Circumcision deaths:
http://www.cirp.org/library/death/ Quote:Some babies die of complications of circumcision.1 There has been a need to assemble information concerning death from complications of circumcision in one convenient location. This page is designed to fill that need.
Deaths occur secondary to loss of blood or systemic infection from the circumcision wound.
A few deaths are reported in the medical literature. Other medical literature discusses the frequency of those deaths. A few deaths are reported in the popular press.
There is reason to believe that many deaths from circumcision are attributed to other causes. For example, if a baby were to die of meningitis that was contracted through the circumcision wound, the death may be attributed to meningitis while ignoring the fact that the baby would not have had meningitis if he had not been circumcised.
Circumcision originated before the dawn of history. There was no knowledge of sanitation or the need for a sterile operating environment. Jews have traditionally performed circumcision on the eighth day after birth for many thousands of years. The medical literature was still reporting numerous deaths from ritual circumcision in the early twentieth century.2, 3 There must have been vast numbers of babies who died under those conditions through the centuries. Jewish law allows parents who have had three sons die from circumcision to leave the fourth son intact.6
Doctors are highly motivated to conceal the true cause of circumcision death. Neonatal circumcision has no medical indication and is now considered to be an unnecessary7 non-therapeutic8 operation. It is unethical to carry out such operations on minors who cannot consent for themselves.9 Consequently, most doctors who have a baby die after a circumcision would prefer to attribute the results of his unethical operation to secondary causes, such as infection or bleeding, while ignoring the primary cause, which is the circumcision that resulted in the infection or bleeding. It is, therefore, very hard to identify the total number of deaths that occur from circumcision. One senses that one may be seeing only the "tip of the iceberg," with the vast majority of deaths from circumcision being concealed. The deaths undoubtedly cause an increase in infant mortality. Male infant mortality is higher than female infant mortality. It is not known how much of this increased mortality is due to the practice of male circumcision.
Several doctors have given estimates of the number of deaths that occur each year. Douglas Gairdner reported 16-19 actual deaths a year in England and Wales from neonatal circumcisions in the 1940s.10 Sydney Gellis believed that "there are more deaths from complications of circumcision than from cancer of the penis.11 There are various figures for the number of deaths from penile cancer ranging from 200 to 480 deaths per year. Robert Baker estimated 229 deaths per year from circumcision in the United States.12 Bollinger estimated that approximately 119 infant boys die from circumcision-related each year in the U.S. (1.3% of all male neonatal deaths from all causes).52
There are several case reports of death in the medical literature. These are deaths from various infections.2-5,13-15 Sauer reported the death of an 18-day-old infant from Staphylococcal bronco-pneumonia.5 Hiss et al. reported the death of an infant in Israel from haemorrhage and hypovolemic shock after ritual circumcision.21
There are several newspaper accounts of boys who have died after circumcision. These are from bleeding and from complications of anesthesia.16-17,19-21,22-36
Several coroner's reports of deaths from circumcision are known to exist.18 38 Demetrius Manker died from blood loss in Dade County, Florida on June 23, 1993.18 The coroner's report on the death of a previously healthy one-month-old infant, Ryleigh Roman Bryan McWillis, less that 48 hours after his circumcision,24 is available. Baby Ryleigh died of hypovolemic shock, after exsanguination caused by hemorrhage at the circumcision wound.38 39 Ryleigh's mother said, "I unplugged his life support at 5 a.m. on the 22nd of August, one month and one day after he was born."39
Despite the abundant evidence of death from circumcision-related-causes, the March 2009 Circumcision Policy Statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics omitted any mention of possible death from circumcision-related-causes, thereby helping to keep American parents uninformed of the possibility of death following circumcision...
... Amitai Moshe, age 8 days, went into cardiac arrest after a ritual circumcision at Golder's Green Synagogue, London. He was taken from the synagogue directly to hospital and died eight days later.43-45
A family doctor in Ontario circumcised an unnamed healthy infant at seven days of age. The infant suffered multiple complications and died seven days later of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.
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