AAP says benefits of circumcision outweigh risks

[LaCroix]

Basically, that is the tl;dr version of the circumsionists...

"We found that most men don't wash properly and are to lazy to use condoms, let's lob a part of their dicks off..."

[Lagmonster]

I'm not cut; my father taught me regular dick maintenance as a boy, and it became part of the grooming routine, like flossing your teeth or cleaning sock lint out from between your toes. When you're used to good hygiene, you ought to - and here I am making assumptions - notice when you're not clean and feel more comfortable when you are.

Now, I have a son, and he's getting to the age where he's washing himself instead of having mommy or daddy do it, and we're going through the same lessons with him. It's not actually tough to be a vigilant father, and kids should learn (in my opinion) to take care of and learn responsibility for their bodies and their own health.

[Justforfun000]

I'm furious they have waffled on this issue AGAIN in the States. I'm starting to believe there is a serious hidden political push to put circimcision back in favour. There actually is evidence of profit being made with the foreskins passed on for medical and cosmetic use. Many links to such examples can be found here: http://www.foreskin.org/f4sale.htm
I wrote a blog article about this not long ago that sums up my personal feelings and also tackles a lot of the pros and cons. More importantly, I have a link to the most compelling study to date demonstrating very definite evidence of better sensation with an intact penis. Read through and then draw your own conclusions. I was actually being concise..there are many, many more arguments to be made in favour of keeping the foreskin:

This is a topic I have very strong feelings about because I happen to be a victim of the cruel and unnecessary procedure called routine infant circumcision. Thankfully it’s not so “routine” anymore and is no longer covered under Canadian health care. I personally feel it should be banned without true medical necessity.

I could easily go into this topic with great depth and length, but I’ll try to be concise. As to its history, It’s enough to say that it primarily arose from religious and/or cultural traditions and eventually bastardized its way into the medical field when very insignificant studies that suggested mild preventative effects on certain conditions like penile cancer were used as an excuse for the anti-masturbation advocates to push for it. Then it was supposedly ‘cleaner’ and everybody looked that way so you wouldn’t want to look different then your dad or the boys in the locker room, would you? A very slippery slope down to a terribly common and horribly invasive procedure.

You could compare it to tattooing your child or removing their toenails so they won’t get fungal infections. It’s idiocy.

Let’s get to the ‘meat’ of the matter shall we? Why keep the foreskin? Here is the best study to date that actually tested the differences between an intact male and one circumcised.

The Conclusion reads: “The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis.”

Other studies have been done & were shamelessly misleading; asking questions about “sexual satisfaction” and ability to get erections and orgasms. All completely irrelevant to head to head comparisons..No pun intended. Even a study done by McGill University in Montreal made a colossal error. They concluded, “The study found no difference in sensitivity to touch or pain between the two groups, debunking the widely-held belief that uncircumcised men experience greater sexual pleasure.

“This study suggests that preconceptions of penile sensory differences between circumcised and uncircumcised men may be unfounded,” said Kimberley Payne, a principal author of the study, in a release. So what was the problem? Here is a comparison of the two studies:

“For instance, the recent Payne et al. study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine says penile sensitivity is no different between intact and circumcised men. This is the opposite of the Penile Touch-Test Sensitivity Evaluation study by Sorrells et al. published in the British Journal of Urology International, saying intact men have four times the penile sensitivity of circumcised men. Sorrells says circumcision removes the most sensitive parts of the penis, while Payne chose to ignore the hyper-sensitive foreskin altogether, as well as failing to reference the earlier Sorrells study.

Both studies employed the same testing method using a standard monofilament skin sensitivity-measuring device. The Sorrells study tested 161 men at 17 locations (2157 tests) along the penis, including the circumcision scar, and inner and outer parts of the foreskin. The Payne study tested 20 men at 2 locations (40 tests), but inexplicably did not measure foreskin sensitivity.

The foreskin has long been identified as the most sensitive portion of the penis, and Payne admitted that, “it is possible that the uncircumcised penis is more sensitive due to the presence of additional sensory receptors on the prepuce and frenulum.” And, yet, omitted testing any part of the foreskin because, “this cannot be compared with the absence of such structures in the circumcised penis.”

People like me can never get back what we lost and many feel very bitter about that. Don’t make a choice for someone that isn’t yours to make.

Now we have clear scientific evidence showing the superiority of an intact penis. So now we move on to whose body is it anyway? Taking a young infant, or even a child and forcing him to undergo an irreversible, unnecessary procedure that is usually very painful and until recently rarely given anesthesia for is just wrong! Period! You could compare it to tattooing your child or removing their toenails so they won’t get fungal infections. It’s idiocy.

On top of this, you are removing the potential for greater sexual satisfaction and ultimately a decline in sensitivity overall as the circumcised penis keratinizes and becomes thicker skinned with age. It’s not meant to be exposed to the air and is covered by a mucous membrane that is designed to keep it moist and sensitive. It’s similar to the eyeball. Lastly the recent studies suggesting a minor protective effect against HIV and possibly other STI’s are just as silly an argument. Does it mean condom use is unnecessary? Absolutely not! So what does it matter? Just so you can have better chances whenever you might ‘take a risk’? If anything it might give a false sense of security. Work on getting rid of the diseases and properly protecting yourself fully against them, not removing parts of your body for an extremely mild resistance effect.

This is barely scratching the surface of the argument but let’s just finish off by reminding everyone that this can ALWAYS be chosen as an elective procedure if you wish to be circumcised later in life. But the people like me can never get back what we lost and many feel very bitter about that. Don’t make a choice for someone that isn’t yours to make.

Read the full BJU study here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17378847

[Justforfun000]

This was just out as a rebuttal to the new AAP announcement. Also food for thought:

http://www.intactamerica.org/aap2012_response

INTACT AMERICA’S RESPONSE TO THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS
2012 REPORT ON CIRCUMCISION

Issued August 27, 2012

The Policy Statement and Technical Report on Male Circumcision released today by the Task Force on Circumcision of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) attempts to find justifications for recommending in favor of unnecessary surgery to remove healthy, functioning tissue from infant boys, but falls far short both in its ethical obligations to its members and their patients and in its presentation of the medical and scientific data.

Even as the AAP purports to find that the benefits of non-medical neonatal male circumcision outweigh its risks, not even its own Task Force can unequivocally recommend this surgery, but instead states that the health benefits are not great enough to recommend routine circumcision for all male newborns. Instead, it focuses much of its argument on urging that health insurance plans and state Medicaid plans cover the costs of the surgery, which is currently not the case in many states.

It appears that the AAP is acting more as a trade association for doctors who perform this unnecessary surgery more than 1 million times a year, instead of standing up for the human rights and bodily integrity of the only patient that counts—the baby boy.

The Task Force Report gives short shrift to the ethical principles that should underpin medical decisions about surgery, and in fact, even ignores its own Committee on Bioethics statement on “Informed Consent, Parental Permission, and Assent in Pediatric Practice,” issued in 1995 and still in effect. It states, “Proxy consent poses serious problems for pediatric health care providers. Such providers have legal and ethical duties to their child patients to render competent medical care based on what the patient needs, not what someone else expresses… [The] pediatrician’s responsibilities to his or her patient exist independent of parental desires or proxy consent.”Justifying procedures as invasive and inherently risky as surgery require both medical necessity and informed consent from the patient. Neither is present in non-medical circumcision.

While American parents increasingly have been choosing to leave their infant sons intact—circumcision rates in this country have dropped to near half, from more than 80 percent as recently as 1979—pro-circumcision biases rooted in cultural and religious practices remain strong. So, despite the fact that no medical society in the world recommends in favor of routine circumcision for baby boys, the AAP apparently has had to search for justifications to continue the practice, and to pressure insurance companies and states to pay for it.

The Task Force Report leans heavily on studies of sexually-active adult heterosexual African men and the role circumcision might play in retarding female-to-male transmission of the HIV virus linked to AIDS. This is not surprising, considering the Task Force was headed by Dr. Susan Blank, who is not a pediatrician but an expert in sexually-transmitted diseases.

As a first observation, it is ethically abominable to justify unnecessary surgery to remove healthy tissue from an infant boy based on the possibility that he will engage in unsafe sexual behavior decades into the future. But the AAP’s own Report demonstrates the lack of applicability of the African studies to the realities of HIV in America.

The Task Force Report states that, “In the United States, HIV/AIDS predominantly affects men who have sex with men,” accounting for the vast majority of existing or new cases of infection. The Task Force Report also accurately states that, based on scientific testing, “Circumcision seems to be less likely to protect MSM (men having sex with men), however, and has not been associated with decreased acquisition of HIV among MSM.” The Task Force Report also ignores the increasing HIV rates among some women in the studies who were apparently infected by newly-circumcised men who ceased using condoms, still the most effective means of blocking the virus’ transmission. Those studies had to be ended prematurely because too many participants were putting their sexual partners at risk.

Also left out of the Report is mention of the increasing opposition to circumcision among medical societies in Europe, where circumcision rates are 10 percent or lower in most countries and which have far lower rates of HIV than in the United States. In the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Sweden and elsewhere, medical societies have recommended against circumcision, and in some cases have begun efforts to instate legislation that would establish the surgeries as a violation of the human right of all baby boys to intact bodies, regardless of culture, religion, or parental choice.

The Task Force also ignores the growing movement in the U.S. among parents angry at having been “sold” circumcision for their sons, the result of misinformation leading them to allow their sons to be circumcised—only to find out after the fact that the surgery is excruciatingly painful, causes frequent complications, and interrupts parent-child bonding. Nor does the Report mention the growing number of adult men who feel that their rights were violated and their bodies damaged when doctors removed sexual tissue from their penises without their consent. The Report’s intentional avoidance of these legitimate concerns—unconscionable from a group that purports to be experts in child health—will cause doctors to share misleading information with parents, who will then believe that their sons require medical intervention (i.e., circumcision), when in fact their sons are perfectly normal.

Despite the AAP’s selective use of scientific studies from Africa, its apparent dismissal of trends in other developed countries away from routine non-medical circumcision, its transparent sidestepping of the clear ethical principles (including its own) that mitigate against this surgery, and its inability—despite all of this—to make a clear recommendation in favor of circumcision, the Report is very clear in one area: reimbursement.

“The preventive and public health benefits associated with newborn male circumcision warrant third-party reimbursement of the procedure,” the Report states.

At an estimated cost of between $261 and $601 per circumcision, hundreds of millions of dollars would be added to the cost of health care to the public and insurance companies. Those hundreds of millions of dollars, of course, would go to members of the AAP and to obstetricians and family practice physicians, whose trade associations also endorsed the Task Force Report. This simple fact is reason enough to dismiss this Report as self-serving, biased, and woefully unethical.

In 2010, the AAP demonstrated a similar pro-circumcision bias when it sought approval for submitting baby girls’ genitals to a “ritual nick” as a means to accommodate the cultural practices of some groups, even though any form of genital cutting of girls is illegal throughout the United States. The AAP had to back away from that proposal precipitously after a huge public outcry from Intact America and other activist organizations, and in the halls of the United States Congress.

What the AAP does not ask is: If a baby girl has the right to an intact body, why shouldn’t a baby boy have that same right?

Intact America calls upon the AAP to do as it did in the case of its last ill-considered policy update regarding female genital cutting and retract the Task Force Technical Report and Policy Statement regarding male circumcision.

Georganne Chapin
Executive Director, Intact America

[Justforfun000]

Sorry for the repeating parts of the first post. I don't know how that happened? I must have copied it incorrectly.

[Edi]

So you came into this thread spouting off and you haven't even done your homework... Bravo! When most people get themselves into this spot they try to provide evidence to support their opinion. You've decided to say, 'Evidence, I need none of that' and blaze on anyway.

Spot? What spot? I came in here pro-snipping with plenty of evidence that it's a good thing. Most of you are against it for merely subjective reasons. Some of you have evidence that it's a bad idea and I already said I accept that. I also said that since it's a toss-up that I'll wait and see what new studies are done over the next few years. "So I'm basically saying, I'm pro-snipping for now but open to discussion."

So is it mutilation? I accept that many of you think so. Is it a violation of the child's rights? I accept that you think so. Can it be dangerous? Yes it certainly can be and that's why I'm not just "Gung ho, snip the little guy and let's go home." But from my personal experience, there has never been anything wrong with it. So why should I ignore what I know (for myself) to be true?

You might start with looking up evidence of how the experiences are for those who had circumcision done due to medical necessity after they were old enough to know and notice the difference. For me, the loss of sensitivity was somewhere around 25% to 75% depending on the exact areas, stimulation is more difficult and everything is generally quality wise worse than it used to be. Chafing against underwear is more of a problem as well.

Bottom line is that you came into this thread uninformed and then proceeded to get all butthurt when you were called on it. And for the reference of the first paragraph, we did this whole bit years ago and many of the people in this thread were around then. Could be they remember something from that.

[Zadius]

Yeah, but who could have known that replacing erogenous tissue with scar tissue would reduce sensitivity and pleasure? Really.

Let's not forget that the AAP also tried to argue for "minor" genital mutilation of young girls.

[Stark]

Are non circumcised people ever driven to circumcise by this wishy washy 'not bad, not good, maybe helps slightly with minor issues' stuff? Because it seems to just be normative pressure for people to continue something that was done to them. What about the populations with no tradition in this area; are they swayed by such weak language or dubious 'benefits'?

[folti78]

Are non circumcised people ever driven to circumcise by this wishy washy 'not bad, not good, maybe helps slightly with minor issues' stuff? Because it seems to just be normative pressure for people to continue something that was done to them. What about the populations with no tradition in this area; are they swayed by such weak language or dubious 'benefits'?

Around (EDIT: Hungary) here there is no tradition of circumcising outside of the Jewish and some other minority communities. The official policy is that it's not recommended except for health reasons, but will be done if the parents (below 18 years age) or the adult patient asks for it. Not done by default and I'm not aware of any fad or movement that advertises is.

[FSTargetDrone]

I've never understood the, "He'll look different from all the other boys in the locker room" argument. Really? I went to an all-boys school in high school and the unspoken and immediately understood line that was never crossed was staring at another guy below the waist. We were a bunch of uncouth dumbasses who never failed to take the opportunity to tease each other mercilessly for any number of issues, but no one talked about another guy's penis or called attention to it.

Anyway, I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but the change in position from the AAP also makes me think there is some kind of external political pressure. Maybe not, but it seems strange.

[Broomstick]

I suspect that there might be pressure from industrial interests that do, in fact, use human foreskins to produce medical products. Fewer circumcisions means a tighter supply of the raw resource.

More specifically, human foreskins are used to grow what is, essentially, replacement skin for skin graft treatment, growth factors isolated from human foreskins are used to make an anti-wrinkle product called "TNS recovery complex" used in cosmetics, they are used in the manufacture of β-interferon drugs, and foreskin fibroblasts are used in biomedical research. In other words, human foreskins are not thrown in the garbage in first world nations, they are sold for profit. No more routine circumcisions will seriously cramp the supply chain.

[FSTargetDrone]

Broomstick, I had no idea about all of that. It shouldn't be a surprise, I suppose. Very interesting.

[Broomstick]

It's not particularly well known and the companies involved really aren't keen on advertising it. The PR problems involved with a product known to contain chopped up bits of human baby penis are a bit daunting.

When it comes to the use of human foreskin to help, say, burn victims heal that's not inherently a moral issue from my viewpoint, it's basically like a blood transfusion or organ transplant EXCEPT - and this is where I start to have an ethical problem with it - the parents of the baby in question are never told that their kid's foreskin will be sold as raw material for something else. And, of course, there is no say in whether it goes to healing a burn victim or into an expensive cosmetic cream to be smeared on the faces of wealthy age-fearing women. For damn sure the donor never gets anything for it.

[PainRack]

I don't know. Why can't the AAP position be taken on face value?

The data on circumcision is out. The risks are miminal and it has proven benefits. Thus, Medicare/insurance should pay for the procedure.

I'm not sure, but I don't really see the AAP position as endorsing male circumcision as being ethically correct and recommended.

Although health benefits are not great enough to recommend routine circumcision for all male newborns, the benefits of circumcision are sufficient to justify access to this procedure for families choosing it and to warrant third-party payment for circumcision of male newborns. It is important that clinicians routinely inform parents of the health benefits and risks of male newborn circumcision in an unbiased and accurate manner. Parents ultimately should decide whether circumcision is in the
best interests of their male child.

So. Its not great enough to recommend this as routine.

There are benefits.

And third parties should pay for this.

However, doctors, please provide informed consent and allow the principle of automony.


I don't see the need to delve into conspiracy theories. The position is plain. Insurance? Please pay for this surgery,as it has proven benefits now. The AAP believes it would be unethical to deny access to this procedure from informed families who desire it.

Hell, its spelled out here in the abstract.

Evaluation of current evidence indicates that the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks and that the procedure’s benefits justify access to this procedure for families who choose it.

At best, the most diabolical thing I can imagine is that if insurance companies pay for the procedure, more families who do desire to et the procedure done will do it, thus increasing profits. But that's true for everything from mammograms to etc. Hell, the ACA still uses the older recommendations of getting a mammogram yearly for certain age groups, contary to the US preventive health task force recommendations which reduces the frequency.

[folti78]

It's not particularly well known and the companies involved really aren't keen on advertising it. The PR problems involved with a product known to contain chopped up bits of human baby penis are a bit daunting.

When it comes to the use of human foreskin to help, say, burn victims heal that's not inherently a moral issue from my viewpoint, it's basically like a blood transfusion or organ transplant EXCEPT - and this is where I start to have an ethical problem with it - the parents of the baby in question are never told that their kid's foreskin will be sold as raw material for something else. And, of course, there is no say in whether it goes to healing a burn victim or into an expensive cosmetic cream to be smeared on the faces of wealthy age-fearing women. For damn sure the donor never gets anything for it.

Materials obtained during surgery, treatment and diagnosis are the property of the medical institution or professional. This was the case of Henrietta Lacks' cancer cells (the HeLa line) and reinforced as a common law after the Moore v. Regents of the University of California decision.

[Broomstick]

I don't know. Why can't the AAP position be taken on face value?

The data on circumcision is out. The risks are miminal and it has proven benefits. Thus, Medicare/insurance should pay for the procedure.

[Teeny nitpick] Medicare is for the elderly and disabled, and thus isn't isn't applicable for infant circumcision. The coverage under question is Medicaid, which covers the poor. As an additional complication, Medicaid is state level, so there are 50 different sets of rules and coverage.[/teeny nitpick]

It is quite common for health coverage in the US to cover ONLY "medically necessary" procedures. Key word: necessary. Circumcision may have benefits, but unless it's necessary for an actual medical problem such a policy won't have to pay for it. If the AAP doesn't endorse it for routine use such policies won't cover it, and maybe not even then.

It's not particularly well known and the companies involved really aren't keen on advertising it. The PR problems involved with a product known to contain chopped up bits of human baby penis are a bit daunting.

When it comes to the use of human foreskin to help, say, burn victims heal that's not inherently a moral issue from my viewpoint, it's basically like a blood transfusion or organ transplant EXCEPT - and this is where I start to have an ethical problem with it - the parents of the baby in question are never told that their kid's foreskin will be sold as raw material for something else. And, of course, there is no say in whether it goes to healing a burn victim or into an expensive cosmetic cream to be smeared on the faces of wealthy age-fearing women. For damn sure the donor never gets anything for it.

Materials obtained during surgery, treatment and diagnosis are the property of the medical institution or professional. This was the case of Henrietta Lacks' cancer cells (the HeLa line) and reinforced as a common law after the Moore v. Regents of the University of California decision.

Right - that's why I framed it as an ethical issue rather than a legal one.

I am concerned that a profit motive may be leading to unnecessary and unneeded surgery. I object to people profiting off the sale of human flesh, even if it's legal.

[General Zod]

I don't know. Why can't the AAP position be taken on face value?

People have been practicing circumcision for centuries even though there was no medical reason for doing it. This is simply trying to come up with a rationalization after the fact.

[Justforfun000]

PainRack Wrote:

There are benefits.
And third parties should pay for this.
However, doctors, please provide informed consent and allow the principle of automony.

I don't see the need to delve into conspiracy theories. The position is plain. Insurance? Please pay for this surgery,as it has proven benefits now. The AAP believes it would be unethical to deny access to this procedure from informed families who desire it.

The "benefits" are still pretty damn nebulous and arguable considering the very real percentage of complications as well as deaths statistically known. It's far from a 100% beneficial, benign procedure and more importantly to me, why are you thinking AAP should have a consideration of "unethical" and yet you apparently aren't ascribing the more important choice of ethics to the person who actually OWNS the foreskin? Don't you think it would be more ethical to have them make the decision for themselves and have the right to be protected as to body integrity until they can legally make decisions that are irreversible?

Not sure if you are just playing devil's advocate or what, but I don't really like the implication of your tone here.

[PainRack]

Now, I don't know the politics of the AAP or any previous history, but looking at the two statements/reports side by side, it seems to be a relatively straightforward evolution.

A decade ago, the science for circumicision having any benefits vis a vis harm was not present, so, the AAP was equivocal. Now, the science showed that it has benefits, the benefits are marginal enough that it should not be routinely recommended by doctors.

However, it is sufficient to justify access to this procedure for families choosing it and to warrant third-party payment for circumcision of male newborns(read Insurance and Medicaid). It is important that clinicians routinely inform parents of the health benefits and risks of male newborn circumcision in an unbiased and accurate manner. Parents ultimately should decide whether circumcision is in the best interests of their male child.



Again, one can raise certain ethical questions, for example, what about the autonomy and intergrity of the child? What is his stake in this?

But the position statement is clear. The AAp didn't endorse circumicision in the sense that circumicision is good. It endorsed circumicision in the sense that the surgery does have some potential benefits, but it isn't neccessary for the well-being of the child and it puts the choice of having such surgery in the hands of the parents, as opposed to the clinicians themselves.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/c ... l.pdf+html

It concluded that there were benefits. Now, if the rebuttals is based upon the common GIGO that systematic reviews have, go ahead and rebut the clinical evidence. I don't see any need for some conspiracy theories on how profitable foreskin is, or how the AAP is being politically pressured. The most... simple and blatent reason is already there. An additional procedure to make more money out of people who wish their children to get cut.

For the ethical portion on consent.

Although health benefits are not great enough to recommend routine
circumcision for all male newborns, the benefits of circumcision are
sufficient to justify access to this procedure for families choosing it and
to warrant third-party payment for circumcision of male newborns. It
is important that clinicians routinely inform parents of the health
benefits and risks of male newborn circumcision in an unbiased and
accurate manner. Parents ultimately should decide whether circumcision is in the best interests of their male child. They will need to weigh medical information in the context of their own religious, ethical, and cultural beliefs and practices. The medical benefits alone may not outweigh these other considerations for individual families

You might disagree of course, but are you going to argue that this philosophical stance is wrong?


Now, again, I'm no doctor, neither do I have any detailed knowledge of US politics and medicine but is there a reason to look for some hidden reasons as opposed to just looking at the position at face value?

Maybe there is a lot of GIGO, but I have no idea whatsoever. An earlier review could be found here, that dates from 2005 if my quick glance is correct.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/c ... 3/686.full

[Justforfun000]

"Again, one can raise certain ethical questions, for example, what about the autonomy and intergrity of the child? What is his stake in this?"

Without getting into too much at the moment...just need more time to respond thoroughly.. I would say these are the most important points you are raising in the entire debate and what most everyone here is stressing. The person who owns the foreskin, the one who will ultimately WANT to decide if it's wanted as a piece of their body should-have-the-right-to-be-left-unmutilated. Look at Edi's response as just one good example of someone who stressed very adamantly that he misses it greatly and has first hand experience of how much BETTER it was to possess it! He's not the only one. I have spoken to many people who had a circumcision as a teenager or an adult and with extremely few exceptions, they ALL missed it and claim it was far better sensation.

The only ones who had somewhat differing opinions were guys who either couldn't retract it properly.. (and therefefore weren't able to have the underside stimulated directly anyway..) or had frenulum problems. In those rare cases it would have been problematic with normal sensation, so it's understandable..but it's NOT common, and impossible to predict until they are older.

So try to keep that in mind as the major issue first and foremost and then you'll understand why people can get so bitter about the loss of it.

[PainRack]

My entire response was that the AAP policy statement doesn't require some conspiracy theory or any political pressure to explain why they made it. It can be simply taken at face value.

They looked over the scientific evidence and from there, stated that the policy had certain minor benefits which outweighed the risks of the procedure. Note the words benefits vs risks, as opposed to benefits vs drawbacks.
Its not significant enough to mean that they should recommend it, but they shouldn't deny access to it. Its..... akin to a paper saying that using clorhexidine mouthwash promotes good oral hygiene and reduces the incidence of oral ulcers but it isn't a mandatory recommendation. Since you know, the bulk of people can brush their teeth.

And in default, they went back to the same ethical position regarding care for infants where the procedures isn't life-saving. The parents decide. Its a relatively common ethical position for paedriticians, insofar as I know, isn't it? Their 2005 paper went into much further detail about the ethics of allowing parents to decide as well.


Even with a cynic look at it, its just plain simple that more surgical procedures= more cash and thus, no need for some complicated political pressure being applied or foreskin for sale.

[Justforfun000]

Its not significant enough to mean that they should recommend it, but they shouldn't deny access to it.

I'm not saying they should deny access to it either. For adults! I just think it's reprehensible to keep allowing it to be done to infants.

And in default, they went back to the same ethical position regarding care for infants where the procedures isn't life-saving. The parents decide. Its a relatively common ethical position for paedriticians, insofar as I know, isn't it? Their 2005 paper went into much further detail about the ethics of allowing parents to decide as well.

Unfortunately it was a common ethical position for paediatricians in the US and Canada in particular...but the anti-circumcision movement was starting to make some headway against the procedure and finally getting through to people that it's actually UNethical to be making these irreversible and sensation reducing procedures against an infants will when they are completely defenceless and if they were able would be wondering why the fuck some asshole is slicing perfectly normal skin off the most sensitive part of their anatomy. Causing harm and trauma and weeks of healing for no truly good reason.

I was going to delve into the minutae of the medical arguments but it's just mind numbing and really besides the point. It's been established very clearly that any "benefits" are extremely minimal and you're really reaching to get those! Some of them like the HIV issue are completely ridiculous when looked at comprehensively. It's regarding behaviour, it presupposes having sex with HIV positive people, it presupposes using no protection and they STILL insist it's not good enough to even remotely protect someone consistently. Just statistically a lower chance from a "slip-up" or I suppose a further time in the future for those who don't regularly use protection.

This is a good reason for circumcision? It honestly baffles me that these arguments for benefits are actually mentioned with a straight face.