I'm taking a bit of a different turn this week, spurred on by an article I read recently, and some discussions we've had among our classmates. There are two prongs to this discussion: first, the concept of race or ethnicity in health, and second, the role of the medical provider in ethnic communities.
One of my classmates was African. As in, she immigrated from Central Africa (I, sadly, forget the exact country) to the US, and much of her family still lives there. During the first two years of medical school, when we were learning about various diseases that can afflict people, she became irritated with the idea that race and certain diseases had a correlation. She felt that we should be race blind, because it's impossible to tell someone's background by just looking at them.
In some ways, I see her point. Race is a human construct. It is more useful to define people by culture than by race, as there is more genetic variation within a given 'race' than between them. And with how open we've come to interracial couples, it really is hard to determine someone's race by simply looking at them.
But, at the same time, there is a correlation in several diseases, and race or ethnicity can help us narrow the list of diseases a patient is likely to have. For instance, individuals descended from Africans are more likely to have sickle-cell disease. Why? Because malaria is very prevalent in Africa, and there is an evolutionary advantage to having sickle cell trait, as it protects you from dying from malaria. But, when two people with sickle cell trait have a child together, there is a 1 in 4 chance of their child having sickle cell anemia, a disease that can cause loss of limbs and intense pain. If you are descended from an Ashkenazi Jew (Jews who lived in northern and central Europe), you are far more likely to have a number of diseases, including Tay-Sachs (a disease that causes multiple problems with the brain) and breast cancer, just to name a few. This is because the Jewish population of Europe had a great deal of intermarriage, partly due to religion and partly due to various anti-semitic pressures in the area. Even Caucasians are not immune to this racial bias, as Cystic Fibrosis is 4-5 times more common in Caucasians than in African Americans, and is even more rare in Asians.
All these are genetic diseases. What about those that aren't genetic? According to the CDC, non-Hispanic black patients are 50% more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than their non-Hispanic white counterparts. Adult diabetes is much more common in Hispanic and Native American populations than it is among white and Asian populations. A good portion of this is due to socioeconomic pressures; you're more likely to develop diabetes if you live in a low-income neighborhood than if you live in an affluent neighborhood, likely due to the access to fresh and healthy foods. Some of it is due to healthcare access: either these individuals cannot afford proper healthcare, they don't have access to the proper healthcare, or they choose not to seek healthcare due to cultural norms.
In this sense, I think ethnicity is a very important part of medicine.
Recently, I have heard discussions over medical school admissions and what role race should play in these decisions.
See, in many cases, patients reportedly like doctors of the same race as them. Thus, black patients prefer black doctors, Hispanic patients prefer Hispanic doctors, etc. There are many reasons for this; there is a certain distrust of the US medical system, and specifically white physicians, among black patients, thanks to experiments such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, there are subtle differences in culture, such as how patients perceive and express pain, etc. Even my own classmates have noticed that when they speak to Hispanic patients in Spanish, even if the entire interview is not conducted in Spanish, the patient tends to open up more and express their concerns more. Whether this actually helps in all cases is debatable.
So, the goal among many medical schools is to train a more diverse student body, to train more black and Hispanic physicians, rather than white and Asian or Indian physicians, in order to better meet the needs of these underserved populations. The degree to which race plays a role in medical school admissions is uncertain, based on what I've heard from friends on admissions committees. But there is no doubt that it does play some role. Some argue that this tactic is necessary in order to develop more mentors in underrepresented minorities, so that more of these individuals will enter medicine in the future. Others argue that it's a poor way judge a person's experiences, in that an African American from a well-off family will have a much different experience than a white person from a poor family, but the African American will naturally be judged to have better experiences thanks to the color of his skin. In essence, it's attempting to combat racism with racism, and is not the best way to go about things.
I'm not sure what the answer is from that front, but I do have no doubt that some people are inherently more comfortable with people from similar cultural backgrounds. Whether we should select medical school candidates based on that trait--I don't know, but I don't have a better solution for the fact that African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are less likely to make it to the level of med school than a white or Asian person.
Racism, even 'benign' racism such as that we use in medicine, is still prevalent in our society today. It's not going to be an easy fix to change that, but I think we're trying. Hopefully within the next generation, this won't need to be a topic of discussion any longer.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Differences in Expectations: A Tale of Two Countries
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I spent a few weeks studying in another country. It was actually my last two official weeks of medical school, and I went and spent time at the Hospital Nacional de Niños in San José, Costa Rica. My first day on the rotation, we sat down with our supervising physician and talked about the similarities and differences in health care in Costa Rica and in the US. He had experienced both systems, having done his fellowship training in the US before returning to Costa Rica to practice. Since I was privy to this discussion (and since I'm graduating today and have a lot of other things on my mind), I thought I might share some of the points with you.
First and foremost, medical education. I told you all about the system in the US back in my first post. So, how does it differ? As in most foreign countries (many European countries included), students enter medical school right after high school. Depending on whether they go to a public or private school, the schooling lasts for 5-6 years. The first two are spent in the classroom, and they spend the next four doing various clinical activities. The final year is referred to as their internship, and is similar to our first year of residency, except they aren't specializing. They spend 3 months each in Internal Medicine (Adults), Surgery, OB-GYN, and Pediatrics. After this schooling, they can choose to work as a general practitioner, or they can elect to do a residency. The residency could be in either Costa Rica or the states, though it is more difficult for them to get into residency in the states due to the licensing requirements. Competition for the residency slots is tough, and really the best and brightest are the ones who end up doing residency.
So, similar, but different.
Where things get really interesting is how the health system is set up. They have health care for every citizen. It's funded by a 10% tax on the citizen's paycheck--the employee pays 5% and the employer pays another 5%. The government matches this 5% contribution, so, in essence, 15% of each citizen's paycheck, regardless of what they make, goes into the Seguro Social. These public hospitals are set up all over the country. Primary care offices are the first line to the citizens, and in theory, the Primary Care offices know everything about the patients in their neighborhood. Then, there are the hospitals: primary, secondary for more advanced or specialty care, and tertiary. The Hospital Nacional de Niños is the only tertiary children's hospital in the country; the secondary hospitals have pediatric floors and some specialists, but the complex kids all get referred.
Under this system, everyone gets the healthcare they need. They may have to wait for it if there are more urgent cases to be seen, but everyone eventually gets what they need. A truly social system. Of course, they've also developed a private system on top of the public system, where you can go and get things done faster if you have the money for it. And, because they increased the government funding to healthcare, they elected to abolish their military, relying on international courts to resolve disputes with neighbors.
It was a little amusing to talk about the health systems to the students and residents, because everyone seems to be so astounded that the US, a first world country with a better standard of living than Costa Rica, doesn't provide healthcare to everyone. We are, of course, in the process of changing that now, but it's still in infancy.
A few more interesting tidbits more specific to pediatrics. First, which astounded me, particularly after last week's post, was that parental refusal of vaccines is a justifiable reason to call social services. In other words, they've deemed vaccines so important that they will overrule parents in whether or not their child gets the vaccine. If we did that in the US, we wouldn't be seeing these outbreaks.
Second, their age range for pediatrics is very different. In the US, Pediatricians care for children from infancy up through college-aged, sometimes well into their 20s depending on their overall health. When I was working in our Pediatric Emergency Department (I am not currently in a stand-alone children's hospital, so our Peds ED was attached to the adult ED), we'd see patients all the way up to 26 or 28, depending on who was working. In the PICU, they took a harder cut-off at age 18.
But in Costa Rica, they start transitioning over to the adult physicians at age 13. Which does make some sense--adolescents are more like adults than they are like infants--but they still aren't small adults. I'm not sure where this age came from--whether it was due to a lack of pediatricians or a universally decided on age, but it's interesting none-the-less.
Then, of course, the mix of diseases is very different there. I spent a week working in the Pediatric Endocrine clinic, and saw a grand total of 2 kids with diabetes while I was there. Contrast to my month on Pediatric Endocrine here, where 2 full clinic days per week were dedicated to kids with diabetes (only one full day was dedicated to other endocrine disorders). And I saw a couple patients with Bartter syndrome, which is apparently most frequent in Costa Rica.
They also have stricter laws on abortions, though I didn't delve too much into that discussion, so I'm not entirely sure what those laws are. But I do know that it is not legal to have an abortion due to a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome.
Overall, they seem to have a well run health system. They do most all the same things we do, with some minor differences in tests (hypoglycemic growth hormone stimulation test instead of arginine). They do not have the same number of nurses (1 nurse per 4-5 patients in the NICU), so their NICU was much louder than I was accustomed to. They have slightly different instrumentation and ways of sterilizing, but still maintain aseptic technique and clean religiously. Based on my perception, I wouldn't deem them a third-world country. Maybe a second-world country, because they aren't quite up to the first world yet. But they're getting there, and seem to have made great strides.
Plus, it's an absolutely beautiful country.
First and foremost, medical education. I told you all about the system in the US back in my first post. So, how does it differ? As in most foreign countries (many European countries included), students enter medical school right after high school. Depending on whether they go to a public or private school, the schooling lasts for 5-6 years. The first two are spent in the classroom, and they spend the next four doing various clinical activities. The final year is referred to as their internship, and is similar to our first year of residency, except they aren't specializing. They spend 3 months each in Internal Medicine (Adults), Surgery, OB-GYN, and Pediatrics. After this schooling, they can choose to work as a general practitioner, or they can elect to do a residency. The residency could be in either Costa Rica or the states, though it is more difficult for them to get into residency in the states due to the licensing requirements. Competition for the residency slots is tough, and really the best and brightest are the ones who end up doing residency.
So, similar, but different.
Where things get really interesting is how the health system is set up. They have health care for every citizen. It's funded by a 10% tax on the citizen's paycheck--the employee pays 5% and the employer pays another 5%. The government matches this 5% contribution, so, in essence, 15% of each citizen's paycheck, regardless of what they make, goes into the Seguro Social. These public hospitals are set up all over the country. Primary care offices are the first line to the citizens, and in theory, the Primary Care offices know everything about the patients in their neighborhood. Then, there are the hospitals: primary, secondary for more advanced or specialty care, and tertiary. The Hospital Nacional de Niños is the only tertiary children's hospital in the country; the secondary hospitals have pediatric floors and some specialists, but the complex kids all get referred.
Under this system, everyone gets the healthcare they need. They may have to wait for it if there are more urgent cases to be seen, but everyone eventually gets what they need. A truly social system. Of course, they've also developed a private system on top of the public system, where you can go and get things done faster if you have the money for it. And, because they increased the government funding to healthcare, they elected to abolish their military, relying on international courts to resolve disputes with neighbors.
It was a little amusing to talk about the health systems to the students and residents, because everyone seems to be so astounded that the US, a first world country with a better standard of living than Costa Rica, doesn't provide healthcare to everyone. We are, of course, in the process of changing that now, but it's still in infancy.
A few more interesting tidbits more specific to pediatrics. First, which astounded me, particularly after last week's post, was that parental refusal of vaccines is a justifiable reason to call social services. In other words, they've deemed vaccines so important that they will overrule parents in whether or not their child gets the vaccine. If we did that in the US, we wouldn't be seeing these outbreaks.
Second, their age range for pediatrics is very different. In the US, Pediatricians care for children from infancy up through college-aged, sometimes well into their 20s depending on their overall health. When I was working in our Pediatric Emergency Department (I am not currently in a stand-alone children's hospital, so our Peds ED was attached to the adult ED), we'd see patients all the way up to 26 or 28, depending on who was working. In the PICU, they took a harder cut-off at age 18.
But in Costa Rica, they start transitioning over to the adult physicians at age 13. Which does make some sense--adolescents are more like adults than they are like infants--but they still aren't small adults. I'm not sure where this age came from--whether it was due to a lack of pediatricians or a universally decided on age, but it's interesting none-the-less.
Then, of course, the mix of diseases is very different there. I spent a week working in the Pediatric Endocrine clinic, and saw a grand total of 2 kids with diabetes while I was there. Contrast to my month on Pediatric Endocrine here, where 2 full clinic days per week were dedicated to kids with diabetes (only one full day was dedicated to other endocrine disorders). And I saw a couple patients with Bartter syndrome, which is apparently most frequent in Costa Rica.
They also have stricter laws on abortions, though I didn't delve too much into that discussion, so I'm not entirely sure what those laws are. But I do know that it is not legal to have an abortion due to a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome.
Overall, they seem to have a well run health system. They do most all the same things we do, with some minor differences in tests (hypoglycemic growth hormone stimulation test instead of arginine). They do not have the same number of nurses (1 nurse per 4-5 patients in the NICU), so their NICU was much louder than I was accustomed to. They have slightly different instrumentation and ways of sterilizing, but still maintain aseptic technique and clean religiously. Based on my perception, I wouldn't deem them a third-world country. Maybe a second-world country, because they aren't quite up to the first world yet. But they're getting there, and seem to have made great strides.
Plus, it's an absolutely beautiful country.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Vaccines: Building Our Immunity One Shot at a Time
I hope I'm not just preaching to the choir with this post, but I feel like I can't have a blog written from the Pediatrician's perspective and NOT talk about vaccines. It's too big a part of our practice.
Vaccines truly form one of the cornerstones of a pediatric practice. They are among the few interventions that are cost-saving. One of the others is providing clean drinking water. In the US, we have a schedule of vaccines for all children, and will provide them to everyone because they are cost-saving. These include Hepatitis A and B, Diptheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio, and Chicken Pox. It is because of these vaccinations that polio no longer exists in the Western Hemisphere (the reason it has not been eradicated in the Eastern Hemisphere is because there is resistance to vaccination efforts), and partly the reason smallpox only exists in labs.
And yet, despite all the data showing that vaccines work, there is a huge anti-vaccine movement in industrialized nations. Organizations such as the Vaccine Liberation and the Think Twice Global Vaccine Institute advocate to parents not to get their children vaccinated.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all about informed consent and vaccine safety. I think all vaccines should be rigorously tested before they are given to millions of children. I think vaccine reactions should continue to be monitored, and that vaccines aren't necessarily a one-size fits all thing. There are some children who can't get vaccines, either because they are allergic to something in the vaccine itself, or because they do not have a strong enough immune system to make the vaccine effective (or worse, they could contract the disease if a live vaccine is used). But, considering that, all children who are able to get vaccines should, in order to protect those who can't. When the healthy population doesn't get vaccinated, they serve as possible source of infection to those children.
Let's look a little more in depth into their arguments.
First, the supposed link with autism. While this could be a blog post in and of itself, let's run through a quick history of this argument. Back in 1998, Andrew Wakefield, a surgeon from the UK, published a paper in Lancet, a well renowned medical journal, claiming that MMR vaccines had a link to autism. Around this same time, the FDA published guidelines requesting the removal of mercury based products from foods. Thiomersal, a mercury-based solvent and preservative, was being used at that time in several vaccines, and the CDC and AAP requested vaccine manufacturers to remove it. Note that these two episodes were linked in time, but not by anything else. In the ensuing decade, thousands of studies have been done. None have been able to replicate Wakefield's results, and none have shown harm to thiomersal, though it is no longer used in vaccines. In 2004, the Lancet partially retracted Wakefield's paper, after Brian Deer (a reporter in London) demonstrated that there were conflicts of interest that were not disclosed. Then in 2009, Deer determined that Wakefield had actually falsified much of his data. In 2010, the Lancet fully retracted the paper, and Wakefield was banned from practicing medicine by the General Medical Council in the UK.
Moral of the story: vaccines do not cause autism. There has not been a single study that shows that it does. The vaccine schedule is set up in a way that children are going to have developmental changes shortly after administration of the vaccines. That's what happens when kids get older.
Vaccine Liberation makes the claim that cleanliness can prevent all diseases, and 'proves' this with graphs showing that the death rate of several vaccine-preventable diseases and several where there is no vaccine available. The primary problem with these graphs is that they only look at death rates. Death isn't what we're concerned about in most cases. Polio, for instance, causes paralysis. We can prevent death through a variety of interventions, including the ventilator. It's the paralysis that we want to prevent. Mumps? It rarely causes a complication resulting in death; we give the vaccine to prevent inflammation of the testicles or ovaries, which can result in infertility. It also just doesn't sound like a fun illness to have. Complications from measles are more common, but it's especially bad to be pregnant and exposed to measles (same with chicken pox; most complications are in pregnant women). The graphs don't take into account any of these complications; they just look at the death rate.
Think Twice claims "Recently vaccinated children do carry the disease germ and are able to spread it to other children. Many so-called epidemics are initiated and spread in this manner, even though the unvaccinated are blamed." It is true that some vaccines are live vaccines, meaning that the virus was altered to cause an immune response, but not disease, and the virus itself is still functional. These vaccines tend to be more effective than other vaccines, because they act more like a disease-causing virus than the segments that are used in the inactivated or subunit vaccines. These include the varicella (chicken pox), oral polio, and MMR vaccines.
However, the idea that children can spread disease after getting these vaccines, especially that this accounts for most of the cases of these diseases, is incorrect. Most measles cases are imported, meaning that they were brought back from people traveling overseas, usually to Asia. These were most commonly unvaccinated people who contracted the illness, though some vaccinated people remain susceptible. Of course, the recent outbreaks of measles may change that assumption in the near future.
This post is already getting long, so I'll end it here, but if you know of any other arguments against vaccines, please feel free to bring them to my attention and I will do my due diligence in examining the data. But in the meantime, please vaccinate your children. For the good of society, and for their own health.
Need more evidence that parents not vaccinating their children is causing harm? Check out this map. It shows the vaccine-preventable diseases Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio, and Whooping Cough (Pertussis) on a world map where all the epidemics are occurring, along with how many cases are in each epidemic.
Vaccines truly form one of the cornerstones of a pediatric practice. They are among the few interventions that are cost-saving. One of the others is providing clean drinking water. In the US, we have a schedule of vaccines for all children, and will provide them to everyone because they are cost-saving. These include Hepatitis A and B, Diptheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio, and Chicken Pox. It is because of these vaccinations that polio no longer exists in the Western Hemisphere (the reason it has not been eradicated in the Eastern Hemisphere is because there is resistance to vaccination efforts), and partly the reason smallpox only exists in labs.
And yet, despite all the data showing that vaccines work, there is a huge anti-vaccine movement in industrialized nations. Organizations such as the Vaccine Liberation and the Think Twice Global Vaccine Institute advocate to parents not to get their children vaccinated.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all about informed consent and vaccine safety. I think all vaccines should be rigorously tested before they are given to millions of children. I think vaccine reactions should continue to be monitored, and that vaccines aren't necessarily a one-size fits all thing. There are some children who can't get vaccines, either because they are allergic to something in the vaccine itself, or because they do not have a strong enough immune system to make the vaccine effective (or worse, they could contract the disease if a live vaccine is used). But, considering that, all children who are able to get vaccines should, in order to protect those who can't. When the healthy population doesn't get vaccinated, they serve as possible source of infection to those children.
Let's look a little more in depth into their arguments.
First, the supposed link with autism. While this could be a blog post in and of itself, let's run through a quick history of this argument. Back in 1998, Andrew Wakefield, a surgeon from the UK, published a paper in Lancet, a well renowned medical journal, claiming that MMR vaccines had a link to autism. Around this same time, the FDA published guidelines requesting the removal of mercury based products from foods. Thiomersal, a mercury-based solvent and preservative, was being used at that time in several vaccines, and the CDC and AAP requested vaccine manufacturers to remove it. Note that these two episodes were linked in time, but not by anything else. In the ensuing decade, thousands of studies have been done. None have been able to replicate Wakefield's results, and none have shown harm to thiomersal, though it is no longer used in vaccines. In 2004, the Lancet partially retracted Wakefield's paper, after Brian Deer (a reporter in London) demonstrated that there were conflicts of interest that were not disclosed. Then in 2009, Deer determined that Wakefield had actually falsified much of his data. In 2010, the Lancet fully retracted the paper, and Wakefield was banned from practicing medicine by the General Medical Council in the UK.
Moral of the story: vaccines do not cause autism. There has not been a single study that shows that it does. The vaccine schedule is set up in a way that children are going to have developmental changes shortly after administration of the vaccines. That's what happens when kids get older.
Vaccine Liberation makes the claim that cleanliness can prevent all diseases, and 'proves' this with graphs showing that the death rate of several vaccine-preventable diseases and several where there is no vaccine available. The primary problem with these graphs is that they only look at death rates. Death isn't what we're concerned about in most cases. Polio, for instance, causes paralysis. We can prevent death through a variety of interventions, including the ventilator. It's the paralysis that we want to prevent. Mumps? It rarely causes a complication resulting in death; we give the vaccine to prevent inflammation of the testicles or ovaries, which can result in infertility. It also just doesn't sound like a fun illness to have. Complications from measles are more common, but it's especially bad to be pregnant and exposed to measles (same with chicken pox; most complications are in pregnant women). The graphs don't take into account any of these complications; they just look at the death rate.
Think Twice claims "Recently vaccinated children do carry the disease germ and are able to spread it to other children. Many so-called epidemics are initiated and spread in this manner, even though the unvaccinated are blamed." It is true that some vaccines are live vaccines, meaning that the virus was altered to cause an immune response, but not disease, and the virus itself is still functional. These vaccines tend to be more effective than other vaccines, because they act more like a disease-causing virus than the segments that are used in the inactivated or subunit vaccines. These include the varicella (chicken pox), oral polio, and MMR vaccines.
However, the idea that children can spread disease after getting these vaccines, especially that this accounts for most of the cases of these diseases, is incorrect. Most measles cases are imported, meaning that they were brought back from people traveling overseas, usually to Asia. These were most commonly unvaccinated people who contracted the illness, though some vaccinated people remain susceptible. Of course, the recent outbreaks of measles may change that assumption in the near future.
This post is already getting long, so I'll end it here, but if you know of any other arguments against vaccines, please feel free to bring them to my attention and I will do my due diligence in examining the data. But in the meantime, please vaccinate your children. For the good of society, and for their own health.
Need more evidence that parents not vaccinating their children is causing harm? Check out this map. It shows the vaccine-preventable diseases Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio, and Whooping Cough (Pertussis) on a world map where all the epidemics are occurring, along with how many cases are in each epidemic.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
To Cut or Not To Cut: The Debate Over Circumcision
Apologies for the hiatus. I went on an out-of-country vacation and due to everything else going on leading up to it, I didn't have the opportunity to write-up posts for when I was gone. This one was actually supposed to be published on 4/20, but I didn't actually finish it, so you get it today instead.
This has come into press a lot more than I expected it to lately, so I figured it was good enough for another topic. Circumcision has been around for thousands of years. Traditionally, it was a way of distinguishing the Hebrews from everyone else, but in Western society as a whole, it has become fairly popular. In fact, in the US, we had a rate of 83% circumcision of newborn males in the 1960s. This has declined to 77% in 2010, but this is still high compared to, say, Hispanic cultures (44% of Hispanic men in America are circumcised, compared to 91% of white men), and may be more reflective of the population of the US than a change in attitudes about circumcision.
The main argument against circumcision is that it is a surgical procedure that has lifelong consequences and only serves a cosmetic function. Some will go to the point of comparing it to female genital mutilation. Others will argue only that it is an issue of informed consent, and that males should be able to make the decision for themselves when they reach a certain age. This particularly argument is usually rebutted with the fact that parents make many decisions for their children, medical or otherwise, which have more notable consequences than the presence or absence of a foreskin.
The primary argument for circumcision is that it reduces the risk of a variety of diseases, including early urinary tract infections (which can lead to renal scarring), the transmission of HIV, and the risk of penile cancer. Most of the studies looking at the transmission of HIV were done in subSaharan Africa. These studies were so compelling that they were stopped early, and demonstrated a 66% decrease in the HIV transmission rate. Granted, these studies were done in adults. But, circumcision in infant boys is generally considered to be less costly, easier to perform, and safer than adult circumcision, so if it poses such a great benefit later in life, it'd be best to do it in infancy.
It should be noted, however, that the advocates for circumcision do not claim that it reduces all sexually transmitted diseases. One study shows that there is no difference in Herpes (HSV-2) transmission in circumcised vs uncircumcised men.
Currently, physicians take a more neutral stance. The AAP states that circumcision has benefits that outweigh the risks, but that the benefits are small enough that it's up to the individual families on whether or not to do the procedure. In the past, the AAP has taken a more negative view of circumcision, claiming in the 70s that there was no medical benefit to circumcision, but not taking a stance against it. However, there are those that take a hard stance one way or the other: one compares circumcision to vaccines, believing that the benefits are so great that circumcision should be routine.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
This has come into press a lot more than I expected it to lately, so I figured it was good enough for another topic. Circumcision has been around for thousands of years. Traditionally, it was a way of distinguishing the Hebrews from everyone else, but in Western society as a whole, it has become fairly popular. In fact, in the US, we had a rate of 83% circumcision of newborn males in the 1960s. This has declined to 77% in 2010, but this is still high compared to, say, Hispanic cultures (44% of Hispanic men in America are circumcised, compared to 91% of white men), and may be more reflective of the population of the US than a change in attitudes about circumcision.
The main argument against circumcision is that it is a surgical procedure that has lifelong consequences and only serves a cosmetic function. Some will go to the point of comparing it to female genital mutilation. Others will argue only that it is an issue of informed consent, and that males should be able to make the decision for themselves when they reach a certain age. This particularly argument is usually rebutted with the fact that parents make many decisions for their children, medical or otherwise, which have more notable consequences than the presence or absence of a foreskin.
The primary argument for circumcision is that it reduces the risk of a variety of diseases, including early urinary tract infections (which can lead to renal scarring), the transmission of HIV, and the risk of penile cancer. Most of the studies looking at the transmission of HIV were done in subSaharan Africa. These studies were so compelling that they were stopped early, and demonstrated a 66% decrease in the HIV transmission rate. Granted, these studies were done in adults. But, circumcision in infant boys is generally considered to be less costly, easier to perform, and safer than adult circumcision, so if it poses such a great benefit later in life, it'd be best to do it in infancy.
It should be noted, however, that the advocates for circumcision do not claim that it reduces all sexually transmitted diseases. One study shows that there is no difference in Herpes (HSV-2) transmission in circumcised vs uncircumcised men.
Currently, physicians take a more neutral stance. The AAP states that circumcision has benefits that outweigh the risks, but that the benefits are small enough that it's up to the individual families on whether or not to do the procedure. In the past, the AAP has taken a more negative view of circumcision, claiming in the 70s that there was no medical benefit to circumcision, but not taking a stance against it. However, there are those that take a hard stance one way or the other: one compares circumcision to vaccines, believing that the benefits are so great that circumcision should be routine.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
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