Medical dangers of female circumcision

Female circumcision is practiced in some parts of Africa, the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, Malaysia, and Indonesia. 95% of a sample of 2000 Egyptian women were circumcised, an operation attended by a high incidence of complications: immediate and late, physical and psychosexual, minor and serious, even fatal. The causes are the type of operation and the operator. In a mild form, the prepuce of the clitoris only is removed, with the posterior larger parts of the labia minora. An extensive operation common to Sudan consists of removal of the whole clitoris, the whole of the labia minora, and part of the labia majora. Complications common with pharaonic or Sudanese circumcision include painful scarkeloid formation, labial adhesions, cysts of the clitoris, vulval disfigurement, vaginal calculi, tight circumcision, infertility, and urinary complications. Psychosexual complications include a feeling of reduced feminity; diminished desire for coitus; diminished coital frequency; dyspareunia, apareunia or vaginismus; lack of orgasm; anal intercourse; depression and psychotic states; and, social problems. With infibulation come obstetric complications. Vaginal examination during labor may be difficult; catheterization of bladder is difficult; second stage of labor is delayed; tearing or splitting of the circumcison scar is unavoidable; injury of the vagina, cervix, and fetal scalp; and, soft-tissue obstruction by the vulval skin diaphragm contributes to the production of a vesicovaginal fistula.     

The health dangers of lead in drinking water

Summary The author presents a survey of the controversial opinions regarding the health effects of lead and criticizes Kehoe's thesis that the upper safety limit for blood Pb is sharply defined at 80 µg/100 ml blood on the basis of the cybernetic toxicology ofLehnert, the thesis ofFruentov on the functional accumulation of lead effects and other publications. In experiments sperm damage has already been induced with extremely low lead doses, which are considerably exceeded by present lead intakes of human beings from food, drinking water and the other sources. This damage induces functional disturbances in the offspring, and these have increased very much since 1950 in the Federal Republic of Germany in the era of remotorization after World War II. In view of the synergesis of lead and polyphosphates which find their way into drinking water in excessive quantities today, it is doubtful whether the WHO safety threshold protects even against the physiopathological effects of lead. Andrologic and cytologic tests are necessary in the drinking water of all water supplies, with a eugenic aim in view.