It seems pro-circumcision people here have little knowledge or experience of risks associated with the procedure. Have you Jon888 or jakew ever seen results of botched circumcision? Little boys who've lost part of their penis or in thankfully rare cases, the lot? Or babies bled out to the point of needing transfusion? How about boys and men who are 'normal' insofar as function is concerned but permanently disfigured as a result of poor technique or post-op infection. Do you know how many DIE from complications?

In 12 years I'd never seen a male under the age of 50 with penile cancer but can only recall 2 cases. It is a rare cancer after all. I've never encountered a baby suffering HIV infection as a result of said infant having sexual intercourse with an infected partner. I have seen one genuine case of phimosis which was related to congenital urinary tract abnormality.

In a nutshell, I have encountered a great many more unfortunate males who've suffered as a result of circumcision than as a result of NOT being circumcised.

Obviously most owners of well circumcised peni are quite happy with the status quo but don't fool yourselves. There are those who are not - for very good reasons, however SUFFERERS GENERALLY DON'T WANT TO TELL THE WORLD. So complications of circumcision aren't widely known. Majority of men have great reluctance even consulting a doctor about penile problems.

Comparing circumcision to vaccination is as ridiculous as comparing fish to bicycles.

So gentlemen, cherish and care for your man bits, whole or trimmed, and do seek advice and treatment for any problems EARLY. However before you recommend the amputation of part of a helpless infants genitalia, stop and research the complications of the operation itself. If you are honest, you will accept that it is something which should be undertaken later in life with the decision largely made by the penis owner.

http://www.circumstitions.com/Complic.html#urol

To respond to rper1959:

"Why don't you start with the UN declarations of human rights and the rights of children," -- the UN declaration says nothing about a right not to be circumcised.

"[...] and a guiding principle in medicine is "first do no harm"." -- so then, surely a pertinent question is, "does circumcision constitute a net harm?"

"Please direct me to the research ( peer reviewed, double blinded, and controlled) that shows a reduction in deaths or significant morbidity from UTI, Penile cancer, and HIV in infants and children attributed to circumcision." -- it's obviously impossible to conduct research without patients knowing whether they're circumcised, so presumably you weren't serious (or weren't thinking) when you asked for double blinded studies. Also, I assume you also weren't thinking clearly when you asked for studies of penile cancer and HIV affecting infants and children - these conditions occur later on. So I'll provide evidence summarising the associations between circumcision and these conditions.

Here is a systematic review and meta-analysis of 12 studies of UTI and circumcision: http://www.circs.org/index.php/Library/Singh-Grewal

Here is a systematic review and meta-analysis of 8 studies of penile cancer and circumcision: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3139859/?tool=pubmed

And finally, here is a Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis of RCTs linking HIV and circumcision: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19370585

jakew it helps to read the question

"Please direct me to the research ( peer reviewed, double blinded, and controlled) that shows a reduction in deaths or significant morbidity from UTI, Penile cancer, and HIV in infants and children attributed to circumcision."

I am well aware of research that circumcision has been associated with a lower incidence of UTI in infants and children, but none that show it reduces harm in the long term attributable to UTI, further studies that do not use catheter or supra-pubic tap specimens in defining UTI are flawed due the difficulty of collecting a reliable urinary specimen from an uncircumcised male infant.

HIV (from sexual activity) and penile cancer do not occur in children and infants, as your quoted studies demonstrate. Nor do these studies show that delaying circumcision till the person can give consent or becomes sexually active would negate any benefit for those who choose to circumcised

"jakew it helps to read the question" -- I did, in fact, read the question. That's why I was able to point out that it didn't make much sense, as written.

"I am well aware of research that circumcision has been associated with a lower incidence of UTI in infants and children, but none that show it reduces harm in the long term attributable to UTI" -- that's a little like saying "I'm aware of research showing that laws banning driving while intoxicated are associated with fewer road accidents, but I'm not aware of research showing that such laws result in fewer deaths." Yes, it's *possible* that those laws result in fewer accidents but each accident is (for some unexplained reason) less severe. But it's very unlikely. It's much more logical to apply common sense: fewer accidents probably result in fewer deaths. Similarly, fewer UTIs probably result in fewer complications of UTIs.

"further studies that do not use catheter or supra-pubic tap specimens in defining UTI are flawed due the difficulty of collecting a reliable urinary specimen from an uncircumcised male infant." -- maybe so, but that leaves a number of studies.

"HIV (from sexual activity) and penile cancer do not occur in children and infants" -- yes, as I stated.

"Nor do these studies show that delaying circumcision till the person can give consent or becomes sexually active would negate any benefit for those who choose to circumcised" -- actually, penile cancer studies suggest that the protective effect is greatest when performed in infancy. As you'd know if you read the paper I provided.

The question makes prefect sense except if you approach it from your viewpoint ideological and intellectual rigidity.

Yes and we could stop all vehicle deaths, and vehicle accidents and injuries by simply banning vehicles or closing roads, the argument for routine neonatal circumcision is as logical.

How many foreskins must be harvested from infants to prevent one case of penile cancer in Australia? Would it be a cost effective intervention? or more cost effective, than other stratergies in the prevention of this rampant scourge of penile cancers leading to how many deaths per year was that in Australi

"The study, by researcher Dan Bollinger, concluded that approximately 117 neonatal deaths due directly or indirectly to circumcision occur annually in the United States, or one out of every 77 male neonatal deaths.
Most circumcision-related deaths are not officially as recorded as due to circumcision at all, but to the immediate cause, most commonly stroke, bleeding, infection or reactions to anaesthesia. Medical statistics are thus at fault in that they do not give the true cause of death at all. Previous studies have given wildly varying estimates the death toll from circumcision. In 1949 paediatrician Douglas Gairdner found that sixteen British boys died each year, while more recent estimates range from a low of two boys per year to a high of as many as 230. Some textbooks and most circumcision promoters claim that there have never been any deaths from circumcision in a modern clinical context (whatever may happen in the insanitary conditions of the Third World). For his study Bollinger collected data from hospital records and government sources to attempt to provide a more accurate estimate of the magnitude of the problem."

http://www.circinfo.org/USA_deaths.html

I believe similar would apply to Australia since cause of death statistics are recorded same.

"Australia has an enviable record with respect to deaths from circumcision, none having been reported since 1993. There is, however, no room for complacency. As well as good medical practice, the absence of such reports is as much a consequence of the declining and now low incidence of infant circumcision and the difficulty of attributing deaths to circumcision when they are the result of later complications, such as infection, or of long term sequelae, such as depression and suicide. As shown on the above table, several authorities agree that there is no reliable record of mortality, and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has admitted that their statistics cannot identify deaths due indirectly to circumcision" http://www.circinfo.org