Darbon Book Club

Lineup

• More details about 3 March 2027: The Normal Thing to Be: How Infant Circumcision Became a Global Health Agenda, by Ryan Jones

  3 March 2027: The Normal Thing to Be: How Infant Circumcision Became a Global Health Agenda, by Ryan Jones

  Infant circumcision has been an American norm since the mid-twentieth century. At the dawn of the twenty-first, health officials harnessed it as a public health intervention against HIV abroad. No other surgery has ever been deployed this way, much less one performed on children too young to consent. This led to inevitable controversy. The Normal Thing to Be is an in-depth account of how a small network of primarily American researchers and government officials made it happen. Drawing on years of Freedom of Information requests, internal government correspondence, and original interviews, Ryan Jones traces a decades-long campaign that stretched across the CDC, the NIH, and the WHO. Its architects tried to box skeptics out of the policy process, fought running battles in academic journals and the press, and dismissed every dissenter as fringe, regardless of credentials. Intense pushback from the concerned public was largely ignored. The goal was to normalize the needless removal of healthy tissue from children, at home and abroad. What was the result?

• More details about 1 September 2027: Please Don't Cut the Baby: A Nurse's Memoir, by Marilyn Fayre Milos

  1 September 2027: Please Don't Cut the Baby: A Nurse's Memoir, by Marilyn Fayre Milos

  Marilyn Fayre Milos was a nursing student on the obstetrical unit in 1979 when she first witnessed a baby being circumcised. The only person to step forward to comfort the infant as it writhed and screamed in pain during the surgery, she was shocked when the doctor said to her: "There is no medical reason for doing this." From that moment on, Marilyn became an advocate for ending medically unnecessary circumcision, protecting our children, and educating parents, the public, and medical professionals about this cultural fraud and violation of human rights. She founded the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC); organized fifteen international symposia; and became a spokesperson for promoting the genital integrity of all children. A story of determination, service, and love, Marilyn's memoir describes the myths, misinformation, and economic forces driving non-religious infant circumcision in the United States, where it has become standard practice. Readers may find their own beliefs and assumptions challenged, and their hearts touched by this story of a life devoted to justice for babies and the adults they will become.