Should Boys be Circumcised?

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The circumcision of infant boys is an aberrant practice associated with the English language. The English-speaking nations are nearly exclusively the only practitioners of neonatal circumcision. Consequently, English-speaking doctors who have suffered the emotional effects of circumcision are the leading advocates of non-therapeutic circumcision of children. The articles that tout the alleged advantages of child circumcision are found almost exclusively in the medical literature that is written in English.

Circumcised doctors, writing in English, exaggerate prophylactic benefits of circumcision and minimize the risks, certain injury to function, and other disadvantages.

The claims usually are for protection against the most feared disease of the moment. At various times claims have been made that male circumcision prevents feeblemindedness, epilepsy, hip joint disease, sexually transmitted disease, cancer, urinary tract infection, and on and on.

Circumcised American doctors touted prevention of cancer in the 1950s and 1960s, but Leitch (1970) in Australia and Preston (1970) in the United States, working independently, showed these claims to be without merit.

Circumcised American and Australian doctors touted prevention of urinary tract infection in the 1980s, but Chessare (1992) has shown the risks of circumcision to exceed the claimed benefit. Moreover, we now know that the alleged prevention of UTI cannot be shown to actually exist because of the methodological flaws present in all existing studies.

The current most feared disease is HIV infection, which progresses to AIDS and death, if not treated with a potent dose of anti-retroviral drugs. Most of the leading advocates of circumcision to prevent HIV infection are from the circumcising cultures of Australia, Canada, and the United States. Several studies have been produced in Africa by English-speaking doctors from nations with a circumcision culture, which purport to show a reduction in HIV transmission from female to male in adults in Africa. Such studies are not relevant to the circumcision of children in developed nations. Moreover, more and more evidence is emerging that these African studies contain disabling methodological flaws that render them useless. The CDC does not accept male circumcision for prevention of HIV infection in the mostly circumcised United States where the CDC reports the incidence of infection is high for a developed nation and increasing. The CDC declines to recommend circumcision of the newborn to prevent HIV infection.

The medical literature, which touts benefits of non-therapeutic circumcision of children, is emotionally driven by the peculiar needs of persons from circumcising cultures. It should be ignored. Non-therapeutic circumcision of children is an injurious operation that adversely affects health and well-being, so boys should not be circumcised.