Circumcise my baby boy?

[Irieguy]

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I was born in Europe, and of course so was much of my family and many friends. Not a one of them has had a problem of any kind, nor have I, nor has anyone they've ever heard of.

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I would hope, for the sake of your family and friends, that this method of estimating pathologic incidence would deem many medical conditions "not a realistic concern."

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I'm not sure what kind of a statistic 2% to 8% is. It leaves a wider margin for error than for clarity.

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When incidence ranges are listed in the medical literature, they are usually taken from individual published studies. So if you search the Cochran database on phimosis, you can find studies listing an incidence of 2%, and studies listing an incidence of 8%. The true incidence can't have a range, of course, but our ability to estimate the true incidence is limited by the design and statistical power of the individual attmepts to measure it. It is likely that the "true" incidence is somewhere in between. The fact that a range in reported incidence exists is not unique to this pathology. In fact, it would be found in the literature regarding any pathology about which there is more than one published study.

In any event, it is certainly common enough to warrant mention since I have seen it and treated it. Nobody that I treated was a family member or friend, nor were they somebody that my family or friends had ever heard of.

Irieguy

[Blarg]

It certainly does. I don't think anybody travels to Haiti to make decisions like this. Inventing problems and then solving them with a knife isn't a good enough idea to be helped by all the Haitians and statistics in the world.

[The Yugoslavian]

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This is not a country with scant medical care.

I was born in Europe, and of course so was much of my family and many friends. Not a one of them has had a problem of any kind, nor have I, nor has anyone they've ever heard of. And believe it or not, yes, the discussion has come up, and more than once. Because we marvel at the American paranoia about being uncircumcised, which is properly regarded in the rest of the world as a sort of intractably perverse joke.

I'm not sure what kind of a statistic 2% to 8% is. It leaves a wider margin for error than for clarity.

I am echoing one of your original points, which seems to have somehow gotten short shrift -- there is no compelling medical reason for circumcision.

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While obviously this isn't your only beef with Irie's initial comments on circumcision, it would seem you're out of your element in a discussion involving statistics....

As for the rest of your beef, in a very general sense, it seems you are very opposed to circumcision (which is fine I guess) and are misplacing it on what Irie has said. I don't think Irie thinks going one way or the other on the issue is necessary and is objectively stating some of the most important aspects to take into account for the decision.

It's weird seeing you so quickly disagree with so much of what an actual expert says about a subject when your posts, by and large, are so well thought out and take on an objective tone.

If it matters at all I can vouch for Irie's profession. It's not like he's making any of this stuff up.

Yugoslav

[Blarg]

I think you misunderstand the direction of the discussion entirely. I've never doubted Irie's profession nor do I think it relevant. Nor is anyone's profession a guarantee that anyone else should agree with their every opinion.

The discussion is about choices and how sensible those choices are. About that, Irie has seemingly contradicted himself, asserting first that there is no medical necessity for circumcision, yet then stating that a 2% to 8% chance of phimosis is reason enough. Which is it?

The fact that Irie seems to change horses midstream, and without even noticing it, suggests that other things are at work here. Indeed, he lists them, even repetively, and they are about a presumed social value of circumcision, or its value in preventing sexual rejection, which seems highly speculative and is indeed refuted by the responses from uncircumcised posters who have never experienced these problems. In these social matters, Irie is out of his depth as much as I am in medical matters.

He was right the first time, before he tried extending his argument -- there is no medical necessity for circumcision. After that he fell out of his realm of expertise. And stated some speculative ideas that some others don't agree with, and in personal life haven't seen born out, including me.

[Rick Nebiolo]

Several years ago I used to occasionally listen to a radio talk show on medical issues hosted by Dr. Dean Adell. Circumcision came up more than once. In a nutshell he said it wasn't needed for health, cleanliness or any other medical reasons and that men that didn't have it had better and more enjoyable sex lives (although thinking about a son's sex life might seem sort of weird [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]).

Amazingly it took me a while to find a link but here's one. From that article there are other links that I'm too tired to read.

~ Rick

No. Trauma issues.

[diebitter]

This thread has just reminded me of a really fat guy I used to go to school with (he looked like Oliver Hardy with a shave). He used to bang on about being circumsized a lot, and used to act like he was gifted cos he'd read girls prefer it, cos it's 'cleaner'.


hehehe

[wacki]

On the other hand men who are uncircumsized are much much more likely to contract HIV. Would provide link but I have to study.....

Still, I'm starting to wish I didn't get the "snip".

DAMN YOU RICK NEBIOLO!

EDIT: I'd like to see that paper as I know there are plenty of bad ones out there. I'm not familiar with that journal. I'll have to ask my sister since she's a MD.

[wacki]

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I agree with Dex

I say leave the poor little baby's thingy alone. Mother nature gave him a foreskin for a reason right? Poor baby.

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I have to ask, have you had experience with both?

[Ulysses]

I don't really have an opinion either way on the OP's question. I just wanted to chime in to say that I'm really surprised at how many of you guys have seen your dad's dicks.