h a l f b a k e r yWhat's a nice idea like yours doing in a place like this?
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Recent large studies have shown that circumcision lowers the rate of STDs (link). These studies were done with men who were not circumcised at the outset, and for whom poverty or proclivity apparently makes condoms a less satisfactory method of STD prevention.
But what of the man who is already circumcised?
Can he not benefit from these scientific findings? Perhaps he can - with recircumcision! If a little is good, maybe less is better! I was recently made aware that the recircumcision procedure exists. It is not a matter to research at work. Suffice it to say it can be done. I propose that a trial similar to that already done for circumcision be done for recicrumcision, to learn what protection it adds over a single circumcision.
It may be that the incremental protection provided by 1,2, 3 and more circumcisions could be plotted on a graph, such that for a man disinclined to use condoms, one could predict the optimal number of circumcisions to achieve a desired level of STD protection.
Circumcision for STD protection
http://www.nytimes....7c5bac74&ei=5087%0A
[bungston, Mar 27 2009]
Wikipedia: Foreskin restoration
http://en.wikipedia...oreskin_restoration
[jutta, Mar 27 2009]
Wikipedia: Effects of circumcision on STD transmissions
http://en.wikipedia...ransmitted_diseases
Weakly in favor, but lots of conflicting studies / meta studies. [jutta, Mar 27 2009]
Call for higher circumcision rate
http://news.bbc.co..../health/7960798.stm
Dr Colm O'Mahony, a sexual health expert from the Countess of Chester Foundation Trust Hospital in Chester, said the US had an "obsession" with circumcision being the answer to controlling sexually transmitted infections. [Aristotle, Mar 28 2009]
[link]
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did the first one fail to "take"? Its not like fingernails and hair.... |
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Bah! Pure Jewish propaganda! How can taking skin *off* prevent STD's? Logic would suggest that taking skin off would increase your risk due to increased exposure! I'll do some more research, but here's a fishbone to keep you company until I do. |
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21 think before you speak, or appear an ass. |
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As a monogamous circumcized vasectomized male, can I get a foreskin donor and find out what I've been missing? |
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Yes, foreskin restoration is an existing cosmetic surgery option. (But you'd either use non-surgical options or transplant your own skin.) |
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I'm going to guess that this is a correlation/causality joke by [bungston]. 114/153 out of 3000 does not seem important to me, but it has inspired me to dig out my GCSE statistics books. |
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I can't find a link for this but I read somewhere that the Jewish law states that a baby must be circumsised when it is eight days old and coincidentally that a humans blood never coagulates faster than at eight days old. |
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Anyone know if that's true? |
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Maybe we can also promote female circumcision as a means to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases. |
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After all, the studies showed that the results do not apply to their partners. |
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Hmm... "The results do not apply to their partners..." That's an interesting phrase. Perhaps a study on the transmission of STDs to partners of circumcised and noncircumcised men would be informative. |
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I wonder here, because the idea doesn't exactly come out and say it. Is this idea for putting foreskin back on someone who's already circumcised, or removing more skin from somebody who's already circumcised? It sounded to me like the latter, but I really want to be sure I fully understand the idea. |
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Note: I wasn't serious about the "Jewish Propoganda" thing... it was more of joke, probably in bad taste, I admit. Sorry if I offended anybody. |
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[21 Quest] is not an ass. |
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Outside of America, or at least in the UK (see
link), circumcision is not thought to be all that
significant in regards to STD transmission. |
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[2 fries shy of a happy meal]: at 3d the infants coagulation is still much reduced, according to a 1977 Nature article. All the other articles on this stuff are not free content *damns intellectual property* |
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The only "STD" you might be limiting would probably just be plain old staph bacteria. The "inhibits STD's" claim is likely unfounded justification for traditional religious practices which hopefully will be curtailed as we grow more civilized. |
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.... mostly I'm with [89t] on the <eyes-watering> bit.. [-] |
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While you're on the topic of barbaric primitive unnecessary
anti-science, cargo-cult american fuckwit behaviour and
sheer religious idiocy; I hear that chopping your balls off can
prevent inherited diseases. |
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damn those peer reviewed epidemiology journals. It must be a Jewish conspiracy! |
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Ian, just try to avoid amputation, it doesn't prevent foot-in-mouth disease. Though I hear brushing helps. |
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Having been circumsized I have to wonder with fear in my heart exactly what it is you would be circumsizing the next time around. |
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Personally I recommend cutting off feet to avoid
the pain of ill-fitting shoes. I'm sure peer reviewed
papers, from a journal with a focus on avoiding
pain from shoes, would be able to report success. |
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However a journal with a broader focus might be
able to spot some wider problems with this. |
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Is this like cutting off the head to avoid a pain in the neck? |
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I think that the circumcision / STD prevention studies are solid: randomized, controlled, large. Why would circumcision work? It is not hard to imagine. |
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Suppose you are Semmelweis, trying to prevent doctors with dirty hands from transmitting puerperal fever. Washing or gloves are not an option. Which doctors would transmit more - those that kept their hands in watertight mittens between exams, or those which allowed them to dry off and become haphazardly wiped onto clothes and other environmental objects? |
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Suppose you are a housebreaker. Housebreaking takes some time. Which avenue of entry is more attractive? The front door, in plain sight, where neighbors and passersby can wonder at your actions? Or an unlocked garage,where you can quietly work out of sight and uninterrupted? |
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But the issue - if a man is counting on circumcision as his method for STD control,but received only a desultory circumcision as an infant, should it be redone to optimize sexual health? |
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As regards fuckwit behavior in addressing global health, give me a solution that is cheap, quick and maintenance-free every time. |
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OK, I'm writing up another marked-for-deletion category concerning stuff you've read/heard of that you'd like to see studied. May be a good idea, but isn't a halfbakery invention. |
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[marked-for-deletion] we should research ... |
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[bungston] I think what we are currently seeing is
marginal evidence reinforced by social preference. |
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Complete abstinence from sex is clearly far more
effective, amongst those who can manage this, in
reducing the transmission of STDs. Both methods
are cheap, quick and maintenance-free but the
latter does not require surgery. Both methods are
also probably distractions on the path to better
sexual health. |
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A theory like this emerging from America is prone
to be treated with same suspicion as a French theory espousing the benefits of wine or an
English theory espousing the benefits of cricket. |
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As [jutta] is saying, there is not enough research
for this idea to be either credible or debatable
beyond a certain level. |
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/stuff you've read/heard of that you'd like to see studied/ |
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I have never heard or read of recircumcision being used for anything practical. This tongue-in-cheek invention was a reductio ad absurdum (I think) of the practice of circumcision for STD control. I thought this idea might generate interesting and provocative discussion given the subject matter. I was not disappointed. |
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Maybe a little too not disappointed, as I rose to Tindale's bait with a heartfelt defense of the clinical trial as a means to understand truth. |
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[2 fries shy of a happy meal]: I don't know exactly why they circumcise boys at eight days old but I do know that it's quite painful when done later. I had to be circumcised when I was six and, well, there were gross bits you don't want me to tell you about. |
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Man... when I was circumcized, I couldn't walk for two years! |
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I suspect that people have a strong preference for whatever style of apparatus they are familiar with. Since circumcision does completely prevent disease in the tissues removed, much as a person with a tonsillectomy will not get tonsillitis a person with a circumcision is safe from some kinds of infection. There is real merit in exploring if HIV transmission rate is correlated with removal of the foreskin, controversial or not, because the penis is clearly the tissue exposed to the virus. If you want to believe that this is a cruel way to try to stop an epidemic that is killing millions then you are simply a fool and have no idea how serious the threat of HIV is to the developing world. Obviously this isn't going to be enough on its own but the difference could be substantial. Further since unprotected sex is clearly seen as a normal behavior, the small permanent measure of prevention may act as a reminder; "hey, there's my penis, the place where i could catch AIDS, I had a circumcision to reduce the danger, maybe I should wear a condom too." |
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[WcW] that research will happen regards of what some halfbakers think of the current status of that research, especially in the light of medical enthusiasms in a particular country. |
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Remember that there are some people who still think *female* circumision isn't cruel. There also was a fairly modern passion for lobotomy that nowdays is thought to have been disasterous. |
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Experience has shown us that we should be circumspect about such fashions. |
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Circumspect about circumcision? Hm... |
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that is a fallacious argument. Not every procedure is eventually discredited. |
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not yours, i was talking to Aristotle. |
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[WcW] I'm not trying to argue with you but instead present an alternative perspective. |
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If you want to advocate this procedure to be carried out on other people then you really want to contact the World Health Organisation instead. |
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One way to implement this idea without directly promoting, or mandating, currently fashionable surgical alterations (on other people) would be either encourage rites of passage that include circumcision or promote the conversion of people to branches of either Judaism or Islam that circumcise. No concrete proof of medical benefit would be required. |
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I believe at least some of the studies correlating (lack of) circumcision with STDs was flawed. Specifically, the studies where they perform circumcision on adult men is surely going to reduce the sexual appetite of these men and consequently lower the rate of STD transmission. |
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Stated more concisely: chop off (some of) a man's dick and he'll have sex less often. |
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And there I feel that you are making exactly the same error you accuse the researchers of. The whole point is to avoid making assumptions, but to instead analyze the available information. As an atheistic person who has no skin in this fight but who has a brother who studies the HIV virus for a living I can say with some confidence that "how does the virus get transmitted to men?" is a very real question due to the efficacy of the penis at resisting other infections. These researchers aren't barking up a religious tree, they are looking for the answer to a very real question about disease transmissiblity. The degree of knee jerk reaction that this has been met with by the religious and anti-circumcision community is no fault of the scientists who are simply trying to understand the spread of a truly horrifying disease. |
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/The degree of knee jerk reaction that this has been met with/ |
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I thought that this idea would prompt a discussion of the somewhat unusual practice of recircumcision. I had no idea that circumcision was so controversial or that it was regarded as product of American culture. I wonder how that came to be? |
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I've only been pointing out that this is potentially unnecessary but fashionable surgery. I would be just as wary if these claims were instead made for eye correction surgery, belly-button piercing and/or lobotomies. |
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Why do people think this is an American medical obession? Didn't people read the link from the BBC that was provided the day after this idea was posted? You can probably directly ask the expert that was quoted in the article, if you can be bothered to. |
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