Jesse addresses that on the pod. He says the data behind that idea is very shaky (and he’s one of the best journalists out there when it comes to analyzing medical data). There has been a big shift in the last 10-15 years in what is considered good evidence, and a lot of old data is being re-evaluated. The CDC has been a political football for years, and was especially impacted by Trump’s budget cuts, so I doubt they’ve caught up on this.
So that's what I had always heard was a justification. Foreskin harbors bacteria that makes STD transmission more likely, but on the pod they said that the science behind that was questionable... At the end of the day, I think circumcision is largely a neutral act. The benefits are probably not substantial, and complications are exceedingly rare.
It's like the COVID vaccine! Almost always safe, but has little benefit.
(Disclaimer- I got the COVID vax. I am not an anti-vaxxer. It's a joke. But seriously...)
The first course of COVID vaccine has a very clear benefit, it massively reduces death rates even if it can’t prevent infection. It’s the boosters that are much less clear.
The way this works. Is that you do something socially for a long time. Then people start questioning it. You in a backtracking way start coming up with weak reasons to keep doing it. So over the last 50 years a lot of sloppy shit had some Out about circumcision mostly in defense of the practice.
It’s very much like when Christian’s try and use “science” to “prove” god exists.
All they’re doing is trying to make their archaic rituals “fit” because otherwise they have to wake up and think “oooh. Maybe we shouldn’t have done that to billions of young boys”. And it’s way easier to run a shitty study and to avoid that cognitive dissonance.
Circumcision (male) reduces HIV transmission. They're encouraging it in parts of Africa for this reason. https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/fact-sheets/hiv/male-circumcision-HIV-prevention-factsheet.html
Jesse addresses that on the pod. He says the data behind that idea is very shaky (and he’s one of the best journalists out there when it comes to analyzing medical data). There has been a big shift in the last 10-15 years in what is considered good evidence, and a lot of old data is being re-evaluated. The CDC has been a political football for years, and was especially impacted by Trump’s budget cuts, so I doubt they’ve caught up on this.
So that's what I had always heard was a justification. Foreskin harbors bacteria that makes STD transmission more likely, but on the pod they said that the science behind that was questionable... At the end of the day, I think circumcision is largely a neutral act. The benefits are probably not substantial, and complications are exceedingly rare.
It's like the COVID vaccine! Almost always safe, but has little benefit.
(Disclaimer- I got the COVID vax. I am not an anti-vaxxer. It's a joke. But seriously...)
The first course of COVID vaccine has a very clear benefit, it massively reduces death rates even if it can’t prevent infection. It’s the boosters that are much less clear.
The way this works. Is that you do something socially for a long time. Then people start questioning it. You in a backtracking way start coming up with weak reasons to keep doing it. So over the last 50 years a lot of sloppy shit had some Out about circumcision mostly in defense of the practice.
It’s very much like when Christian’s try and use “science” to “prove” god exists.
All they’re doing is trying to make their archaic rituals “fit” because otherwise they have to wake up and think “oooh. Maybe we shouldn’t have done that to billions of young boys”. And it’s way easier to run a shitty study and to avoid that cognitive dissonance.