CIN (Circumcision Information Network) 2:13

Introduction
This weekly bulletin is a project of CIN, the Circumcision Information Network (formerly CIN CompuBulletin). The purpose of this weekly bulletin is to educate the public about and to protect children and other non-consenting persons from genital mutilation. Readers are encouraged to copy and redistribute it, and to contribute written material.
--Rich Angell, Editor.

The following two letters by doctors speak for themselves:
THE LANCET, VOL 345, P. 927, 8 APRIL 1995; CIRCUMCISION
Sir-Taddio and colleagues (Feb 4, p. 291) are to be commended for their
study showing the permanent psychological damage inflicted on infants
subjected to unanesthetised penile reduction surgery--i.e., circumcision. 
It is both instructive and frightening that the severe and unalleviable
pain of circumcision permanently alters the neural pathways in an adverse
fashion.  Where else might the clinician look for signs of circumcision
flashback? 

The suggestion that analgesia be used for circumcision is, however,
incongruous with the results of Taddio and colleagues' study. 
Investigations of the effectiveness of analgesia in circumcision show that
at best, topical, caudal, or dorsal analgesia may cause infants to suffer
only slightly less.

For instance, Stang et al (1) found that an injection of lignocaine
hydrochloride reduced the plasma cortisol concentration slightly, but left
the babies with a concentration of 331 nmol/L, whereas a contented child
at rest has a plasma cortisol concentration of 28-138 nmol/L. Benni et al
(2) found that EMLA (lignocaine/prilocaine local anaesthetic cream) could
only reduce the circumcised child's heart rate from 180 to 160 beats a
minute.  No infant's heart should beat at 160 beats a minute, nor should
his plasma cortisol concentration be 331 nmol/L.  These rates are
consistent with torture.  With or without anaesthesia, circumcision will
cause the psychoneural damage found by Taddio et al. 

Despite the obviously irrational cruelty of circumcision, the profit
incentive in American medical practice is unlikely to allow science or
human rights principles to interrupt the highly lucrative American
circumcision industry.  It is now time for European medical associations
to condemn the North American medical community for participating in and
profiting from what is by any standard a senseless and barbaric sexual
mutilation of innocent children. 

Paul M. Fleiss, MD, 1824 North Hillhurst Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90027 USA

1 Stang HJ, Gunnar MR, Snellman L, Condon LM, Kestenbaum R, Local anesthesia
for neonatal circumcision; effects on distress and cortisol response. JAMA
1988; 259: 1507-11.

2 Benni F, Johnston C, Faucher D, Aranda JV, Topical anesthesia during
circumcision in newborn infants. JAMA 1993; 270: 850-53.

Sir-Taddio and colleagues report that neonatal circumcision affects pain
responses in boys at vaccination up to six months later, and suggest that
the pain from circumcision may have long lasting effects on pain response
up to six months later, and suggest that the pain from circumcision may
have long lasting effects on pain response and/or perception.  They
recommend that analgesia should be routine for circumcision to prevent
this possible long-term effect.  However, there is no certainty that
short-term local analgesia would do so. 

In neonatal circumcision there must be more than one component of pain.
There will be acute pain when the foreskin is crushed by a clamp and then
excised, and this pain would be reduced or obliterated by local analgesia.
But since the prepuce is adherent to the glans, circumcision involves
tearing these layers apart, leaving the glans raw and bleeding. This raw
surface must cause pain as it is abraded by soiled napkins for days after
surgery.  Local analgesia is only effective for a few hours.  The only
sure way of avoiding the long-term harmful effects of neonatal
circumcision is for doctors to abandon this unnecessary, intrusive,
mutilating, and painful operation. 

John Warren, MD, Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, Harlow, Essex CM20
1QX, UK.

SKIN CLONED FROM CIRCUMCISED BOYS: U.S. firm plans to grow tissue in giant
vats 
The Toronto Star, 4 April 1995
By:  Robin McKie, SPECIAL TO THE STAR

LONDON -- Imagine a foreskin the size of six soccer fields.  It sounds
like a priapic nightmare, but it's about to become reality next year.  A
San Diego, Calif., company called Advanced Tissue Sciences plans to
manufacture human skin grown in vats on an industrial scale using tissue
from circumcised babies. 

From each tiny foreskin the company will generate 23,225 square metres of
human skin, enough to cover the six sports fields.  It will be used in
transplants, for treating burn victims and for diabetic ulcer patients. 

"Skin is the one type of tissue that grows and continues to proliferate all
your life," ATS vice-president Gail Naughton said.  "That is very useful."

Contributed by:  Dr. Robert Riley, riley@planet.earth.org
Telephone:  416.588.4676, 85 Dunn Avenue, Suite #2, Facsimile:  416.588.3978,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6K 2R8

CIN Editor Rich Angell would like to hear an answer to the following
question:  What's this we hear of so often about WOMEN'S bodies being
exploited?

And colleague J. E. of Mississippi poses a few more questions for us all
to ponder: 

How much does one infant foreskin sell for?  How many have been sold?  Who
sells them? Doctors?  Midwives?  Mohels?  Hospitals?  Who buys them?  Are
there any "middlemen," and if so, who are they?  Are the foreskins sold
"per foreskin or by weight?  (Do circumcisers have a financial motive to
cut off as much skin as possible?) Is a foreskin still marketable if it
has been cover with or injected with an anesthetic? 

(Do circumcisers have a financial motive to not use an anesthetic?) Are
some types of foreskin more in demand than others? (White, Black, Latino,
oriental, etc.) Are parents told their baby's foreskin will be sold? 

Are they asked if their baby's foreskin may be sold?  Who is the legal
owner of the foreskin after it has been cut off?  Is it legal to cut off a
baby's foreskin, charge his parents for the operation, sell his foreskin
without telling the parents and keep the money?  Are the foreskins of
children and adults being sold too? 

Are other parts of peoples bodies being cut off--or out--and sold without
their knowledge or consent?  Does Diane Sawyer know about this?  (Diane
Sawyer co-hosts with Sam Donaldson the ABC-TV investigative program "Prime
Time Live." 

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