A common fallacy: If two things happen, one is the cause of the other.

   The post asssumes that there is no difference between Americans and
Swedes other than the circumcision rate. Let's look at a couple of other
differences:
   Many Swedes are natural blonds.  Does blond hair mean less
susceptibility to AIDS?  (Do blonds have more fun?)
   Sweden has a system of socialized medicine.  Does that account for
better prevention of AIDS?
   Sweden has a colder climate than most of the US. Does the AIDS virus
care about that?
   Swedish society is much more open about sex than US society.
   (Here I'm guessing.) The Swedish diet is different from ours.

Being new here, I'm wondering who "George" is, since you referred so
matter-of-factly to him, even tho the only posters are Karen Hill,
Taylor and the smart Oregonian who posted so far. It must be Karen who
you're saying is George, by deduction, but also because your
characterization seems to fit the text of her/his message, which is
full of inaccuracies, falsehoods and loads of other distortions.

Ian,

Perhaps you and Darrin are right and I am wrong.

I don't think so though...

Edward Wallerstein won an American medical writer's award and his account
"only cutting the tip" accords with that of a Jewish encyclopedia....

The following is a relevant excerpt of African HIV hysteria and American
baby penises...
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/chiro-list/message/4009

It is a little known fact that ancient rabbis switched to TOTAL infant
foreskin amputation when Jews started lengthening their foreskins to appear
uncircumcised. See the quotes from historians below.

Thus - as a consequence of an ancient decision of mere mortal ancient Jews -
modern Jewish mohelim (including MD mohelim and non-Jewish MDs) are
amputating from Jewish infant penises FAR more infant foreskin than God
originally commanded.

In 1997, Hershel Shanks, PhD editor of Moment, noted that "the rabbis of the
Talmud OFTEN changed the Biblical rules" (emphasis added)...

"....[I]n Biblical times, Jewish descent was determined by the
Jewishness of the father...The rabbis changed that 2,000 year-old
tradition...Indeed the rabbis of the Talmud OFTEN changed the Biblical
rules (emphasis added)..."
[Shanks H. Tolerance v. Halachah. Moment. (Jun)1997;22(3):6, 8-9]

The late Edward Wallerstein won an American Medical Writers Award for his
book,  Circumcision: An American Health Fallacy [NY:
Springer 1980].

Wallerstein wrote in a 1983 article:

"Originally, the surgery involved only cutting the tip of the foreskin.
This was changed in the Hellenic Period to prevent [Jews from]
elongat[ing] the foreskin stump in order to appear uncircumcised."
[Wallerstein E. Humanistic Judaism 1983;11(4):46]

Wallerstein's research is supported by The Jewish Encyclopedia, published in
1901, which
indicates that a Jewish "rage for athletics" occurred around 175 BCE
when the Seleucid king Antiochus IV offered citizenship to those who
adopted the athletic Greek way of life.  Jason, high priest of
Jerusalem, offered to increase his tribute to Antiochus IV if he would
build a Greek-style gymnasium in Jerusalem.  The gymnasium was built.  
As Jews began participating in the nude games, "devout Jews" (a minority
of Jews) found to their horror that a partially exposed glans (i.e., a
"mini"-circumcised penis) was considered vulgar.  Compounding the horror
(of this minority of "devout Jews") was the fact that many Jews -
including perhaps Jewish priests - were stretching their "mini"
circumcisized foreskins so as not to appear circumcised.

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia:

"[D]evout Jews began to look upon the exercises with horror, especially
because most of them were practised "in puris naturilibus" and the
Covenant of Abraham had become an object of derision.  Nevertheless, for
a time at least, the rage for Athletics spread even to the priests...
[See Athletics in Singer I (and 400 others, eds.) The Jewish
Encyclopedia. New York: Ktav 1901.]

"...[T]he consequence was [the] attempt to appear like the Greeks by
epispasm ('making themselves foreskins')... [See Circumcision in Singer
I (and 400 others, eds.), 1901]

Forty years later (134 BCE), the high priest of Jerusalem, John
Hyrcanus, forcibly circumcised the Idumeans, "leading them to think they
were Jews." [Gribetz J, Greenstein EL, Stein RS. The Timetables of
Jewish History. New York: Simon and Schuster 1993.  Judah Gribetz is
president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.]

It was during this period that Jewish priests apparently decided that
stretching the foreskin was wrong and threatened the extermination of
those Jews who stretched their foreskins:

"The Book of Jubilee (xv. 26-27), written in the time of John Hyrcanus,
has the following:  '...God's anger will be kindled against the children
of the covenant if they make the members of their body appear like those
of the Gentiles, and they will be expelled and exterminated from the
earth.'" [Charles, The Book of Jubilees iv.-ix. iii. 190-192, under
Circumcision in Singer I (and 400 others, eds.) The Jewish Encyclopedia.
New York: Ktav 1901.]

But Jews of this period apparently construed the "no stretching" decree
to mean that it was all right not to circumcise; for when the son of
John Hyrcanus took power in 104 BCE (by imprisoning his mother and
killing his brother), he forced circumcision on the residents of Galilee
- "many of them Jews." [Gribetz 1993]

The shift to total foreskin amputation is believed to have occurred one
hundred years later, after the unsuccessful Bar Kokba uprising against
the Roman Emperor Hadrian (who had completely outlawed circumcision):

"In order to prevent the obliteration of the "seal of the
covenant"...the Rabbis, probably after the war of Bar Kokba (see Yeb.
l.c.; Gen. R. xivi.), instituted the 'peri'ah' (the laying bare of the
glans), without which circumcision was declared to be of no value (Shab.
xxx. 6)." [See Circumcision in Singer I (and 400 others, eds.), 1901]

"Thenceforward [total foreskin amputation - the laying bare of the
glans] was the mark of Jewish loyalty." [See Circumcision in Singer I
(and 400 others, eds.), 1901]

The notion that the penile mutilation^^^ originally/allegedly commanded by
God left most of the foreskin on the penis is supported by the
historical evidence that the ancient rabbis threatened to "exterminate"
Jews who tried to appear uncircumcised and then made a switch to TOTAL
foreskin amputationS?

^^^See "Circumcision is indeed a mutilation" below.

Fortunately, modern rabbis offer American Jews an ideological basis not
to mutilate:

1) "[Circumcision] is not a sacrament which inducts the infant into
Judaism: his birth does that" [Rabbi MN Kertner. What is a Jew? New
York: Macmillan, 1973,1993]  Adult Jews who wish to remain uncircumcised
are accepted under Israel?s Law of Return, which indicates that even
"religious" circumcision is a CHOICE which may legitimately be postponed
until adulthood and beyond; and

2) "The infliction of unnecessary pain is precisely what Judaism is
designed to fight against, so it makes little sense for us to be the
perpetrators on our children." [Rabbi Michael Lerner. Jewish Renewal NY:
G.P. Putnam?s Sons 1994:387])

CIRCUMCISION IS INDEED A "MUTILATION"

Various
encyclopedias use the term "mutilation" to describe circumcision.

Some relevant quotes:

"Thus in Hebrew history the mutilation of Abraham is the beginning of a
religious rite which has continued...

"...[R]eligious mutilations are personal and voluntary in
contradistinction to savage practice, where mutilations are imposed by
compulsion upon conquered enemies or enslaved peoples or persons..."
[According to the Bible:  "[E]very man purchased with money of yours
must
without fail get circumcised..." [Genesis 17:13] - TDG]

[Gomme L. Mutilation.  In Hastings J (ed). Encyclopaedia of Religion and
Ethics. Vol. IX NY: Charles Scribner?s Sons 1922:62-3]

<<<<<<<<<<<

"Mutilations of the sexual organs are more ethnically important than
any...The most important, circumcision (q.v.), has been transformed into
a religious rite...."

[Mutilation. The Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. XIX, Cambridge, England:
University Press 1911:99-100]

<<<<<<<<<<<<

"[C]ircumcision is one of the procedures by which an individual is
initiated into a new social role at puberty.  Initiation rites may
include ordeals involving other forms of mutilation...."

[Mutilation. The Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. 19, Danbury, CT: Grolier
Inc. 1992:681]

<<<<<<<<<<<

My own penis was mutilated though it looks quite normal to me; indeed, it
looks so normal to me that I insisted my eldest son's penis be mutilated -
to look "normal" - like mine.

It was one of the most heated arguments I ever had with his mother - but
fortunately she prevailed - he is whole - and has the option to CHOOSE to
amputate his foreskin if he wishes.

I SAY AGAIN...

The infant screams should have ended BILLIONS of dollars' worth of infant
screams ago - back when I first exposed American medicine's phony "babies
can't feel pain" neurology.

Ending the infant screams NOW (finally) will instantly save America an
estimated $400 million per year - unless - of course - the HIV/AIDS
hypothesis is correct and Auvert et al. are correct in forwarding Fink's
1986 hypothesis that circumcision prevents transmission of HIV/AIDS.

At the very least, in any future African penis mutilation studies, Auvert et
al. must mention to African "volunteers" the evidence that the HIV/AIDS
hypothesis is shaky - and the fact that MDs in many countries including
America face prison for lying to parents and using phony neurology to claim
that babies can't feel pain (see above) - in their ONGOING mass infant penis
ripping and slicing crime.

Again quoting Kirkup:

"...[C]ircumcision...continues...often during a
state of mass hysteria." [Kirkup. In Mann RD (ed.): The History of the
Management of Pain. Parthenon Publishing Group. 1988:17]

The ONLY "medical indication" for the mass infant penis ripping and slicing
is to keep American MDs out of prison.

Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

Todd

Dr. Gastaldo
Hillsboro, Oregon
USA