Related Headlines
International Coalition for Genital Integrity
Genital integrity issue press releases, announcements, and statements

ICGI Newsfeed
  • Physicians group warns "flesh-eating bacteria" puts circumcised boys at risk.
    Doctors Opposing Circumcision (DOC) issued a special statement on its website today regarding the threat to newborn boys with circumcision wounds from the new epidemic of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA). CA-MRSA is a new, more virulent, and more deadly variant of an earlier strain. MRSA, once confined to hospitals, now has entered the community, where many persons are carriers. Some call CA-MRSA a "flesh-eating bacteria" because it emits a tissue-destroying toxin.

  • Male Circumcision May Increase HIV Risk for Women
    Coinciding with World AIDS Day, (Thursday, December 1, 2005), the international physicians' charity Doctors Opposing Circumcision, (DOC), warns that recent worldwide news reports suggesting that circumcision is a magic bullet for HIV/AIDS are a dangerous distraction from less-expensive, proven solutions. The group points out that circumcision is likely to embolden males to abandon condoms, engage in risky behavior, and neglect the risk to females.

  • Deadly MRSA Targets Circumcised Boys
    Doctors Opposing Circumcision (D.O.C.), a Seattle based physician's organization, issued an important statement today alerting health officials of a newfound link between the Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) epidemic and recently circumcised baby boys. D.O.C. asks that hospitals take immediate action to increase aseptic protocols in nurseries, and doctors to "say no" to circumcisions.

  • Circumcision cannot prevent HIV/AIDS
    Circumcision may result in a false belief that safe-sex practices are no longer required, implying a worsening of the incidence of HIV infection. Two separate papers were presented at a conference in Brazil, claiming that male and female circumcision has the potential to reduce HIV acquisition. Such claims may conversely have negative consequences in the struggle against HIV and AIDS. At the recent congress of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the findings of a study conducted amongst male South African participants were presented, suggesting that the circumcised penis is more resistant to HIV infection. TAC has been reported to be considering advocating circumcision as a result. We are encouraging them to reconsider their new strategy.

  • Circumcision Unethical and Illegal Say Experts
    Male circumcision is ethically inappropriate and unlawful says an article by M. Fox and M. Thomson, both in the School of Law, Keele University, UK, in the current issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics. "We conclude that it is ethically inappropriate to subject children-male or female-to the acknowledged risks of circumcision and contend that there is no compelling legal authority for the common view that male circumcision is lawful." The article exposes circumcision proponents as "evangelists" and their continued commitment to mass circumcision "problematic in a number of respects." Ethical concerns for circumcision has come under increasingly harsh review as medical and cultural issues are labeled moot or insignificant compared to the child's human rights including that of self-determination.

  • Circumcision Not a Cure-all for HIV
    Circumcision may result in a false belief that safe-sex practices are no longer necessary. The result could be a worsening of the incidence of HIV infection, especially for women. The researchers said circumcision might help in reducing HIV transmission women-to-men. What they don't say is that male circumcision doesn't protect women from HIV. An infected circumcised man having sex with a woman is just as likely to spread the disease as an intact man. The same goes for any male partners he has sex with. The problem is that men and women may erroneously believe that circumcision is like a permanent condom, which then leads to unprotected sex and transmission of the virus.

  • New History of Circumcision Says It's Outmoded and Harmful
    A newly published book by Oxford University Press traces the history of circumcision from its Middle Eastern origins to its unlikely reincarnation in modern America. Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America, by Leonard B. Glick, MD, and anthropologist, shows that for nearly two millennia circumcision was practiced by Jews as a mark of their covenant with God, while Christians rejected it as spiritually worthless. The book is an unflinching, forceful critique of a medical practice many Americans take for granted. It will likely attract responses from circumcision practitioners, supporters and opponents alike.


[ Back ]