Talk:Circumcision/Archive 24

message: I have removed the comment that metzitzah b'peh is done 'to promote healing.' This comment is tendentious and controversial for the following reasons:
* We have no way of knowing the motivation of every mohel in sucking the blood from the circumcision wound. It might be in the belief that it promotes healing, or that the Talmud commands it, or that custom obligates it or for a thousand other reasons.
* To say 'to promote healing' implies that sucking the circumcision wound has this effect. This is hotly contested by many doctors who assert that it can spread disease.
Therefore this wording is POV and tendentious. I have tried to get over this problem by inviting interested readers to follow a variety of links to a variety of opinions. One is to the website of the Rabbinical Council of America. Another one is to an article in The Jewish Week. The third one is to a press release from a group opposed to circumcision. They complement the first link, which is pro-metzitzah. Here are the four links:
   Michael Glass 23:30, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason for metzitza is the Talmud in Shabbos, and the reasons there are to promote healing. Whether you or I think it is effective is WP:OR, and that it may spread herpes is already mentioned by the Gesundheit article. Putting in a link farm is completely out of scope, at BEST it belongs in Brit Milah. Please stop trying to push negative implications for metzitzah because you do not like it. -- Avi 01:42, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I removed three of the four references because it's tendentious to spam a single sentence with four links (and "prweb" is not really a useful source for anything, frankly).  I agree with Michael that saying something like "Some believe that blah promotes healing" is a better wording than "To promote healing." Nandesuka 13:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. By doing so you are confusing two issues. There is no doubt that it serves to promote the healing of the wound. The issue is does it ALSO open up the possibility of spreading certain diseases. These are two seperate issues, the same way breathing supports life, but is the ONLY way that the flu, rhinovirus, and tuberculosis is spread. We already make clear through the Gesundheit article that metztzah has the danger of spreading Herpes. This is no way shape or form chnages the medical fact that the act of metztzah helps promote the healing of the incision created by the bris. To say otherwise, inmy opinion, is disingenuous and indicative of either a misunderstanding of the process, of the English language, or a desire to cast metztzah in a poor light for outside POV reasons. -- Avi 13:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can I suggest changing the text to: "sucks blood from the circumcision wound, with the intent being to promote healing?" I think this would avoid the possibility of any such confusion. Jakew 14:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

text: But would Michael be so quick to demand that we place the following phrase in a surgery article. "The intent of performing an appendectomy is to promote the well being of a person suffering from appendicitis" or "The intent of radiation therapy is to promote healing of cancer" Even though nternal surgery carries phenomenal risk of infection and radiation therapy has significant deleterious side affects that sometimes prove terminal? -- Avi 15:37, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know. Michael was talking about 'belief,' which seems a weak term given Mordechai Halperin's statements. On the other hand, I'd feel uncomfortable with stating the benefit as absolute fact without citing scientific studies in support. It seems simplest, and perhaps a quick resolution, to simply specify the intent. It was, of course, just an idea. Jakew 15:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "There is no doubt that it serves to promote the healing of the wound."  I doubt it, or at least I can't imagine why other post circ antiseptic treatments might help much more. Intent fits, however crude.  Remember, I'm withholding ritual infection rate information.  Whatever's being done isn't enough!TipPt 01:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

text: With all due respect, there is a HUGE difference between commenting on the intent of an established, and well documented, lifesaving medical procedure … as opposed to commenting on the motivating intent of what is NOTHING more than a dubious religious ritual, the true origins of which are lost in pre-history. Just one word: Commonsense! .. and don’t try telling me that “dubious” is simply a point of view, or original research. The raction to Michael's edits just goes to show that some, here, are blinded by a wholly irrational, and quite obsessive, need to promote what they themselves believe in. Orpingtonian 08:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reasons for and against metzitzah

message: Is a letter to the editor (which is not subject to peer review) of a journal (which is peer reviewed) a reliable source?  I am thinking particularly about reference 101 which cites a letter by someone with no formal training or credentials in the discipline of the journal (as far as I know) criticizing a published study on technical grounds.  Given that the published study passed peer review and the letter criticizing it did not, is it fair to say in our article that the study has been criticized on techincal grounds?  Shouldn't we find a peer-reviewed source that does so, and if one is lacking, notate that it has been criticized by a non-expert or a researcher from an unrelated discipline?  I must say I feel a bit awkward bringing this up since the letter happens to be from a wikipedian who is very active on this page.  But I also feel that it's very important to keep up the standards for sources on this page.Zandrous 14:00, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The letter is published in a reliable source (unlike some of these websites like "National Organization of Restoring Men". The link followed goes to the letters section, which allows the reader to make their own decision. Anyway, most peer-reviewed journals do not publish crackpot letters; regardless, the source is an acceptable one, so the reference should be as well. -- Avi 15:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  "The letter is published in a reliable source (unlike some of these websites like "National Organization of Restoring Men")". Point of view .. and a pretty dubious one at that. Orpingtonian 16:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Last I checked, peer-reviewd journals are acceptable sources. You differ? -- Avi 17:18, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Was the letter peer-reviewed BEFORE publication? If not, then I think it is a back door entry and simply exploits a flaw in Wiki policy .. but that is just a (my) point of view ;) Orpingtonian 17:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand that peer-reviewed articles are reliable sources, but this letter is not peer-reviewed, even though it appeared in a scholarly journal.  Not everything that appears in a scholarly journal is peer-reviewed, ie letters and book reviews typically are not.  My main concern is that the letter (which was not peer-reviewed) is being cited here as a critique of Fleiss et al (that was peer-reviewed).  Is this is the only critique of Fleiss et al anywhere in print?  Can't we find a more reliable source than someone who has no qualification in anything related to medicine, physiology, or biology?  If not, shouldn't we at least qualify the sentence to make clear that Fleiss et al has been criticized by an avocational researcher with no formal training or credentials in medicine, biology, physiology, or any related fields?  Lots of unqualified people write lots of letters about lots of things, but having a letter printed doesn't automatically make it a suitable source for an encyclopedia.  Zandrous 12:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about Reliable Sources 

message: I made this edit (after discussing it above) for the following reasons: 
First, it was not conducted by the WHO but by an interdisciplinary team of nine researchers from several institutions, two of whom are affilliated with the Stop TB Department of the WHO and one of whom is affilliated with Family and Community Health department of the WHO.  The other six are not affilliated with the WHO and the WHO is not named among the funding institutions nor did it release the article's findings as a report.  
Second, the portion that reads "Research conducted by...and published in...showed that men who had been circumcised had a significantly lower risk of infection with the AIDS virus" is misleading at best and incorrect at worse.  The only research conducted by the team that authored this article was a statistical modelling of data from a different, separate study which had shown that men cirumcised had a significantly lower risk of infection (with the HIV virus of course, not the Acquired Immune Defiency Syndrome which may result from infection).  The fact that one of the authors of this study is also an author of the other study does not mean that we can say that the research done in one study was also done in the other.  This is standard academic protocol for discussing multiple researches by a given individual, even when published in the same journal on separate occasions.
I hope that clears it up.  Please feel free to discuss! Does anyone prefer the earlier formulation, and if so why? Zandrous 17:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change to sentence referencing PLoS Medicine article in HIV section 

message: I have changed the reporting on Rickwood to put the information on circumcision rates in chronological order (as in Rickwood's paper). I have also included more information about why Rickwood thought that too many children were being circumcised (a misdiagnosis of phimosis) as this particularly applied to children under 5. Michael Glass 22:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Circumcision rates in Britain

message: Do we really need to list every major religion that does not practice circumcision? It seems unnecessary.70.21.217.11 21:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Blah Blah do not practice circumcision

message: As it stands, the article lists Jews, Christians and Muslims and then follows with other religions and traditions. This could well be seen as ethnocentric, as the clear majority of circumcisions are performed on Muslims (600 million males or more), while Christians are under no religious obligation to circumcise and Jewish males comprise only about 6 or 7 million overall. I suggest the following order should be considered: Muslims, Jews, Christians and other religions and traditions. What do others think? Michael Glass 07:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hardly ethnocentric; it's a question of listing the Abrahamic religions in the order they historically emerged. Masalai 11:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Not if the Muslim requirement is a result exclusively and only because of the Jewish requirement. -- Avi 01:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Muslims and Jews

message: Again I have found that the following qualifiers (in italics) have been added to the HIV section: "significantly reduced risk of HIV transmission (from female to male only) during unprotected heterosexual intercourse."
These qualifiers are not in the sources. For example, the WHO state that "Together the three studies, which enrolled more than 10 000 participants, provide compelling evidence of a 50 to 60% reduction in heterosexual HIV transmission to men."
Furthermore, none of the sources cited establish that circumcision only reduces the female to male transmission risk. To do that, a study would have to test whether the male to female transmission risk is reduced. A study is currently underway to test that, but it has not yet completed. In the meantime, the studies tell us that it reduces the female to male risk. If/when we have data showing that this is the only transmission mechanism that is affected, we can add that information. Jakew 16:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: HIV qualifiers again

message: The introduction to the AMA's position states (emphasis added is my own):
Leaving out that their entire policy (and by extension, all the other organizations that base themselves ON the AMA) only refers to non-therpeutic, purely elective circumcision is a gross misrepresentation of their platform, a true misquote, and something that must be corrected immediately due to WP:V, WP:RS, WP:ATT, and WP:NPOV. -- Avi 16:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-therpeutic 

message: At the moment this article contains much material on medicine and circumcision. As there is another article on the medical analysis of circumcision it may be better to leave most medical analysis to that article, especially as this article is very long. Michael Glass 01:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a medical issue, so there ought to be some discussion. However, you're right that we should avoid duplication. Ideally, each issue should be summarised here and the detail should go into that article. However, summarising proves to be a problem. Jakew 10:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Medical analysis of circumcision

message: I re-entered the information in a summary paraphrase in the flow of the article, with extensive citations in the footnotes, as opposed to the text. This leaves the information where it belongs without threatening to overwhelm the article. -- Avi 19:47, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your thoughts. The consensus was otherwise. Jakew 18:21, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Policies of associations 

message: if i am not uncut man,can i have problem and my penic is down not up when strong
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.255.135.34 (talk • contribs) 
:Try WP:RD. Jakew 14:26, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uncut 

message: We have four photographs of penises. I can't see that the fifth is necessary. Michael Glass 22:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Illustrations

message: The AIDS section, especially with the addition of material on the transmission of HIV from unhygienic circumcisions, was a bit of a dog's breakfast. To remedy this, I have put the information in chronological order, checked the references and made some changes to bring the text closer to the references cited.  The hypothesis about HIV target cells in the foreskin now has its own subheading.  I hope that these changes make the passage clearer, easier to follow and more accurate. Michael Glass 02:47, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted this change because it seemed soapboxy; specifically, by presenting the data "in chronological order" we spent paragraphs and paragraphs describing research that has since been superceded, before getting to the more recent research.  This puts us in the odd position of introducing a topic by talking about conclusions that are the exact opposite of best current research, and that's poor style.  I express no opinion on the changes you made to the text, but it was too difficult to tease those differences out, so I simply reverted. Nandesuka 02:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: AIDS section

message: Michael, would you please stop adding multiple blank lines between paragraphs.
Per WP:LAYOUT#Headers and paragraphs: "Between paragraphs and between sections, there should be only a single blank line. Multiple blank lines unnecessarily lengthen the article and can make it more difficult to read."
I have already fixed this once. Will you please revert your change to that version? Jakew 13:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry. I wasn't aware that this was a policy. Michael Glass 22:47, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok. Sorry I snapped at you. Jakew 10:01, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Paragraph spacing

message: At present the article contains the following sentence:
::In Mexico mainly, but also in other countries of Latin America, circumsicion is a sign of social status, therefore it prevails among people with economic prosperity.
The reference for this reads as follows:
::Torales, Javier; Pedro Vargasllosa, Carlos Pelicer, and Regina Torne (2006). "Circumcision practice patterns in Mexico: community based survey: social status" (PDF). Sexually Transmitted Infections 79 (1): 65–67. DOI:10.1136/sti.79.1.65. . Retrieved on 12 December 2006. 
I checked both references. The first one is non-existent <http://www.stdjournal.com/pt/re/std/searchresults.htm;jsessionid=FzvQ1gTh1mR1GF1b1yWZJR3CZnR4jsCf5xK3Pwxr5mTv3tmp311Z!315358234!-949856145!8091!-1?&index=1&results=1&searchid=2>. The second reference is to circumcision practices in Korea. Finally, although the note claims that the passage was retrieved on 12 December 2006, this sentence wasn't in the article on 21 january 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Circumcision&diff=102235810&oldid=102203398>. When I Googled the reference, all I came up with was the Wikipedia article. This sentence and its references bears all the marks of fraud. It has to go. Michael Glass 11:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I vaguely recall having seen such an article, but you're right: the links appear to be about South Korea. I've temporarily removed them - they can be restored if/when the proper article is found. Jakew 11:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Afraid I don't know what a furphy is, but one link (http://sti.bmjjournals.com/cgi/repnt/79/1/65.pdf) was a typo as far as I can tell (compare with the corrected South Korea URL: http://sti.bmjjournals.com/cgi/reprint/79/1/65.pdf -- two characters are missing). Either way, the links were wrong. I'll try to remember where I've seen the Mexico data. Jakew 09:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the explanation, Michael. Furphy... one learns something new every day. Jakew 13:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Furphy, I'll have to remeber that one. Thanks.  -- Avi 14:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Phantom reference