Baltimore Sun makes ridiculous claim: "A decline in circumcisions has cost the country $2 billion in extra medical costs in the past decade"

AnthonyZarat · 2012-08-21T21:14:25+00:00

Here is the completely false and misleading article from Johns Hopkins:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-hs-circumcision-economics-study-20120820,0,5997286.story

Also, keep in mind that, even if the absurd statement is TRUE, it implies that if 10 million babies had been circumcised (over 10 years, their number) it would have saved 2 billion dollars (also over 10 years).

Are they advocating that mutliating an infant's genitals is worth it to save $2 billion / 10 million = $200?!?!?!?

2nday0 · 2012-08-22T00:13:24+00:00

by the same logic, removing one breast from every woman could provide huge savings from the reduction in breast cancer rates

AnthonyZarat · 2012-08-21T21:30:32+00:00

"The economic evidence is backing up what we already know medically," said Dr. Aaron Tobian.

This "research" doctor was campaigning in favour of circumcision even before his new "study" came out. As usual, do not believe the opinions of religious nuts whose "research" is motivated by ideology rather than science:

http://technorati.com/women/article/male-circumcision-is-medically-beneficial/

You can read the disgusting editorial that these two clowns wrote for the journal JAMA here:

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1104451

Just a pair of ideological mutilators on a crusade to sanitize the genitals of all baby boys, who (of course) are born dirty and need "fixing".

Tamen_ · 2012-08-21T21:24:47+00:00

Surely this must be a typo....surely they mean it saved the country 2 billion dollars on needless medical operations.

Irrel_M · 2012-08-21T21:25:52+00:00

Anything to support tradition, no matter how stupid the reason.

PierceHarlan · 2012-08-22T01:26:32+00:00

Baltimore Sun is so far left it might just come around the other way. I think the new progressive posture on this issue is to favor circ because men's righters are opposed to it.

misandry_doesnt_real · 2012-08-22T04:03:50+00:00

I think we're missing something important.

It might just be me, but I've noticed circumcision as an issue getting a lot of press recently. Of course, the vast majority of people who see blatant misinformation presented by Johns-Hopkins will believe it, but there are certainly more people who at least know about it. Ideally, now would be the time for some anti-circ activism so we can get our voices heard while the issue is popular.

Tamen_ · 2012-08-22T07:26:43+00:00

The Markov-based Monte Carlo simulation is based among other thing on those circumcision studies which reports a protection from HIV infection by circumcision in Africa. Now, there are many ways which an average Ugandian man differs from an US man so I am unsure how well founded it is to apply those results (even disregarding the criticism levelled at the methods of those African studies).

A more similar population would probably be Western Europe, in fact the John Hopkins study itself does draw a parallell by claiming that a decrease in circumcision rate to Europe's 10% would increase US health costs.

As far as I can tell the US had 48.100 people diagnosed with HIV in 2009* – with a population of 311.000.000 that means 0.015% of the US population were diagnosed with HIV in 2009.

Western Europe had a HIV diagnosis incidence of appr. 7.5 per 100.000 in 2009** – that means 0.0075% of the Western European population were diagnosed with HIV in 2009. The US has twice the incidence rate despite circumcision rates being 5 times as high.

I would think those number seriously undermines/weakens the conclusion of the study as one would assume that Western Europe would have a higher incidence rate than the US if circumcision is such an effective measure against HIV infection.

(Because almost half of the HIV diagnosises in Eastern Europe are caused by drug injections (heroin, krokodile etc) and thus non-/circumcision is not a factor in transmission I’ve only looked at western europe). Only about 4% of diagnosed HIV infections were caused by drug injection in Western Europe)

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/.....ence_5.pdf

** http://www.avert.org/hiv-aids-europe.htm

TracyMorganFreeman · 2012-08-22T06:53:39+00:00

CNN is saying the same thing, but they don't link to the study.

Par for the course in the sensationalist media.

The abstract from Johns Hopkins

I'd love to read the whole thing. I'm a bit hazy it being late, so I'll look into access tomorrow. If someone else has access great.

frostek · 2012-08-22T19:15:40+00:00

That's strange - hardly any blokes in the UK are circumcised - why aren't we having an epidemic of "cancer-causing HPV, HIV, herpes, bacterial vaginitis and other sexually transmitted diseases"?

Title	Baltimore Sun makes ridiculous claim: "A decline in circumcisions has cost the country $2 billion in extra medical costs in the past decade"
Author	AnthonyZarat
Upvotes	24
Comments	15
Date	August 21, 2012 9:12 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/yln35/baltimore_sun_makes_ridiculous_claim_a_decline_in/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/baltimore-sun-makes-ridiculous-claim-a-decline-in.1015338 https://theredarchive.com/post/1015338

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