Talk:Balanitis

This article is cloned from a subsection of medical analysis of circumcision.

Emedicine
The article on balanitis at emedicine

http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic51.htm

is filled with medical myths. It is unsuitable for a reference for Wikipedia.

Robert Blair 14:05, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Lots of men have smegma without having balanitis. Other men (usually circumcised) don't have smegma but do have smegma. I have not seen any real credible medical evidence that smegma and balanitis are associated.

Until that is produced, the e-medicine myths will not be permitted. In other words, just because e-medicine says does not make it fact. This is POV pushing by pro-circumcision doctors of the worst kind.

Robert Blair 21:57, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I've reverted your censorship, both of e-medicine and other information.


 * Here are a couple of other articles discussing a link: http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/balanitis/chow/ http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/balanitis/edwards1/ See refs 2 and 72 in the latter, for evidence.


 * You cannot censor information on the grounds that you personally haven't seen evidence. This is a collaborative encyclopaedia - the sum of human knowledge, not a RobertBlairPedia.


 * Your continued censorship of facts that you do not like is appalling. When will you ever read Wiki's NPOV policy? - Jakew 22:57, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh, you could also read this. It's not available online, but I have a copy I'll try to scan for you... - Jakew 23:01, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Dishonest edit summary
Robert Blair, your most recent edit was summarised very dishonestly. You claimed that it was: "RV to improved more accurate version and to restore deleted information".

In fact, far from being improved, it removed relevant information:
 * links to http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic51.htm, http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/balanitis/chow/ http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/balanitis/edwards1/ (as discussed in sect. above)
 * info about lack of aeration etc
 * info about "The most common complication of balanitis is phimosis..."

You claimed that you were restoring deleted information. In fact, NO INFORMATION was added - only removed.

Please stop being so dishonest. - Jakew 18:32, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Reorganisation of article
Please note that I have reorganised the article into meaningful sections, and I have added a reference list. I have some changes to make to the article, to include additional information, which may require adding further references. The current citation format (eg Keogh, 2005) is temporary, unless anyone thinks it is an improvement (?). It will make it a lot easier to reorder the references once the new ones are added. I anticipate doing this within the next week or so, so please comment! - Jakew 20:28, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

picture
i know its not the most pleasing to look at (or is it?) but could someone get an image for this article? it'd make a big difference--83.71.84.138 (talk) 08:06, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I have another issue with the pictures of penises used on wikipedia they are almost invariably semi-errect. It's really unsettling to think that some chap was aroused when taking the photograph... --94.193.2.50 (talk) 15:48, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Fergusson
Re Fergusson et al., 97.116.126.206 originally added the text: "Fergusson's study shows that circumcised infants are at a much greater risk of penile inflammation than those intact, but that after infancy, intact boys are at a greater risk of penile inflammation."

I then altered this to read: "In a study by Fergusson et al., circumcised infants were at a greater risk of penile inflammation than uncircumcised infants, but after infancy, uncircumcised boys were at a greater risk of penile inflammation. The authors noted that the "net effects of these trends were that by 8 years of age the uncircumcised boys had experienced more than 1.5 times the rate of penile problems"."

97.116.126.206 then deleted the final sentence, stating in the edit summary, "This article is about balanitis, but your quote references information that includes other problems other than balanitis."

This is a good point: Fergusson were indeed discussing "problems" rather than inflammation specifically. However, it also applies to the first sentence. Fergusson et al. state in their study that "During infancy circumcised children had a significantly higher risk of penile problems, whereas after infancy these problems were significantly higher among the uncircumcised boys", but &mdash; as with the quote I added &mdash; this is a statement about "problems", rather than penile inflammation specifically. I therefore replaced this sentence with a sentence specifically describing Fergusson's findings about penile inflammation.

This edit was then reverted by 97.116.126.206, for no obvious reason. Jakew (talk) 16:46, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Waskett source
Policy and guideline indicates that information published in reliable sources, such as peer-reviewed journals are acceptable sources. The fact that a published author is also a wikipedia editor does not mean that the published text now becomes invalid. If Van Howe were to edit wikipedia, would we delete all reference to him? -- Avi (talk) 17:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I was puzzled by the removal of this ref, too. I presume it was a misunderstanding of policy.  Jakew (talk) 18:18, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Misc issues

 * "In order assess the effects of a war environment on sexual health, Hart examined Australian soldiers after they had spent 12 months of active duty in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and concluded that..."

Three Two problems here. First, the word "to" is missing. Second, Hart's statement isn't a conclusion, so it would be more accurate to say "reporting that..." Third, it is far too much detail, most of which has nothing to do with the subject of the article. Suggest rephrasing as: "Hart examined Australian soldiers after 12 months of wartime duty, reporting that..."


 * The statistics gathered by that report are strictly and explicitly stated to assess the "Factors influencing venereal infection in a war environment". It is completely disingenous to include such specific conditions (active duty soldiering in Vietnam) as a matter of general epidemiology. Consequently, a full disclosure of the situation is required. --97.116.113.153 (talk) 18:33, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Can you explain what is inadequate about saying "Hart examined Australian soldiers after 12 months of wartime duty, reporting that..."? Jakew (talk) 18:40, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It is inadequate, because wartime duty says nothing of the nature. These were soldiers who had spent 12 months on duty in Vietnam---the report explicitly discusses Asian prostitutes and increased promiscuity as well as less condom use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.116.113.153 (talk • contribs)
 * Okay, I've changed it to read "Hart examined Australian soldiers who had just completed 12 months of active duty in Vietnam, reporting that...". Jakew (talk) 20:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Hart's study is titled "Factors influencing venereal infection in a war environment" and his goal is to assess epidemiology in these extreme conditions, so that stipulation must be made clear, otherwise it misrepresents the source as making a statement about epidemiology as it applies to the general public under general conditions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.116.113.153 (talk) 22:54, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Saying "examined Australian soldiers who had just completed 12 months of active duty in Vietnam" effectively implies that a war environment was studied anyway, so it is redundant to say so twice. Is it more important to you to say "In order to assess the effects of a war environment on sexual health" or "examined Australian soldiers who had just completed 12 months of active duty in Vietnam"? Jakew (talk) 09:00, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * "In a retrospective study, Taylor and Rodin found that sexually-transmitted monilial balanitis is more common among uncircumcised men, but that unsafe sexual practices is a contributing factor to the increased risk"

I may have overlooked something, but I can't find the statement that unsafe sexual practices differentially contributed to the increased risk in uncircumcised men. Where is this stated? Also, since we're discussing the findings of a particular study, we should say "was more common" rather than "is more common". Jakew (talk) 18:28, 18 June 2009 (UTC) (edited 09:26, 19 June 2009 (UTC))


 * From the summary (and abstract): "The was not found to be the case for other sexually-transmitted diseases apart from monilial balanitis. There was also a significant difference in contraceptive methods in the two groups, barrier methods being used less ofter than other methods in the herpes group and the reverse in the control group." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.116.113.153 (talk) 17:50, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a statement about herpes, not balanitis. Did Taylor & Rodin say anything about balanitis?  Jakew (talk) 17:55, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point. However, the study was not on monilial balanitis, so I suggest removal of the source all together, esecially given that there were so few samples of such cases and without proper controls.--97.116.113.153 (talk) 18:30, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The study did include data on the association between circumcision status and balanitis, so it would be difficult to justify removal of the source. Jakew (talk) 18:40, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It contains a single table listing covering 28 cases of monilial balanitis and a passing comment without reference. It's a poor choice for an argument.--97.116.113.153 (talk) 18:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The table and comment are more than sufficient to support the sentence. Please do not remove sourced material on the basis of your personal interpretation of the merits of a source. Jakew (talk) 20:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Please don't add sentences on the basis of your personal interpretation of the merits of a source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.116.113.153 (talk) 22:44, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Responding with modified versions of my own comments is neither helpful nor constructive. Jakew (talk) 09:00, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Taylor & Rodin again
The original version of the Taylor & Rodin sentence read:


 * In a retrospective study, Taylor and Rodin found that sexually-transmitted monilial balanitis was more common among uncircumcised men.

97.116.113.153 then changed this to read:


 * In a retrospective study on herpes, Taylor and Rodin remarked that sexually-transmitted monilial balanitis was more common among uncircumcised men in 28 cases.

There are several problems with this:
 * 1) There is no need to state that the study primarily focused on herpes. Taylor and Rodin explicitly note that their Table 4 documents the conditions among the control group (with respect to herpes), so the only relationship with herpes is that none of these patients suffered from it.  This article isn't about herpes; it's about balanitis.  This merely creates confusion.
 * 2) Saying that balanitis was more common in 28 cases is nonsensical. In those 28 cases, the balanitis rate was 100%, so "more common" is meaningless.  If we say "more common in...", then we need to specify the population studied, which in this case was the randomly selected 410 patient control group,
 * 3) The claim that T&R "remarked" is false, since they did not make such a remark (and, as I noted, such a remark would have been nonsensical).

I've therefore changed this to read:


 * In a retrospective study including 28 cases of monilial balanitis, Taylor and Rodin found this condition to be more common among uncircumcised men.

Jakew (talk) 08:45, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Sand and religion
Here, the Guardian says that sand can cause balanitis, and this might be why the only cultures to historically have practised circumcision are Jews, Muslims and Australian aborigines. Worth mentioning? Malick78 (talk) 10:02, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

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