Health Care Professionals
George Denniston M.D.
"Doctors who still perform circumcision are violating the first rule of good medical care - primum non nocere - first do no harm".
Dr.Thomas Wiswell
"I have some good friends who are obstetricians outside the military, and they look at a foreskin and almost see a $125 price tag on it. Each one is that much money. Heck, if you do 10 a week, that's over $1,000 a week, and they don't take that much time."
Christopher Green, pediatrician
"If I was to cut off any other part of a baby for no good cause and without an anaesthetic, I'd be struck off the medical register and the parents would most likely lose custody of the child. "
Robert S. Mendelsohn, MD
"Greed plays a role in causing unnecessary surgery, although I don't think the economic motive alone is enough to explain it. There's no doubt that if you eliminated all unnecessary surgery, most surgeons would go out of business. They'd have to look for honest work, because the surgeon gets paid when he performs surgery on you, not when you're treated some other way. In pre-paid group practices where surgeons are paid a steady salary not tied to how many operations they perform, hysterectomies and tonsillectomies occur only about one-third as often as in fee-for-service situations."
Eileen Marie Wayne, MD
"Circumcision is not a medical decision. Preventing an improbably future infection is a spurious indication. The standard of care is antibiotics, not amputation."
Benjamin Spock, MD
"My own preference, if I had the good fortune to have another son, would be to leave his little penis alone."
Thomas Szasz, M.D
"I believe the time has come to acknowledge that the practice of routine circumcision rests on the absurd premise that the only mammal in creation born in the condition that requires immediate surgical correction is the human male."
Paul M. Fleiss. MD
"The forced amputation of a healthy part of an infant's or child's genitals without his consent, whether in the name of medicine, religion or social custom, is a violation of his human rights."
George Denniston, M.D.
"To me, the idea of performing 100,000 mutilative procedures on newborns to possibly prevent cancer in one elderly man is absurd."
Thomas Bartman, MD, PHD
"Circumcised males do NOT benefit from their circumcision But instead only Suffer Pain and Permanent Disfigurement of their genitalia."
Sarah R.
"I worked at a hospital back in 2009. The babies were given "sugar water and baby tylenol" to manage their pain. This is still common practice in spite of numerous professional association and college recommendations to the contrary. No local anesthetic was used; likely this is still the case in that facility. If you google search some circumcision consent forms, you will sometimes see what the pain management measures are in that particular facility.
Even if local anesthetic is injected, there is no way to tell if a baby is completely frozen. I practice Podiatric Medicine. When I freeze an adult for surgery, I poke them hard with the sharp end of an orange stick and make sure they can't feel sharp sensation.
When a nerve is severed, there is no way to prevent it from hurting. Have you seen the 36 hours movie? YIKES. When the circumcision is performed, cutaneous nerves are severed. Not as bad as cutting off a hand, but still painful. When we excise neuromas (painful nerve growth in the foot), we cut the proximal aspect of the nerve (closer to the body) first so there is only one searing pain sensation (which the patient has been warned of) and cut distally after to avoid repeating this unpleasant sensation more than necessary.
In addition, local anesthetic does not work on the post-operative pain, especially that caused by urinating on an open wound in a diaper. There is NO pain free circumcision."
Even if local anesthetic is injected, there is no way to tell if a baby is completely frozen. I practice Podiatric Medicine. When I freeze an adult for surgery, I poke them hard with the sharp end of an orange stick and make sure they can't feel sharp sensation.
When a nerve is severed, there is no way to prevent it from hurting. Have you seen the 36 hours movie? YIKES. When the circumcision is performed, cutaneous nerves are severed. Not as bad as cutting off a hand, but still painful. When we excise neuromas (painful nerve growth in the foot), we cut the proximal aspect of the nerve (closer to the body) first so there is only one searing pain sensation (which the patient has been warned of) and cut distally after to avoid repeating this unpleasant sensation more than necessary.
In addition, local anesthetic does not work on the post-operative pain, especially that caused by urinating on an open wound in a diaper. There is NO pain free circumcision."
