Back to the News 2002 page.May 8, 2002
Dear Governor Easley and the North Carolina General Assembly:
As North Carolina healthcare professionals, parents, and taxpaying citizens, we are concerned that our state government continues to subsidize the outdated cultural practice of routine circumcision. Non-therapeutic circumcision is not recommended by any medical organization in the world, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Circumcision is not medically recommended because any purported potential or slight benefit of prophylactic circumcision is substantially outweighed by the inherent surgical risks, pain, disadvantages, complications, harm, and lifetime of function loss from circumcision.
North Carolina Medicaid wasted $1.8 million on non-therapeutic circumcisions in 2000. This nearly $2 million unwarranted expense per year should be directed towards providing for the necessary and urgent health care needs of our state's poor citizens, especially considering our current budget shortfall. Other state Medicaid programs and private insurance companies have eliminated this needless expense. It is time for North Carolina Medicaid to place the valid medical needs of our state's children ahead of endorsement and payment for a cultural tradition that offers no tangible health benefit to a child.
We join with friends and colleagues who feel that tax dollars should not be wasted on medically unnecessary procedures. Intact (not circumcised) boys are already in the majority in the West (65%), and practitioners in North Carolina report that an increasing number of parents are turning away from this painful tradition of the past and refusing this surgery for their newborns. The following Internet sites can provide you with valuable information about circumcision:
www.circumcision.org www.nocircnc.org www.cirp.org
We thank you for your prompt attention in eliminating tax funding of cultural, non-therapeutic circumcisions.
Sincerely,
|
Margaret and Yutaka Baba,
Hillsborough |
Kristin Foltz, Arcadia |
Barbara Navarro, C.N.M.,
Charlotte |
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