Does this mean we need to get to hacking?
At best, their reasoning makes sense for the population as a whole if nothing else changes (that is to say that parents don’t teach their boys to clean their dicks). What it doesn’t take account of is that a parent can bring their child up to pratice good hygeine without mutilating them. That is what a sensible parent would choose to do.
It’s a tad academic since I have no children nor plans to acquire them in the future, but if my hypothetical child wanted to benefit from the reduced STD risks of a circumcised penis, I will leave that to him to decide as an adult regardless of what this study purports.
I’m glad it turns out my parents weren’t sex offenders afterall!
It’s important to note they have not recommended routine circumcision. They have said if you elect to do it, you should do it at our clinics while we bill the government for it.
There are medical benefits to female genital mutilation too. Doesn’t mean it’s ethical either.
What medical benefits are there to female genital mutilation?
Moreover, can you name any respectable medical organizations that support it?
Since these are the people who get paid to do circumcisions, it’s not exactly an unbiased source. (Though they do seem to have valid studies.)
I have never heard of any seriously proposed and supported by medical research. Can you provide an example?
This is not an accurate summary.
From the article:
[Emphasis added]
While presumably the prevention of HIV can be accomplished by universal condom use, hygene pratices will not have a big influence. And I dunno how parents can “prevent penile cancer” by teaching hygene.
No more cancer of the clitoris.
If you have a shread of mercy in you, no you will not.
The actual statement from the AAP, rather than an Australian news article says this:
Furthermore, the full text a) explains that the increased risk of cancer in uncircumcised men is most likely due to increased risk of infection. That’s how parents can prevent penile cancer by teaching hygiene. And b) the increased cancer risk is outweighed by the risk of complications when you don’t look at other potential benefits of circumcision.
There are no significant risks from having a foreskin that can’t be reduced by methods other than circumcision and unlike circumcision those other methods have zero risk of complications, which for circumcision does include a small risk of death.
Where do you live you can’t teach your kids basic hygiene? It’s odd you care enough about your child to slice up his cock but not teach him how to not be an illegal drug injecting street prostitute in equatorial Africa.
That is truly odd.
Firstly, the new article pretty accurately summarises the abstract of the statement, which states:
So it’s not a case of source distortion.
Secondly, the issue is not whether all newborns should get it as a matter of routine, but the opposite - whether there oughtta be a law or policy agianst anyone using the procedure on newborns. Adding back in to your selectively-cropped quote:
[Emphasis added]
Third, here is a link to the full text of the technical report.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/08/22/peds.2012-1990
- And -
In short, both of your statements are incorrect:
a. The cancer risk appears at least in part related to phimosis, not hygene; and
b. Contrary to your account, the report does not state that “the increased cancer risk is outweighed by the risk of complications when you don’t look at other potential benefits of circumcision”. Rather, it states that rating the risk/reward ratio is “difficult”, and that the study with “good” evidence demostrates 1 cancer is prevented for every 2 complications! While I suppose one could make the argument that 1 cancer per 2 complications still shows that ‘complications [numerically] outweigh cancers’, that would be an extremely misleading argument to make, as the vast majority of complications are in no way as severe as cancer. The risk to health of 1 cancer is obviously more severe than 2 complications. Admittin of course that the other study showed 644 complications per cancer (but only based on “fair” evidence).
Not half as odd as your post. 
What your response has to do with the prevelence of penile cancer I cannot imagine.
When I saw the article in the newspaper a day or two ago, I of course immediately thought of the SDMB and the heated (on the part of a few posters with a bee in their bonnet) threads that have come up here.
What I took away from the article is, not Now they’re saying circumcision is a good thing and everyone should do it, but There are legitimate medical reasons to circumcize boys, so parents who choose to have their baby boys circumcized have made a reasonable choice. They’re not evil; and it’s not just a matter of religion or custom.
No, that’s the issue in the Australian article. The topic of this thread, as per the OP is “Does this mean we need to get to hacking?”
Yes, I admit I simplified that part to respond to your incredulity that cancer risk could be reduced by improving hygiene. Phimosis however is still treatable without surgery and the probable cause of a link between phimosis and cancer is the problems it presents for foreskin hygiene.
I agree. My brain shortcircuited on “complication”, which would of course include all the minor stuff. That still leaves cancer risk as something that, like the other risks, can be reduced by hygiene and non-surgical treatment of phimosis.
I do wonder…how may of the American Academy of Pediatrics are Jewish?
I took the OP to be rhetorical. No-one is seriously suggesting, least of all the policy, that people be required routinely to obtain the procedure. The debate is, and always has been for the last few decades, about whether it is ethical.
My understanding is that the primary treatment for phimosis which is actually causing acute complications is in fact surgical. And certainly it has never been alleged that surgical treatment for phimosis is unethical or improper.
Moreover, it is not in evidence that nonsurgical treatment for phimosis reduces or elimninates cancer risk. It is in evidence that circumcision reduces or eliminates cancer risk.
Scientific evidence of this lacks. Again, we have no evidence that non-surgiacl treatment of phimosis reduces or eliminates cancer risk.
However, all this is to say that there do exist medical benefits that cannot, on the state of the evidence as in this report, be reproduced merely by enforcing hygene, or otherwise by “non-surgical treatments”.