FOIA
FOIA Repository
When it comes to infant circumcision and public policy, no matter where one may turn their nose, hints of fraud, corruption, and deceit can be smelled in the wind.
This sense has led us to conduct a
campaign of filing
FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests
to a variety of government agencies, including the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), the NIH (National Institutes of Health), and HHS (Department of Health and Human Services). Such requests allow the public to request any records--except those subject to particular exemptions--from federal agencies. Thus far, our inquiries have targeted such areas as the
African VMMC Campaigns, the CDC’s formal guidelines on male circumcision, and Medicaid spending practices. Below, you can find a listing of each FOIA request we’ve received to date, as well as those still pending.
RECEIVED
CDC: Dr. Jonathan Mermin’ Emails
Dr. Jonathan Mermin was the director of the NCHHSTP for the CDC from 2009 to 2013. Because of this unique position, he oversaw the development and implementation of the CDC’s official recommendations to patients and providers on male circumcision across the U.S. This document contains all of his emails, memos, and meeting minutes on the subject of male circumcision from 2009 to 2103. We’ve provided an analysis here.
Dr. Richard Grimes’s Research in Thailand
In 2012, Dr. Richard Grimes of Baylor University won a grant to research why Thais don’t circumcise, and what would be required to convince them to do so. The results were published in a paper, titled “Why Thailand should consider promoting neonatal circumcision?”
Brigham and Women's Hospital - BioBank Core
This ongoing program at Brigham and Women’s hospital is boasting that it collects anywhere from 3 to 10 neonatal foreskins every day and siphons them off to a biobank of human tissue for use in medical applications. Interestingly, the hospital’s circumcision consent form only allows for tissue to be collected for such use, if it was removed for necessary medical reasons, not unnecessary ones. Therefore, parents have not been giving consent for their children's tissue to be sold.
Medicaid Spending Data by State 1999 - 2016
These two data sets show the amount billed and paid by Medicaid, per state, from the years 1999 to 2016. Some interesting trends can be seen, showing the influence the AAP has had on state legislators. Our analysis of this data can be found here.
AccuCirc Evaluation Grant
In 2009, the World Health Organization called for a new generation of single-use devices, appropriate for field settings in Africa, to be made to meet the high demand of their recently implemented VMMC (Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision) programs throughout the African continent. However, the testing and evaluation frameworks these devices must go through for approval are remarkably lax. Here is a grant for one such evaluation.
Rakai, Uganda HIV RCT
In the early 2000s, three randomized control trials were conducted which sought to find a connection between circumcision status and likelihood of female-to-male HIV transmission. These two files encompass the grant application documents for this trial, submitted to the National Institutes of Health. It was funded in part by both the National Institutes of Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Our analysis of these files can be found here.
Dr. Stephen Weiss’s “Like Father Like Son” Research
Studies have shown that despite widespread advertising campaigns in Zambia, only 11% of men are willing to undergo male circumcision. Dr. Stephen Weiss of the University of Miami believes this is a problem that must be solved, and is currently conducting research to develop the optimal “culturally tailored EIMC intervention…(that) will utilize a family-oriented approach, using pregnancy as the pivot to encourage couples to consider EIMC for their male neonates and VMMC for all eligible family members.” So, in other words, leveraging interfamily relationships to conduct effective social engineering.
Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union
From 2011 to 2017, the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU) received $2.8 million to facilitate VMMC programs in South Africa. We filed a FOIA request for the grant applications and audit reports to find out more about how these funds are justified and where they are claimed to be spent.
CDC: Internal Report from 2007 Symposium
In April, 2007, the CDC hosted a group of physicians, epidemiologists, and other experts to discuss the research from Africa related to HIV and if it could be applicable in the United States.
NIH: Dr. Peter Kilmarx’s Emails on Circumcision
Dr. Peter Kilmarx has been an enthusiastic promoter of routine male circumcision since the early 2000s and played a critical role in spurring the CDC on to formulate their own official endorsement of the practice in 2014. In 2015, he became the Deputy Director of the Fogarty International Center, an agency within the NIH that focuses on global health policy. This FOIA request contains all emails sent from his account, and all received to it, on the subject of male circumcision.
PENDING
