CIN (Circumcision Information Network) 2:36

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.

MED COVERUP
Contributed by vanhower@dgabby.mfldclin.edu (Dr. Robert Van Howe):

Just a few comments on several postings over the past week or so.

1) My experience in medical school had many similarities to what Franc Garcia
 is experiencing.  Having a roommate in college and a best friend in medical
 school who were both intact molded my thinking on this issue before I
 encountered any clinical experience.  They both felt very special to have a
 prepuce.  Unfortunately, I have lost contact with both of them.  Like Franc
I  learned absolutely nothing about the prepuce in the basic science portion
of  my training.  I was not educated enough on this issue to directly
confront my instructors.

Fortunately, I had the privilege of working with a pediatrician who was
 black, from the South, and intact during my clinical training.  Because of
his influence Loyola had one of the lowest inner-city circumcision rates in
the country.  This was in 1983 before Wiswell.  When Wiswell's studies came
out, I knew enough to discount his findings due to several unanswered
questions in his methods.  A little wet behind the ears, I assumed most other
thinking pediatricians would do likewise.  I now know that a lot of
physicians don't think and are not as informed as I was in 1983.

THE DIARY OF AN AAP CONFERENCE ATTENDEE
Part 2 of a multi-part series
Editor's note:  A previous issue of the CIN reported on activists who quietly
picketed outside of the American Academy of Pediatrics conference in San
Francisco.  Following is a report, contributed by W.H., of activist Richard
DeSeabra, Director NORM of NYC, who actually attended the conference:

Sunday, Oct 15th, Day 2 
8:00 AM Committee on Fetus and Newborn meets.  A lot of people show up to
this one.  Presentation and Questions were taken.  Couldn't make it to  the
mike in time.  Wiswell was there and his numbers in  a new study on jaundice
 were being questioned by the panel (so what's new).They adjourned and I
introduced myself to Committee head William Oh.  Very level headed guy.
 Probably the only doctor there who didn't put on a smirk when I mentioned
the word circumcision.  He shook his head almost as if it were a pity that
the 89 statement had happened, "We can't let a doctor, who had been so openly
pro-circumcision, head the task force again, he said.  "We're going to try
our hardest to  get someone objective to head the next task force even if it
takes a year to find this person," he added.  Another staff member had told
me that Edgar Schoen is going to have nothing to do with the next task force.
 I think we may have discredited Edgar Schoen. 

One committee member I talked to turned out to be a total flake claiming
circumcision was "a guy thing" and that we should spend our time educating
the fathers.  She claimed parents do it.  It's not the doctor's.  I
repeatedly asked her, "Who picks up the Gomco clamp?"  but she refused to
acknowledge medical participation.  This is why I don't like calling
circumcision a cultural phenomenon.  It relieves the medical community of
their responsibility in the matter and allows doctors like this one get away
with asinine statements like "Parents do it."  Calling it a cultural
phenomenon gives the American people too much credit for it when in fact it
was the medical community that brought this to and perpetuates it in America.
 Americans don't participate in circumcisions as other cultures do.
 Americans don't watch or celebrate circs.  They simply enable them to
happen.  Signing a consent form is hardly a cultural event in my opinion.  I
always refer to it as a medical problem or a medical fetish (as someone just
recently put it) or as medical fraud.  I'm going to make sure that William Oh
is aware of her views which were beyond unprofessional.

Later, I came across the Association of Nurse Practitioners and gave them
material on the Nurses for the Rights of the Child.  I found the La Leche
League booth and bonded with them for a while.  And I may have convinced one
of the authors of the Best Selling book What To Expect: The First Year on
making some changes in her circumcision section.  New editions go on press
every 4 weeks so I can follow up on this easily.  I attended an open plenary
session about UTI's and renal scarring (the new buzz word).  One extremely
arrogant doctor from Washington DC by the name of Belman put up a slide with
Wiswell's numbers and mentioned "those people outside passing out information
on the rape of the phallus should see these numbers."  He got a generalized
but not so enthusiastic laugh out of the audience.  When question time came
around I got in line at the mike.  However, before I got to speak 3 doctors
spoke out against his view on circumcision.  Then I realized that one of the
doctors on the panel was pro-intact.  The plenary session ended before I
could get to the mike.

DEALING WITH HOSTILITY
Contributed by James T.
Frankly, I am astonished at the degree of hostility that some men are
experiencing from their wives or girlfriends [concerning foreskin
restoration].  All we are attempting to do is to repair a very ancient injury
done to us in infancy, entirely without our consent, and become normal
(almost) once again.  It is appalling that anyone should display such
deep-seated hostility and envy toward men--especially someone who pretends to
love us.  Words fail me.

We cannot allow such hostility and hatred to go unchallenged.  That is how we
got INTO this problem in the first place, and combatting this hostility will
be the first step in ending our problem.  I would put any such woman on the
defensive, demanding that she justify her hostility and hatred of the normal
male sexual organs, and excoriating her insensitivity toward men's problems
and suffering.  If the situation were reversed, nobody would DARE make light
of female sexual mutilation.  But mutilation of men's genitals is just fine,
in fact, it's funny.  If a woman cuts off her husband's penis, she will not
even be jailed for it.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION call NOCIRC, the National Organization of
Circumcision Information Resource Centers at (415) 488-9883, fax (415)
488-9660.  Ask about the resource provider nearest you.  For written
information, write NOCIRC, PO Box 2512, San Anselmo, CA 94979,  with SASE
and/or donation if possible.

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