New Data Support Long-Term Health Benefits of Male Circumcision
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy on newborn male circumcision, initiated in 1999 and reaffirmed in 2005, states that data are insufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision. However, recent results from 3 randomized trials showing that it prevents sexually transmitted infections suggest that it is time to revise this policy to fully reflect these benefits, according to a review published in the January 2010 issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. “During the past 4 years, substantial new data have been published on the health benefits of circumcision,” write Aaron A. R. Tobian, MD, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, and colleagues. “While the historical evidence strongly suggests that male circumcision reduces urinary tract infections and penile inflammatory disorders in infants, we reviewed the more recent evidence with regard to effects on sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in adulthood.”
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January 5th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
This is NOT a concensus among physicians, it is a planned campaign. Whenever you see circumcision advocacy, check who’s behind it. Almost without exception, you’ll find the same few, very busy people: Daniel Halperin, Robert Bailey, Stefan Bailis, Stephen Moses, Malcolm Potts, Ronald Gray, Thomas Quinn, Helen Weiss, Brian Morris, Edgar Schoen, Thomas Wiswell and a handful of others. (Sure enough, the latest effort is by Grey and Quinn.) Their interest in circumcision – like any man’s involvement in things penile – is not necessarily utterly dispassionate. Halperin, for example, is on record as thinking his descent from a ritual circumciser means “maybe in some small way I’m ‘destined’ to help pass along [circumcision] to people in [other] parts of the world ….” Some of these people have reached high places and are now moulding policy.
January 6th, 2010 at 5:06 am
You might also want to check out the following:
Canadian Paediatric Society
http://www.cps.ca/english/statements/fn/fn96-01.htm
“Recommendation: Circumcision of newborns should not be routinely performed.”
http://www.caringforkids.cps.ca/pregnancy&babies/circumcision.htm
“Circumcision is a ‘non-therapeutic’ procedure, which means it is not medically necessary.”
“After reviewing the scientific evidence for and against circumcision, the CPS does not recommend routine circumcision for newborn boys. Many paediatricians no longer perform circumcisions.”
Royal Australasian College of Physicians
http://www.racp.edu.au/index.cfm?objectid=B5610716-9E3E-6C97-A8D87880FD002E3B
“After extensive review of the literature, the Paediatrics & Child Health Division of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians has concluded that there is no medical reason for routine newborn male circumcision.”
(almost all the men responsible for this statement will be circumcised themselves, as the male circumcision rate in Australia in 1950 was about 90%. “Routine” circumcision is now *banned* in public hospitals in Australia in all states except one.)
British Medical Association
http://www.bma.org.uk/ethics/consent_and_capacity/malecircumcision2006.jsp#Circumcisionformedicalpurposes
“to circumcise for therapeutic reasons where medical research has shown other techniques to be at least as effective and less invasive would be unethical and inappropriate.”
February 1st, 2010 at 12:35 am
n. And it’s also proving INVALUABLE in writing my own book about internet dating. (Available August 2005).
Rose Thornton