In an opinion column titled, “Circumcision Saved My Life,” Diane Cole writes that her late husband’s circumcision saved her from becoming infected with HIV after he became infected during a blood transfusion in the mid-1980s. Perhaps, but anecdotes make very bad policy. This is especially true when the anecdote doesn’t apply to the facts at hand:
It’s a personal story, but let it also serve as a public health rebuttal to the proposed ban on male circumcision that will be on the San Francisco ballot this November.
San Francisco’s ballot initiative would prohibit circumcision on all males under the age of 18. It would allow no religious exemptions, and it apparently gives no regard to the numerous studies demonstrating that male circumcision can substantially reduce—by more than 50%—the transmission of the HIV virus during sex.
The protection from HIV has been shown in Africa using voluntary, adult male circumcision. The San Francisco proposal would not prohibit voluntary, adult male circumcision. It’s ethically different from non-therapeutic male child circumcision because children cannot consent to having their healthy foreskins removed. Ms. Cole’s story is sad and unfortunate, but it is not a rebuttal to the proposal in San Francisco.
Follow the money: infant foreskins are the source of embryonic stem cells for biotech research.
There appears to be a “need” to scare up sufficient samples.
Moreover, there are studies that have shown an apparent immunity in some serodiscordant couples where the man is HIV+ and the woman is not. A quick google search will bring up many articles and published papers that have explored this reality in Africa for years. It’s been a source of a lot of interest in the research community. Nowhere will the reader find any mention of circumcision having anything to do with protecting women from an HIV+ man. At least one study was trending towards the opposite conclusion, that circumcised men put women at greater risk, before it was abandoned for dubious reasons.
Diane Cole speculates that circumcision saved her life, with any proof. Here are just some of the names of those children whose lives were clearly lost or destroyed following circumcision.
CIRCUMCISION RELATED DEATHS:
Chino Burrell: 7-months-old, death by circumcision, June 9, 1974, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Christopher Dolezal: Died November 1982, Des Moines, Iowa.
Steven Christopher Chacon: Died November 1986, San Francisco, California.
Allen A. Ervin: Died July 8, 1992, Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Demetrius Manker: Died June 23, 1993, Carol City, Florida.
Jeremie Johnson: Died July 18, 1995, Houston, Texas.
Dustin Evans: Died October 1998, Cleveland, Ohio.
Ryleigh Roman Bryan McWillis: Died August 22, 2002, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Infant Twin: contracted herpes virus and died, after undergoing a ritual circumcision performed by Rabbi Yitzhok Fischer, who had herpes and performed metzitzah b’peh, (sucking the blood by mouth on the baby’s penis), New York, New York, October, 2004.
Infant boy: Death by bleeding following circumcision in Creswell, Oregon, February 2007, Sacred Heart Hospital, Eugene, Oregon.
Amitai Moshe, 2 weeks, died after a religious ritual circumcision at Golders Green Synagogue, London. February 9, 2007.
Eric Keefe, 6-week-old infant boy, death by blood loss following circumcision, July 14, 2008, Indian Health Service Hospital, Rosebud, South Dakota.
Bradley Dorcius, boy, 7-months-old. Death by circumcision, October 2009, SUNY Downstate Hospital, Brooklyn, New York.
Joshua Haskins, 7-weeks-old. Died 20 hours after circumcision, had a congenital heart defect, and was in intensive care. He had prolonged bleeding after an artery was nicked. Died October 6, 2010 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Jamaal Coleson, Jr., 2 years old. Circumcised at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. Died on May 5, 2011. Death reported to the New York State Department of Health.
BOTCHED/UNAUTHORIZED CIRCUMCISIONS:
http://articles.philly.com/2009-11-27/business/25282832_1_staph-infection-mental-retardation-disabilities
Bruce Wechsler developed a staph infection following an infant circumcision in 1957 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He endured 14 operations and had half of his brain removed.
[Online archives of the New York Times.]
Walter Joseph Witkoski, Jr. was severely injured by infant circumcision in 1965. His family received a $733,000 damage award on May 7, 1974 in Baltimore, Maryland.
[Online archives of the New York Times.]
A boy was “sex-changed†to a girl after his botched circumcision in 1973. $850,000 in damages was awarded in 1975 in Seattle, Washington.
http://www.cirp.org/news/1986.05.28_lawsuit/
A boy, whose penis was amputated following a severe burn during his circumcision on February 2, 1984 at W.O. Ross Regional Hospital in Louisiana, was awarded $2.75 million.
http://www.cirp.org/news/1991.03.12_Atlanta_lawsuit/
Antonio and “Baby Doe†(who underwent a sex change) were severely injured by circumcision in August, 1985. Northside Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia was ordered to pay $22.8 million in damages to Antonio.
http://www.cirp.org/news/2000.03.08_Sweet/
Jacob Sweet was left severely brain damaged and blind following a botched circumcision in January, 1986 in Anchorage, Alaska. The amount awarded following a lawsuit was kept confidential.
http://www.cirp.org/news/1995.11.30_NYC_lawsuit/?C=S;O=A
In 1990, a 3 year old Russian immigrant boy lost part of his penis during a religious circumcision at Brook Plaza Surgical Ambulatory Center in Brooklyn, New York. The boy was awarded $1.2 million in damages.
http://www.cirp.org/news/santacruzsentinel06-09-01/
A Sacramento jury awarded $1.42 million in 2001 to Troy Gordon, who suffered a botched infant circumcision in 1994 at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center.
http://www.cirp.org/news/lawyersweekly12-08-03/
On September 3, 1994, a doctor amputated a portion of an infant’s glans penis, using the Mogen clamp. The family received a $1.26 million settlement in a Massachusetts court.
http://www.jewishcircumcision.org/sues.htm
An Indian River County, Florida couple sued Rabbi Abraham Cohen for a botched circumcision performed on their son, Noah Benjamin Lapeyre, in June of 1996.
http://www.cirp.org/news/mlw02-23-04/
A Massachusetts court awarded a $110,000 settlement to an infant circumcised on February 17, 1997, and whose penis was devoid of shaft skin following a newborn circumcision.
http://www.cirp.org/news/masslawweekly05-19-03/
In June of 1997, an infant had a section of his glans penis amputated during circumcision with the Mogen clamp. The family settled for $725,000 in 2003.
http://www.circumstitions.com/Law.html
Quincy Medical Center in Massachusetts and Dr. Sandra Chenkin were ordered to pay $80,000 to a boy who was circumcised without consent in 1997.
http://www.circumstitions.com/Law.html
Charlie Hardy and Randi Harlan sued Dr. Roosevelt Taylor for circumcising their son without consent on September 28, 1997, at Tri-City Hospital in Dallas, Texas. Taylor was ordered to pay $23,000.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6898403/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/
2003 and 2004- Three babies contracted herpes and one died, following religious ritual
circumcisions performed on them by Rabbi Yitzhok Fischer of New York, NY. Fischer had herpes that he transmitted to the babies when he sucked the blood by mouth on their circumcised penises.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/03/30/botched_circumcision_suit.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab&imw=Y
A baby boy identified as D.P., Jr. had his penis severed in 2004 during a circumcision performed by Dr. Haiba Sonyika at South Fulton Medical Center in Georgia. A jury awarded $1.8 million in damages to the boy, and $500,000 to the boy’s mother.
http://www.cirp.org/news/newhavenregister03-24-05/
June 2004- A one-day-old Oxford baby had his penis partially amputated during an infant circumcision at St. Bridget’s Hospital in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The parents brought a lawsuit against Dr. Daniel S. Gottschall and Alliance for Women’s Health.
http://www.cirp.org/news/thecolumbian09-18-04/
In September 2004, Edwin B. Baxter of Ridgefield, Washington was charged with second-degree assault of a child, after performing a botched circumcision on his 8-year-old son.
http://www.wvrecord.com/news/193707-preston-couple-sues-wvu-over-sons-circumcision
Hunter Dumire of Preston County, West Virginia, was injured during a circumcision on October 5, 2005. His parents filed a lawsuit on April 9, 2007 against the West Virginia University Medical Corporation.
http://www.cirp.org/news/earthtimes2007-07-18/
On February 15, 2007, an infant at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health System in Mattoon, Illinois had his entire glans penis removed during a circumcision performed by Dr. Sherif Malek, using the Mogen clamp.
Physicians discuss a circumcision degloving using the Mogen clamp, including a photo at:
http://psotblog.typepad.com/psotblog/2008/05/confidential-pe.html
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/07/20/Faulty-clamp-causes-loss-of-penis-head/UPI-46771279637719/
A New York mohel, using the Mogen clamp during a religious circumcision in 2007 upon an infant identified as L.G, removed the entire glans of the baby’s penis. The judge ordered Mogen Circumcision Instruments of New York to pay $10.8 million in damages. The company is already in default on another judgment against it and has gone out of business. The Mogen clamp is still in use today, with the potential for more botched circumcisions in the future.
http://archive.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/04/lawsuit-claims-botched-circumcision.html
On October 5, 2007, Dr. Marc Feldstein cut off the foreskin and part of the rest of baby Daniel Burden’s penis during a botched circumcision at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
http://epaper.ardemgaz.com/WebChannel/ShowStory.asp?Path=ArDemocrat/2011/03/05&ID=Ar00903
Erica Smith and Brian Christopher Knowlton, Jr. filed a lawsuit against Dr. Robert Jeffrey Jackson and Arkansas Children’s Hospital, for a circumcision on their son in March of 2009 that cost the boy, then 7 months old, half of his penis.
http://malislaw.com/blog/?tag=medical-malpractice
In 2009, over $1 million was awarded to a boy in Massachusetts who had almost all of the skin of his penis removed during an infant circumcision.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/15/1826768/moms-sues-hospital-over-babys.html
On September 13, 2010, a lawsuit was filed against South Miami Hospital and Dr. Mary Jean Pazos, for circumcising infant Mario Viera without consent.
I believe the studies have shown that male circumcision can reduce FEMALE TO MALE transmission of HIV not the other way around. Her husband was infected from a blood transfusion not sex, so his circumcision really played no role at all!