Circumcision Funding Cuts Hurt, Doctors Say

[mandym]

State governments looking to save a little money should not reduce funding for circumcisions, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University. Currently, 18 states do not provide Medicaid funding for infant circumcision, and San Francisco has attempted to ban the procedure.

In an editorial to appear Wednesday (Oct. 5) in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Hopkins doctors Ronald Gray and Aaron Tobian said the increasing efforts to defund or outright ban infant male circumcision are unfounded, harmful and "ethically questionable."

More than 500 published studies in the past decade have reaffirmed the benefits of circumcision in preventing sexually transmitted disease (STD) in both men and their partners, as well as preventing urinary tract infections, as relayed in the editorial. Studies in Africa have shown that circumcision can decrease HIV infection by up to 60 percent.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/...rt-doctors-say/?test=latestnews#ixzz1Zw7x7mif

 

[Tom Bryant]

I can't help it... it hurts almost as much as circumcision... :tonofbricks:

 

[annsni]

I can't help it... it hurts almost as much as circumcision... :tonofbricks:

That's what I thought it said!! :smilewinkgrin:

 

[targus]

Why does this need to be funded with our tax dollars?

The number of babies being delivered on Medicaid can't be that high.

It's like a ten second procedure. Hospitals should be willing to do it without charge in such cases. What could it cost them?

Does anyone know what the reimbursement charge is that Medicare is currently paying for the procedure?

 

[Matt Black]

Can I just say, "the most painful cut of all"? (I'll get my coat.)

 

[Melanie]

I remember the good ol' days when I was a nursing student in western Queensland, we use to get the Koori blokes who had gone through the secret mens business and had been circumcised with something sharpish but not cleanish.......they would come in to hospital with infected wounds, of course all the nurses were female and no female could attend the bloke so the doctors (being all male) got the job of looking after them. I was very happy not to have to deal with that.

Maybe, if the government had been a little more sensitive to cultural mores, a supply of disposable blades and antiseptic wipes may have been a cheap alternative to hospitalisation and antibiotic treatment and the voiding of humiliation and no doubt fear on the part of the young man in question.