Archive for category Circumcision

NHS urged to offer circumcisions to avoid botched operations

The Observer, By Dennis Campbell, 11 July 2010

“Senior doctors have called for male circumcision to be offered by the NHS amid fears that unregulated operations are leading to serious injuries among Muslim boys.  A number of public health specialists have urged the health service to overturn its ban on such operations after an investigation into circumcisions performed at an Islamic school in Oxford found that 13 out of 32 boys who had the procedure – at an average age of six – ended up with medical problems.”

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AAP retracts statement on controversial procedure

The Lancet,  Volume 376, Issue 9734, 3 July 2010 (doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61042-2)
Author: Norra MacReady
“The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) sparked a backlash when its Committee on Bioethics published a controversial statement about ritual female genital cutting (FGC) on April 26, 2010. After describing the different forms of FGC in detail, along with its physical and psychological risks, and noting that WHO, the American Medical Association, and many other groups are staunchly opposed to the practice, the committee pointed out that to many, female circumcision had symbolic or ceremonial aspects….The AAP has since withdrawn the committee’s report and is now rewriting it completely.”
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Botched Circumcisions Kill 40 Boys, Send Over 100 to Hospital

FoxNews, AP, 30 June 2010

“The boys, who were taken into rural areas and circumcised as part of traditional rites of passage, died from gangrene, dehydration and pneumonia, said Sizwe Kupelo, health department spokesman for Eastern Cape province.  Kupelo said practitioners of the rite are often not trained to carry out the procedure and can circumcise up to 50 boys with the same knife without sterilizing it in between.  “In some cases boys were not circumcised but mutilated,” he told AFP.”

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Botched circumcisions kill 33

Channel 9 News, Ap, 26 June 2010

“The deaths occurred in the Eastern Cape province, one of the country’s poorest and among the few areas where boys are still sent into secret schools in the bush for circumcisions to mark their passage to manhood.  Provincial health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo told the Sapa news agency that the latest death occurred in the village of Moyeni, where authorities had recently paid a visit in hopes of treating initiates with infections.”

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3 admitted with gangrenous penises

Health24, AP, 10 June 2010

“Three Transkei boys have been admitted to Mthatha’s Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital with gangrenous penises following illegal circumcisions, the Eastern Cape health department said on Wednesday. Spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said the boys, from the Ngqeleni area, would receive specialist care in a bid to avoid amputation.  They were part of a group of six originally taken to Libode’s St Barnabas Hospital.”

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Dutch medical alliance moves to change thinking on male circumcision

BMJ 2010;340:c2987

Author: Tony Sheldon

“A broad alliance of medical organisations in the Netherlands has officially adopted the view that circumcision of underage boys without a medical reason violates children’s human rights and contravenes the Dutch constitution.”

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