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IOTM – Dr. Robert Van Howe

by
Blog, Intactivist of the Month
March 10, 2012

MARCH 2012: Dr. Robert Van Howe, pediatrician and passionate advocate for children’s rights, is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Human Development at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. He also holds a Master’s degree in statistics and public health. Dr. Van Howe is an expert on circumcision, speaks frequently on that topic, and has published numerous articles and studies, including last year’s How the Circumcision Solution in Africa Will Increase HIV Infections, published in the Journal of Public Health in Africa (JPH).

“I became aware that circumcision was probably a bad idea when I had a roommate in college who was intact,” Dr. Van Howe explains. “This was further cemented when it turned out that my best friend in medical school was also intact. Both of them told me that they thanked their parents every day (figuratively) for not having them circumcised.” In medical school, he was taught that circumcision was “unnecessary mutilative surgery,” a tenet to which Van Howe still holds fast. After years of extensive research into the medical literature, he says he still has not seen enough contrary evidence to undermine this position.

Dr. Van Howe is particularly passionate about debunking the myth that mass circumcisions in Africa will prevent the spread of HIV. He explains why in this radio interview with KPFT in Houston, Texas: “The study [done] in Africa was not done on children—it was done on adult men. There has been absolutely no evidence that circumcising a baby makes any difference on HIV infection rates. Otherwise in the United States, we would have a low HIV rate. And actually we have a rate of heterosexually transmitted HIV that’s about three times higher than what it is in Europe, where circumcision is very rare.” In a recent article, he explains that the circumcision solution in Africa is actually a wasteful distraction that takes resources away from more effective, less expensive, less invasive alternatives. “By diverting attention away from more effective interventions, circumcision programs will likely increase the number of HIV infections.”

Since its founding, Dr. Van Howe has been a valued supporter of Intact America. “I think Intact America is essential in the education process that needs to take place in this country,” Van Howe says. “Physicians and parents have been spoon-fed circumcision propaganda for the past century, and it will take a concerted effort to undo the harm that has been done.”

Says Georganne Chapin, “Bob Van Howe is a friend to Intact America, a humanitarian, and a friend to babies and families. His intelligence, willingness to spend the time to understand the scientific and ethical issues related to the removal of genital tissue from unconsenting individuals, and concern for the children who are his patients, all combine to make him the kind of physician all children—and people—deserve.”

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Marilyn

Marilyn Fayre Milos, multiple award winner for her humanitarian work to end routine infant circumcision in the United States and advocating for the rights of infants and children to genital autonomy, has written a warm and compelling memoir of her path to becoming “the founding mother of the intactivist movement.” Needing to support her family as a single mother in the early sixties, Milos taught banjo—having learned to play from Jerry Garcia (later of The Grateful Dead)—and worked as an assistant to comedian and social critic Lenny Bruce, typing out the content of his shows and transcribing court proceedings of his trials for obscenity. After Lenny’s death, she found her voice as an activist as part of the counterculture revolution, living in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco during the 1967 Summer of Love, and honed her organizational skills by creating an alternative education open classroom (still operating) in Marin County. 

After witnessing the pain and trauma of the circumcision of a newborn baby boy when she was a nursing student at Marin College, Milos learned everything she could about why infants were subjected to such brutal surgery. The more she read and discovered, the more convinced she became that circumcision had no medical benefits. As a nurse on the obstetrical unit at Marin General Hospital, she committed to making sure parents understood what circumcision entailed before signing a consent form. Considered an agitator and forced to resign in 1985, she co-founded NOCIRC (National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers) and began organizing international symposia on circumcision, genital autonomy, and human rights. Milos edited and published the proceedings from the above-mentioned symposia and has written numerous articles in her quest to end circumcision and protect children’s bodily integrity. She currently serves on the board of directors of Intact America.

Georganne

Georganne Chapin is a healthcare expert, attorney, social justice advocate, and founding executive director of Intact America, the nation’s most influential organization opposing the U.S. medical industry’s penchant for surgically altering the genitals of male children (“circumcision”). Under her leadership, Intact America has definitively documented tactics used by U.S. doctors and healthcare facilities to pathologize the male foreskin, pressure parents into circumcising their sons, and forcibly retract the foreskins of intact boys, creating potentially lifelong, iatrogenic harm. 

Chapin holds a BA in Anthropology from Barnard College, and a Master’s degree in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. For 25 years, she served as president and chief executive officer of Hudson Health Plan, a nonprofit Medicaid insurer in New York’s Hudson Valley. Mid-career, she enrolled in an evening law program, where she explored the legal and ethical issues underlying routine male circumcision, a subject that had interested her since witnessing the aftermath of the surgery conducted on her younger brother. She received her Juris Doctor degree from Pace University School of Law in 2003, and was subsequently admitted to the New York Bar. As an adjunct professor, she taught Bioethics and Medicaid and Disability Law at Pace, and Bioethics in Dominican College’s doctoral program for advanced practice nurses.

In 2004, Chapin founded the nonprofit Hudson Center for Health Equity and Quality, a company that designs software and provides consulting services designed to reduce administrative complexities, streamline and integrate data collection and reporting, and enhance access to care for those in need. In 2008, she co-founded Intact America.

Chapin has published many articles and op-ed essays, and has been interviewed on local, national and international television, radio and podcasts about ways the U.S. healthcare system prioritizes profits over people’s basic needs. She cites routine (nontherapeutic) infant circumcision as a prime example of a practice that wastes money and harms boys and the men they will become. This Penis Business: A Memoir is her first book.