NATIONAL
ORGANIZATION OF CIRCUMCISION INFORMATION RESOURCE CENTERS
Post Office Box 2512 San Anselmo, California 94960 Telephone: 415 488-9883 Fax 415 488 9660
Contact: Marilyn Milos, R.N. 415-488-9883
Paul Fleiss, M.D., MPH 213-664-1977
James Snyder, M.D., FACS 703-862-6732
Thomas Ritter, M.D., FACS 717-366-1115
George Denniston, M.D., MPH 206-368-8358
NATIONAL CENTER FOR HEALTH STATISTICS REPORTS DROP
IN CIRCUMCISION
December 12, 1994. The National Center for Health Statistics released its latest
statistics on the U.S. circumcision rate, showing a drop in the western United States to
35.5% -- the lowest in the country. The national rate for 1993 has dropped to 59.5%
According to NOCIRC Director, Marilyn Milos, R.N., "The steady fall in
newborn circumcision reflects an increasing awareness among doctors and parents that the
surgery is medically unnecessary."
"Although the rate is falling, the U.S. is the only western nation to practice
routine newborn circumcision on the majority of its boys. European, Asian, Central, and
South American nations do not circumcise. Many European medical associations actively
condemn the practice," says pediatrician Paul Fleiss.
"Circumcision was introduced into the U.S. in the Victorian Era to curb
masturbation and became a routine procedure during the 1950s for various medical
reasons, all of which have been disproven. Circumcision causes pain, trauma, and a
permanent loss of protective and erogenous tissue," says Fleiss.
According to urologist James Snyder, past President of the Virginia Urologic
Society, "The fall in the rate of circumcision is a sign of progress. Circumcision is a
destructive, contraindicated surgery with serious risks including hemorrhage, infection,
irreparable mutilation and death. One serious complication occurs in every 500 circumci-
sions (approximately 3,700 in 1993). When Americans become educated, they refuse to
allow their sons to be subjected to unnecessary risk. With more penises left as nature
made them, we expect fewer urologic and sexual problems related to circumcision."
Thomas Ritter, M.D. author of Say No to Circumcision! notes: "The drop in
the rate of circumcision means that the vast majority of American boys will now grow up
with natural, intact genitalia, just like boys in Europe."
"Since 1971, the American Academy of Pediatrics has claimed that there are no valid
medical reasons for circumcision. After 50 years, the U.S. medical community is finally
joining world opinion and abandoning the practice," says George Denniston, M.D.
Marilyn Milos, who founded NOCIRC in 1979 to educate Americans about cir-
cumcision and the value of leaving boys intact says, "Parents in the U.S. are returning to
basic values of protecting human rights and self-determination. At the present rate of
decline, circumcision will soon join routine tonsillectomy, as a relic of archaic medical
practice."
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