D.O.C. Challenges Amazon’s Circumcision Training Kits
Two days ago it was widely reported that Amazon removed circumcision training kits from its UK website after complaints that they normalized unnecessary and risky practice.
Today John Geisheker, Executive Director of Doctors Opposing Circumcision, sent the following letter to Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com:
Dear Mr. Bezos:
We thank you for including our international physicians’ non-profit in your ‘Amazon Smile’ program, and write to ask for another favor important to children.
Amazon UK has pulled from its offerings a circumcision training kit after concerns by medical societies in the UK. We attach the October 2, 2017 letter of the National Secular Society to Mr. Doug Gurr of Amazon UK, which details their compelling reasons.
We write, respectfully, to ask that you please also withdraw the circumcision training kit in other markets, especially in North America. The world does not need a device that clearly encourages dangerous, amateurish cutting of children’s genitalia without their consent and without medical necessity.
Our reasoning parallels that of our medical colleagues in the UK, but is more pressing in the USA due to the historic lack of rigorous federal regulation of this practice even in medical settings:
1) The kit encourages ‘cut-rate, home circumcisions’ which have already proved a problem in the USA, and whose true incidence is unknown, masked by laws favoring religious freedom;
2) The medical community has its own training regimen for surgeons and does not need lay operators, or the injuries those unlicensed amateurs will inflict;
3) The kit endangers children in states – Washington, Idaho, and 27 others – where religious exemption laws permit parents to use prayer and Old Testament punishments in lieu of proper medical care for children;
4) The kit appeals to sexual perverts, which can be seen from the many salacious product reviews;
5) The product is unseemly, dangerous, unethical, and appeals to prurient interests.
Once again, we respectfully request that you immediately withdraw the circumcision training kit from your offerings. We thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
John V. Geisheker, JD, LL.M
Executive Director, General Counsel
On behalf of the Board Members and Advisors of Doctors Opposing Circumcision:�
George C. Denniston, MD, MPH, President
Mark D. Reiss, MD, Executive Vice-President
George Hill, Vice-President for Bioethics and Medical Science
Morris R. Sorrells, MD, Pediatric consultant
Andrew R. Biles, Jr, MD, Pediatric consultant
John W. Travis, MD, MPH, Infant Wellness consultant
Mat Masem, MD, Professor of Medicine, consultant
Michelle Storms, MD, Family Medicine consultant
Sarah E. Strandjord, MD, Pediatric consultant
James Snyder, MD, Urology Consultant
Adrienne Carmack, MD, Urology consultant
Zenas Baer, JD, Legal consultant
Michaelle M. Wetteland, RN, MMA, Nursing consultant