Pediatricians find benefits of circumcision outweigh risks

By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

CHULA VISTA, California — The anti-circumcision advocates are probably not happy about the latest news to come out of a study conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which reveal the health benefits deriving from male circumcision far outweigh the risks. According to the report, researchers formed a task force in 2007 to review evidence from 1,000 studies that took place between 1995 and 2010. They found that the circumcision procedure had preventive benefits, including a major risk reduction for male urinary tract infections—especially during the infant’s first year of life—and a lower risk of cancer, and heterosexual acquisition of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Specifically, risk for herpes was 28 to 34 percent lower for circumcised men and risk for HPV was reduced by 30 to 40 percent.

This should come as no great surprise, but for people who exhibit an animus toward circumcision, this study must be upsetting. Perhaps the ancients were not as “barbaric” as the anti-circ movements think. Modern medicine takes a different approach and argues that on the eighth day, the infant’s immune system is functioning optimally that would ensure the infant’s ability to withstand the procedure. Important clotting agents, Vitamin K, and prothrombin, are at their highest levels in infants precisely on the eighth day of life, thus making the eighth day the safest to circumcise the infant. In addition, there is also a spiritual bonding that takes place between the child, the parents, and the community, as well as long-term health benefits.

Circumcision has also helped prevent the spread of AIDS in Africa—no small achievement! One study conducted in Africa and published more than a year ago has shown that the chances of men who have been circumcised to be infected with HIV during sexual intercourse with a woman carrying the virus are 70 percent lower than that of men who have not been circumcised. A different study held in Uganda revealed that circumcision also protects women from being infected with AIDS. According to the research findings, the chances of partners of men who have been circumcised and infected with the HIV virus to be infected are 30 percent lower than the chances of partners of men who have not been circumcised.

Although it hardly gets the news it deserves, but the world owes Israel a debt of gratitude. In the hills of Swaziland’s capital, you will find Israeli physicians teaching African doctors how to perform adult circumcision. Israel is doing amazing work in combating AIDS. The United Nations announced last year that the procedure could reduce the rate of HIV transmission by up to 60 percent. It was in Israel, with its experience performing adult male circumcision on a wide scale, that the international medical community found an improbable partner in the global fight against AIDS. Israelis have started similar training program in Uganda, Lesotho, Namibia, Kenya and South Africa. Their work is sponsored by the Jerusalem AIDS project and the Hadassah Medical Center, and they hope to recruit surgeons from abroad.[1]

In the United States, circumcision of newborns used to be routine in American hospitals until 1971. The American Academy of pediatrics then decided to discontinue the practice except for religious reasons. Years later, however, after surveys at several hospitals, it was discovered that uncircumcised boys were ten times more likely to suffer from urinary tract and kidney infections than circumcised boys. Dr. Thomas Wiswell, of Walter Reed Hospital, who had previously opposed the practice, changed his mind after studying statistics that showed unmistakable proof that circumcision provides a high degree of protection against penile cancer. Only .02 percent of 50,000 cases of such cancer had been circumcised. Other studies from the past few years show that women whose sexual partners have been circumcised have a lower incidence of cervical cancer and lower rates of acute and chronic infections. For this reason, Jewish women have had the lowest rate of cervical cancer. Circumcision also prevents Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) among young boys, as well as various STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) and even helps to prevent the spread of AIDS.[2]

According to a 2011 article in Scientific American, circumcision might diminish a man’s risk of developing prostate cancer by 15 percent, according to new research published online March 12 in Cancer. Of 1,754 men surveyed who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, fewer—percentage-wise—had been circumcised than the 1,645 men who did not have prostate cancer. Men with more aggressive forms of prostate cancer were even more likely to be uncircumcised. Most men were 55 or older; to be protective against cancer risk, they had to have been circumcised before they first had sex. The timing is important, the researchers suggest, because sexually transmitted infections might play a key role in making later cancer development more likely. Previous research showed that men who had any sexually transmitted infection were at a higher risk for prostate cancer.[3]