Difference between revisions of "Medically necessary circumcision"
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| + | Routine infant circumcision is carried out on non-consenting infant boys. Even informed proponents of circumcision do not claim that it is actually necessary when it is undertaken on infants. It is widely reported in the medical literature that some proportion of men do actually require circumcision as a corrective procedure. Determining how often this is the case is complicated by a number of factors: |
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| − | Finding an answer to that question is complicated by the fact that the medical fraternity in many nations have been unwilling to consider alternatives and that stretching the foreskin early can cause problems which are then used as a justification for circumcision. |
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| + | * The medical fraternity in many nations have been unwilling to consider alternatives to circumcision. |
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| + | * Circumcision is incentivised in some nations as doctors and hospitals receive a significant revenue stream from the procedure. |
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| + | * Stretching the foreskin too early, usually as a result of ignorance, can cause problems which are then used as a justification for circumcision. |
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| ⚫ | Research suggests that 95% of cases of phimosis can be treated with topical steroidal cream and stretching exercises, correcting in only a few weeks. Various other non-surgical treatments exist and if those fails there are even surgical procedures less invasive then circumcision such as the 'dorsal slit'. |
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What we can say is that after considering all the surgical and non-surgical alternatives a case where circumcision is truly necessary should be extremely rare today. Advances in medical science should make it rarer still in the future. |
What we can say is that after considering all the surgical and non-surgical alternatives a case where circumcision is truly necessary should be extremely rare today. Advances in medical science should make it rarer still in the future. |
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Revision as of 15:39, 5 May 2020
Routine infant circumcision is carried out on non-consenting infant boys. Even informed proponents of circumcision do not claim that it is actually necessary when it is undertaken on infants. It is widely reported in the medical literature that some proportion of men do actually require circumcision as a corrective procedure. Determining how often this is the case is complicated by a number of factors:
- The medical fraternity in many nations have been unwilling to consider alternatives to circumcision.
- Circumcision is incentivised in some nations as doctors and hospitals receive a significant revenue stream from the procedure.
- Stretching the foreskin too early, usually as a result of ignorance, can cause problems which are then used as a justification for circumcision.
Research suggests that 95% of cases of phimosis can be treated with topical steroidal cream and stretching exercises, correcting in only a few weeks. Various other non-surgical treatments exist and if those fails there are even surgical procedures less invasive then circumcision such as the 'dorsal slit'. What we can say is that after considering all the surgical and non-surgical alternatives a case where circumcision is truly necessary should be extremely rare today. Advances in medical science should make it rarer still in the future.
in the study below you can see that many nations report a circumcision rate of 0.1% or one in 1000 men. Notably, these nations represent populations from a diverse range of ethnicities which may rule out variance among ethnicities. Given that these nations will still have populations that engage in routine infant circumcision and that they may not be using all available alternatives this number may represent an upper bound on the proportion of men that actually need to be circumcised. I propose therefore that less than one man in 1000 will need to be circumcised given current medical knowledge and that the rate may be significantly lower than that. [1]
The Finnish National Board of Health found in the 1970s that 0.023% of men over 15 required treatment for phimosis or paraphimosis. Even if we assume that all of them required circumcision this is still an extraordinarily low rate, and it is likely that only a proportion of them required circumcision.[2]