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Ask Marilyn – Circumcision: No Surgical Device Is Safe

The penis advice columnDear Marilyn: We are expecting a boy in May and plan to circumcise him. Friends tell me that there are many difference devices that can be used. Could you tell me which circumcision device is the safest?

—Cheryl F., New York, NY

Dear Cheryl: Circumcision devices are not safe for any baby. At birth, the foreskin and glans (head of the penis) are connected by a common membrane (the balanopreputial lamina, or synechia). The first step in any circumcision is to insert a probe between the two layers and tear them apart. At this point various clamps and cutting devices are used. All of these devices cause immense pain, put the child at risk of hemorrhaging, infection, and disfigurement of the genitals.

The commonly used Gomco Clamp crushes thousands of nerve endings, various specialized muscles, and many blood vessels in the foreskin with thousands of pounds  of pressure.. This intense pressure essentially welds everything together. Even with all that pressure, blood still seeps into the tissue once the clamp is removed, causing a dark ring at the scar site, evidence that a Gomco clamp was used. The clamp comes in many sizes and doctors often use the wrong size, leading to complications.

Circumcision DevicesDoctors who use the Plasti-Bell circumcision device insert it between the glans and the foreskin. Once in place, the doctor pulls the foreskin over the plastic tube and ties a string around the foreskin. He pulls the string as tight as he can to crush the tissue and ties a knot to hold it in place on the plastic tube. Then he slices off the foreskin. The foreskin under the string dies over the next few days, and then it and the Plasti-Bell fall off. At times, the device gets stuck and this causes new problems that must be dealt with medically. The Plasti-Bell has the highest infection rate following circumcision because of harmful bacteria on the string and decaying flesh.

The Mogen Clamp is most often used by ritual circumcisers called mohels. Glans (head of the penis) amputation occurs more frequently with this device. The Mogen Company, now out of business, was sued often. Sadly, there are replicas still being made and still hurting babies.

In short, there is no safe device. The safest way is don’t circumcise! Let him grow up and decide what parts of his own body he does or doesn’t want. He’ll be glad you did!

—Marilyn Milos

Author

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.