Does circumcision have any health benefits?

Why do doctors like to circumcise?

Keeping your child intact is the norm in the USA now. There is a bit about the rise and fall of circumcision rates here, with some of the various medical reasons given for it here: http://www.veoh.com/collection/Circumcis…

No medical research has been able to conclusively support routine circumcision of newborns. If we ignore the fact that newborns are not at risk of STIs, there has been research to suggest that circumcision increases the risk of HIV transmission to women, and possibly increases the risk of UTIs. The data on UTIs is poor at best, with no research coming out in favour of a reduction of UTIs after the first year. Overall, UTIs in boys are rare anyway, and an intact boy has a lower risk of UTIs than a girl. There is some information on UTIs here: http://www.circumstitions.com/Utis.html, on disease in general here: http://www.circumstitions.com/#disease and a critical examination of the studies being used to promote circumcision as a preventative for HIV in Africa here: http://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/full/1…

These are the risks involved in neonatal circumcision, which are neither rare nor trivial: http://www.circumstitions.com/Complic.ht… This is a comparison of cut vs. intact outcomes: http://www.drmomma.org/2010/01/cut-vs-in… This is what is lost during circumcision: http://www.norm.org/lost.html This depicts circumcision damage in adult men from neonatal circumcision - this is common, 'normal' stuff: http://www.noharmm.org/IDcirc.htm

Neonatal circumcision must, from a medical ethics point of view, be considered unethical, as there is NO measurable benefit to a neonate from circumcision - infants are not at risk of STIs. The risks, however are alarming - that of severe infection, bleeding, penile loss and in the worst case scenario, death. Whether this is 'rare' or not is unimportant from an ethical perspective - any non-elective procedure with no immediate medical benefit and a small risk of death must be stopped, as it is not in the patient's best interests.