December 11, 2021 In 1907 Mark Twain famously wrote, "Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to [British Prime Minister Benjamin] Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'" [1] Disraeli may have been referring to the misuse of statistical data to trick others, a fallacious tactic often used to boost a weak argument. Let’s e

September 4, 2021 Last month Your Whole Baby published a post with questions for parents considering circumcision. YWB implied that a parent who cannot answer these questions lacks sufficient knowledge to give informed consent for her son's circumcision. The problems generated by the YWB questions are the same problems with a series of questions posted on the Saving Our Sons website in 2014. Our analysis of the SOS questions applies equally here. The list is nothing more than

Andrew Gross Published: July 10, 2021 Updated: January 5, 2022 Last month Ulf Dunkel created a page about me for his IntactiWiki website. My first reaction is - I'm flattered. You know you've made it when your adversaries consider you important enough to publish a page dedicated to tearing you down. I can take pride in the fact that my entry on IntactWiki is 30% longer than the entry for Bill Gates, the Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist who has promoted the procedure a

Published September 12, 2020 Revised October 4, 2021 Intactivists say that a circumcised man doesn't know what he's missing. [1] That's true - to some extent. A happily circumcised man doesn't know that he's missing phimosis and smegma. He doesn't know that circumcision reduced his risk of urinary tract infection during infancy by 90%. He doesn't realize that circumcision during infancy lowered his risk of penile cancer by up to 99%. He isn't aware that he spends less time c

December 4, 2019 Updated January 3, 2020 Dear Brendon, I caught the tail end of the 51-minute Facebook livestream video that you recorded on Tuesday evening. The section of interest to me runs from 42:44 to 48:22. You repeatedly said that it's very interesting that the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical organizations and individual physicians have not issued any criticism or rebuttal of your anti-circumcision documentary. You called it a "tell". One part that pi

November 29, 2018 Anti-circumcision activists often claim that just 1 out of 16,667 men (0.006%) will require a circumcision for medical reasons. This is one of the most cited intactivist statistics, up there with the 16 functions, 117 deaths, and 20,000 nerve endings. It was even cited by the president of Doctors Opposing Circumcision in a 1996 medical journal. [1] This post will answer the questions: What is the source for this statistic? And is it valid? It's important to