Punch Up Press

Always punch up, never down.

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

The 'Big Lie' of the @WHO's VMMC programs is that they're "voluntary". The goal has always been to create a self-perpetuating circumcision culture in Africa that extends into future generations. Public health authorities intend to do it by focusing on infants who can't object.

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

The full story is told in my book, THE NORMAL THING TO BE, recently published on Amazon. https://t.co/3yLj5CbyFk

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

The medical "consensus" on circumcision was never as independent as it looked.

FOIA documents show a small group of advocates worked the system from the inside. A thread on what the emails revealed. 🧵

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

A paper once argued this whole field was run by an insular, self-reinforcing network.

The network's response? A private email chain where they whether or not to engage.

The coordination was the exact thing the paper described.

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

When the CDC opened its proposed circumcision guidelines for public comment, it got 3,275 responses.

99% were critical.

The agency's own internal note: positive comments came in at "approximately 1 for every 100 posted."

They finalized the guidelines anyway.

https://t.co/NfyxZvVQIV

[Circumcision is a Fraud @cutfraud]

A handful of circumcision advocates held key positions inside the WHO, CDC, NIH, and a few elite universities.

Public records show they coordinated behind the scenes in ways the official record doesn't reflect.

It's all in their own emails.

https://t.co/NHLUDHXpg6

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

@NewsM101 https://t.co/UnEDIZ6C7x

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

The 'Big Lie' of the @WHO's VMMC programs is that they're "voluntary". The goal has always been to create a self-perpetuating circumcision culture in Africa that extends into future generations. Public health authorities intend to do it by focusing on infants who can't object.

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

@EnzoR20188 @briandavidearp @CDCgov @USAID @PEPFAR You're not wrong. https://t.co/u9Tt2NTOkA

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

It began in 2008 with the @WHO and @CDC's Kevin de Cock: "We need to change societal norms to move towards infant circumcision because...you will end up with higher levels of circumcision across a society. It will become the normal thing to be or to have." https://t.co/Qy0s47cHy2

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

@briandavidearp @CDCgov Not to mention @USAID and @PEPFAR's use of "incentives" to motivate "mobilizers" to recruit more adolescent boys for the surgery in Mozambique. https://t.co/v9RzdGCDIj

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

7. Bere appeared in court on charges of embezzling appx. $2.8 million from SACTWU. He later received bail, at which point the @CDCgov shockingly offered him a flight back to the US, effectively allowing him to escape justice. Alfred Bere never faced trial. https://t.co/JHTeNQhsb4

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

8. This is an astonishing case of wanton disregard for the proper stewardship of monies for health projects abroad. Not only are these VMMC initiatives harmful to African bodies, the immense funding involved invites profiteering and worse: outright theft without consequence.

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

4. The @CDCgov audited SACTWU after granting millions in tax-payer funds. Shockingly, the auditor placed the responsibility of preventing fraud into the hands of SACTWU's management, and offered no opinion on their ability to actually carry out that duty. https://t.co/ZDGyTmYFwu

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

7. Bere appeared in court on charges of embezzling appx. $2.8 million from SACTWU. He later received bail, at which point the @CDCgov shockingly offered him a flight back to the US, effectively allowing him to escape justice. Alfred Bere never faced trial. https://t.co/JHTeNQhsb4

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

3. The health ministry awarded circumcision funds to the SACTWU through a closed tender process, which does not allow for open bidding for contracts. This facilitates favoritism and corruption more than open tender because it generally lacks transparency. https://t.co/RyyD6XwZSj

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

2. In 2013, Nikki Soboil, head of the SACTWU's Worker Health Program, called for male circumcision to be incorporated into the trade union's HIV programs (for reasons?). This proved quite lucrative, as they were later granted nearly $40 million for VMMC. https://t.co/wyFqH41w82

[Punch Up Press @PunchUpPress]

1. Financial corruption is an enduring and underexplored aspect of the troublesome VMMC initiatives that have swept across Sub-Saharan Africa since 2007. The case of the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union is an illustrative tale of how poor oversight enables it.