Disclaimer: I had one.
Plus, I’ve long believed they do no harm and can only do
some good.
What am I talking about, you are probably screaming at
this item right now?
Circumcisions, of course.
I know some of what you just read tells you more than you
want to know (TMI) but these days a health reporter has to lay his or her cards
on the table (so to speak) so that’s what all that is about.
And the reason it comes up is that the very prestigious
American Academy of Pediatrics has just done a roughly 180 degree about-face on
its decade-long anti-circumcision stance and has announced that it no longer
recommends against circumcision as a routine procedure, although it doesn’t
actually recommend doing it, either.
Why the change? And huh?
The first part is easy: because, the APA says, there is
much stronger pro-circumcision data than anti-circumcision data in the medical
literature - in common-speak, the benefits clearly outweigh the risks.
So is the APA for
circumcision?
Nope. It doesn’t go that far probably, I’d guess, because
it doesn’t want to face the vituperative counter-circ campaign that a
pro-circumcision position would undoubtedly produce - this is an issue about
which some people feel very, very strongly, and it’s likely that even this
change in policy is going to produce a strong reaction.
So the people at the APA have elected to sit on the fence
and simply advise prospective parents that the benefits of a circumcision in
preventing several different STDs including HIV, herpes, and HPV clearly outweigh
the risks and to make up their own minds about what this might mean for their
kids’ futures.
My position? Been there, had it done, done it, too, and
believe that unless there are strong reasons not to do one (and this includes
the “feelings” of the parents, of course) a circumcision should be the standard
choice for boys.
Unlikely to happen, though.
