known that death is one of the risks of circumcision, much to the chagrin of circumcision advocates who always try to minimize it, if not completely pretend like it's not even there.

The problem with coming up with an accurate number for the risk factor of death from circumcision is that no one is counting, and people have incentive, financial, religious, cultural or otherwise, to keep from counting.

Financial Incentive
1.3 million babies are circumcised annually, and it brings a pretty penny to doctors who perform it, and hospitals who provide male infant circumcision as a service.

Doctors can charge anywhere from $400.00 to $700.00, maybe even more per head, and, at least in Alaska, hospitals can charge up to $2,000.00 in fees.

A malpractice lawsuit for a botch or death due to circumcision would not only cost doctors and hospitals millions, it could mean that respected medical organizations like the AAP would be compelled to condemn the practice, which is such a relatively simple procedure and an easy money maker.

Doctors and hospitals are not required to release this information, and it's not like medical organizations, some with a majority of members who profit from circumcision, are demanding it either.

To cover their tracks, doctors and hospitals may attribute the death caused by a circumcision to secondary causes, such as "hemorrhage" or "septic shock."

Additionally, parents who suffer guilt and regret for signing the consent forms are easily complicit in keeping their child's death under wraps.

"It's difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." ~Upton Sinclair

Religious Conviction
Male infant circumcision is a closely safe-guarded possession in some religious communities, where the practice of male infant circumcision as a holy sacrament has been under attack for millennia.

Particularly in ultra-orthodox Jewish communities, members have been known to react with hostility when the practice and those who perform it come under scrutiny.

Particularly in New York, male infant circumcision as performed in ultra-orthodox Jewish community has been under the microscope after it has been discovered that mohels (ritual circumcisers) are spreading herpes to babies.

In ultra-orthodox Jewish circumcision, the ritual circumciser sucks the freshly circumcised child's penis directly with his mouth in a ritual procedure known as "metzitzah b'peh".

Some babies have died with herpes as the cause, and still many others have been infected.

When investigators have gone to find details, community members have been known to work together to protect the identities of those involved.

Fear of the Anti-Semite Card
As circumcision is the sensitive issue that it is, gathering data on adverse outcomes and effects of male infant circumcision could be ipso-facto be seen as "anti-Semitic" or "an attack on Judaism," so scientists and researchers may choose to ignore it in order to stay clear of controversy.

Instead of noting deaths and adverse outcomes, doctors and researchers may choose to say that circumcision is a "parental choice," shirking their onus of professional responsibility, and placing it on parents instead.

The recent publication of a research paper on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) factors in a medical journal might be a sign that times are changing, however.

Where No Researcher Has Gone Before
Whereas there have been a few attempts to come up with an estimate on deaths due to male infant circumcision, given the above factors, the numbers anyone can come up with are modest estimates at best.

And while most of these attempts merely attempt to count deaths due to circumcision,  in a recently published article, the authors make the bold move of going as far as to name male infant circumcision as a factor for SIDS.

Other factors, such as preterm birth, non-urgent pediatric surgeries and skin-breaking procedures are mentioned, but entire sections are dedicated to male infant circumcision.

I don't have the time to type a long, drawn-out post as I'd like to, so I'm just going to copy/paste relevant excerpts here.

From the abstract:

 We argue that the important characteristics of SIDS, namely male predominance (60:40), the significantly different SIDS rate among USA Hispanics (80% lower) compared to whites, 50% of cases occurring between 7.6 and 17.6 weeks after birth with only 10% after 24.7 weeks, and seasonal variation with most cases occurring during winter, are all associated with common environmental stressors, such as neonatal circumcision and seasonal illnesses.

From "Background"

Neonatal Circumcision

...

In North America, ~1.2 million male infants are circumcised every year (58) often within the first 2 days of life (59). Although not requiring general anesthesia, circumcision is an intensively painful procedure requiring adequate analgesia (60). Circumcision is associated with intraoperative and postoperative risks, including bleeding, shock, sepsis, circulatory shock, and hemorrhage (61–63) that can result in death (63, 64).

This part of the paper doesn't hold back and outright names the known risks and complications, complete with citations.

Infant deaths following religious neonatal circumcision have been known for at least two millennia (65). Talmud (the central text of Rabbinic Judaism) sages ruled in the first centuries A.D. that mothers with two children who have died following the surgery should receive an exemption from circumcising their infants. During the nineteenth century, developments in medical knowledge on one hand and the rise of Jewish “Enlightenment” on the other hand, brought many Jews to reject the authority of the Talmud and with that the practice of circumcision. A new wave of accusations toward Jewish circumcisers (mohels) and rabbis of infant deaths following circumcision soon appeared and prompted community leaders to appeal to the governing authorities to forbid this practice – efforts that were countered by rabbis’ threats to ban the admission of uncircumcised Jewish children from Jewish schools. The fierce arguments about the necessity of the procedure last to this day and led many Jews to opt their infants out of the procedure, including Theodor Herzl, one of the fathers of modern political Zionism (66).

Here, the authors don't shy away from talking about Judaism and death due to circumcision, even ritual circumcision as recorded in Jewish texts.

This is important, because often, Jewish advocates of circumcision like to say how much "safer" male infant circumcision is when a Jewish practitioner performs it.

Here we see that death due to circumcision is documented, and that children die, even when mohels are the ones performing it.

In the UK, Gairdner (67) estimated an annual rate of 16 per 100,000 circumcision-associated deaths for boys under 1-year old in a study that influenced the British government to exclude circumcision coverage from the National Health Service. Remarkably, the SIDS rates in the UK (0.38 per 1000) are much lower than in the USA (0.55 per 1000) (10) where most male infants are circumcised (58). Moreover, most of the deaths in the USA occur in non-Hispanic blacks (83% higher death rate compared with non-Hispanic whites). SIDS rates were 44% lower for Hispanics compared with non-Hispanic whites (68). Interestingly the circumcision rates among Hispanics are about half that of the two other groups (69).

Interesting observations!

This section goes into a lot more detail that I really don't have time to get into here (for this I encourage my readers to go read the paper itself right here), but I feel this last section warrants copy/pasting:

To date, circumcision in the USA, despite being the most common pediatric surgery, has not been subjected to the same systematic scientific scrutiny looking at immediate and delayed adverse effects, including pain [e.g., Ref. (112)], nor has circumcision status been included as part of a thorough SIDS investigation/registry or analyses [e.g., Ref. (2)] in spite of the male predominance of both neonatal circumcision and SIDS. However, based on assessment of risk of harms versus benefit, despite the latter including decreased risk of urinary tract infection (113), the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the British Medical Association, the Canadian Paediatric Society (87), and several west European medical societies have recommended against routine neonatal circumcision (114), arguing that the benefits of circumcision to children are minimal, non-existent, or outweighed by the risks, and that circumcision is thereby unwarranted. The AAP’s recommendation in favor of this routine (115) has been widely criticized [e.g., Ref. (116)].

This reiterates what I have been saying on my blog all along; at least in the US, no one wants to look at the adverse affects of circumcision and document them. Circumcision is often ignored as a factor in many studies.

We intactivists have been saying it all along, but there is not a single respected medical organization in the West that recommends male infant circumcision based on the current body of medical literature.

The author seems to be oblivious of the fact that the AAP didn't actually recommend male infant circumcision in their 2012 statement, instead saying that "the benefits are not great enough" to recommend male infant circumcision, and shirking professional responsibility on parents instead.

Before concluding, the authors make the three following testable predictions:

1. Neonatal Circumcision is a Risk Factor for SIDS
2. Neonatal Circumcision Accounts for a Large Fraction of the Gender Bias in SIDS
3. Circumcised Premature Infants are at High Risk

Conclusion
It's one thing to come up with a hypothesis and make predictions, and it's quite another to test it to see if the predictions are accurate or not.

Something tells me that there is still going to be some time before researchers actually go through testing this hypothesis, as they may yet feel inhibited by the implications of doing so.

No doubt there are going to be circumcision advocates that are already trying to attack this paper any which way possible, but I hope that the publication of this paper is only the beginning, and that more and more scientists get bold about calling out the elephant in the room that is circumcision, and about going through with testing hypotheses such as this one, and going through with publishing their collected data for all to see.


List of Deaths and Complications Documented on This Blog:
FACEBOOK: Another Baby Fighting For His Life Post Circumcision

MADERA, CA: Another Circumcision Complication

CIRCUMCISION BOTCH: Another Post-Circumcision Hemorrhage Case Surfaces on Facebook

LAW SUIT: Child Loses "Significant Portion" of Penis During Circumcision

CIRCUMCISION BOTCHES: Colombia and Malaysia

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: This Time in Russia

FACEBOOK: KENTUCKY - Botched Circumcision Gives Newborn Severe UTI

FACEBOOK: Circumcision Sends Another Child to NICU - This Time in LA

GEORGIA: Circumcision Sends a Baby to the NICU

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: This Time in Italy

FACEBOOK NEWS FEED: A Complication and a Death

INTACTIVISTS: Why We Concern Ourselves

MALE INFANT CIRCUMCISION: Another Baby Boy Dies

CIRCUMCISION: Another Baby Dies

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: Yet Another One (I Hate Writing These)

Another Circumcision Death Comes to Light

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: Yes, Another One - This Time in Israel

FACEBOOK: Two Botches and a Death

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: Child Dies After Doctor Convinces Ontario Couple to Circumcise

ONTARIO CIRCUMCISION DEATH: The Plot Thickens

Joseph4GI: The Circumcision Blame Game

Phony Phimosis: How American Doctors Get Away With Medical Fraud

FACEBOOK: Two More Babies Nearly Succumb to Post Circumcision Hemorrhage

FACEBOOK: Another Circumcision Mishap - Baby Hemorrhaging After Circumcision

What Your Dr. Doesn't Know Could Hurt Your Child

FACEBOOK: Child in NICU After Lung Collapses During Circumcision

EMIRATES: Circumcision Claims Another Life

BabyCenter Keeping US Parents In the Dark About Circumcision

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Circumcision Claims Another Life

TEXAS: 'Nother Circumcision Botch

 

New York Herpes Circumcision Problem:
NYC: More Herpes Circumcision Cases Since de Blasio Lifted Metzitzah B'Peh Regulations

BUSTED: Agudath Israel of America's Antics Revealed

NEW STUDY: Ultra-Orthodox Mohels Don't Give Babies Herpes

NEW YORK: Two More Herpes Babies, One With HIV

NEW YORK: Metzitzah: Two mohelim stopped after babies get herpes

NEW YORK: Yet Another Herpes Baby

Rabbis Delay NYC's Metzitzah B'Peh Regulations - Meanwhile, in Israel...

While PACE Holds a Hearing on Circumcision, Another Baby Contracts Herpes in NYC

Israel Ahead of New York in Recommending Against Metzitzah B'Peh

New York: Oral Mohel Tests Positive for Herpes

Herpes Circumcision Babies: Another One? Geez!

Mohels Spreading Herpes: New York Looks the Other Way

Circumcision Indicted in Yet Another Death: Rabbis and Mohels are "Upset"

Related Posts:

Politically Correct Research: When Science, Morals and Political Agendas Collide