Quick question for you...

I think you missed the part where the evidence for a medical benefit to circumcision wasn't massively compelling, or at least where you could say it was "significant" the effect didn't work out in a cost-benefit sense and you had to do some extreme data mining for it anyway.

When the scientfic and medial community looked at these "compelling" studies they found these things.

1. the studies did not follow proper protocol. They were in fact "stopped" when "good results" came up.
2. the studies massively misreported the actual benefit. They stated 40-60% likelyhood of not getting AIDS; Scientists and the medical community who are experts in statistics restated those numbers as a 2-5% improvement in prevention of aids.
3. The study's numbers have never been duplicated.
4. The studies do not apply to gay men, or men in the western world; just those is "Africa" which seems very very very odd. men are men-hiv is hiv. if it works in one country, it should work in another...
5. When you "follow the money" you find the studies funded by people who were already advocating circumcision for *religious* reasons.

finally

1. no medical consensus has ever explained the mechanism for WHY circumcision could possibly help keep you from getting aids. there are some "theories' printed, but they simply aren't compelling scientifically.

As to your main point - all else being equal, let's say there really was a reason this might be medially advised. It's medically advidse to PREVENT something that can be prevented a different way. And it's not like vaccination, or giving your child a healthy diet. It cuts part of you off. I do not see where harming little boys to *maybe* protect them from something that actual EDUCATION and condoms WILL protect them from - is a valid reason.

I joked about the fact that cutting off a teen girl's tits will insure she never gets Cancer of the mammory glands - but that doesn't strick me as a compelling reason to do it.

Well, it would be a top notch cure for breast cancer. Though you can go one further and prevent all deaths from cancer by just killing people at birth.

I was always an advocate of putting female hormones in the junior high school food, so none of the girls would get preggeres. But I'm constantly told that would be unethical.

Ethics shmethics.

Here's the thing. You're claiming that the "scientific and medical community" looked at those studies, they found them fatally flawed. If that's the case, why are all these scientific and medical organizations still advocating the practice? If the studies were fatally flawed ala Andrew Wakefield (since you claimed that they took money from religious groups with an agenda), then why haven't the scientists lost their medical licences, the studies been retracted, etc.? You're basically claiming that they are fatally flawed, positing a bunch of reasons why with no citations (and other anti-circ pages citing them don't count as citations. I want serious evidence from an unbiased, credible source showing why they are flawed), and then going off and making nonsensical analogies about cutting off breasts, which is just ridiculous- that is nothing like what I am proposing so please stop attacking strawmen.

As to "all else being equal", we'e not discussing all else being equal. We're discussing whether or not it's acceptable to use this as a way to slow the spread of a disease that is causing millions of deaths a year because evidence shows that it would help. I don't think many people would prefer to have a foreskin and also have HIV as opposed to having neither. Sure, condoms and education help better, but that is an approach that has been tried for years, and it certainly doesn't seem to be dropping transmission rates to US levels. The point is, while education may well be a "better" solution, it's also a long-term solution- and people are dying now. There's no reason why we shouldn't do everything in our power to stop deaths just because you feel a bit squeamish about it.

What medial boards are advising this? WHO is - against serious challenges from France, Germany among others.

The American Pediatrics association advises AGAINST it. Doctors without Boarders will not perform the procedure cause they disagree with the interpretations of the study.

You didn't answer any of the arguments laid against this study.

1. why are no medical professionals in agreement with how this could help?
2. Why have these studies not been replicated?
3. Why did the US (where we have circumcision) not have less AIDS than France or Germany in the 1980's before we knew anything about AIDS?

These are not trivial little "I don't like that study".

You mention vaccination. There are THOUSANDS of studies about vaccination that all agree with eachother. We know how vaccination works, and why it works. We have real time evidence that it works. WE have NONE Of that for Circumcision...

"even so, all else being equal". Ruptured appendix can and often does cause death -- why would we not agree with cutting it out before hand, to prevent it?

AGain, you want us to "take the studies" without question. But the second you start to question them, the whole thing falls apart.

Again, let's get it straight on exactly who (WHO) is advocating for this - cause it's not "all the medical community" the way vaccination is, or the way birth control is, or condom use. It's one group, following a set of studies that are challenged on so many grounds.

Until or unless those challenges can be answered, it's time to say "what's going on". I like how you belittle me as if i'm not being "skeptic" enough. What do you think reading the studies AND the challenges, and the opinions of major world orgs is doing, if not being skeptical?

I answered question #3 below- you can't just compare countries because you aren't conrolling for variables. I also proposed a solution for #1 that I've seen printed in various places, including that CDC website and the American Acadamy of Pediatrics- here's the CDC link, which includes links to dozens of studies and meta-analyses on the subject that you might want to look through.