Circumcised males are less likely than their uncircumcised peers to acquire a sexually transmitted infection, the findings of a 25-year study suggest.
According to the report in the November issue of Pediatrics, circumcision may reduce the risk of acquiring and spreading such infections by up to 50 percent, which suggests "substantial benefits" for routine neonatal circumcision.
The current study is just one of many that have looked at this controversial topic. While most research has found that circumcision reduces the rates of HIV (the virus that causes AIDS), syphilis and genital ulcers, the results are more mixed for other STDs.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has called the evidence "complex and conflicting," and therefore concludes that, at present, the evidence is insufficient to support routine neonatal circumcision.
In the current study, the researchers analyzed data collected for the Christchurch Health and Development Study, which included a large birth cohort of children from New Zealand. Males were divided into two groups based on circumcision status before 15 years of age. The presence of a sexually transmitted infection between 18 and 25 years of age was determined by questionnaire.
The 356 uncircumcised boys had a 2.66-fold increased risk of sexually transmitted infection compared with the 154 circumcised boys, lead author Dr. David M. Fergusson and colleagues, from the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences report
So now do you think guys ar emore likely to het circumsized?
I don't know what the cultural aspect of new zealand is. Perhaps circumsized boys are less likely to get play, more likely to be in religious that discouraged sex, or non-religious households that do sex-education and are less likely to have sexual activity during those times, or to use protection as necessary. Perhaps uncircumsized boys, are more likely to be promiscous because non-cicrumsized penises are the norm, or because their not therefor they are compensating. Of course there could be a biological reason for it, such as the sheath retains fluids longer, making it more likely to sit on an abrasion or permeous membrane.
The interesting thing about science and scientific studies, is while we're learning something, our previous schema of though can lead us to a particular conclusion that may not be acurate. Did the stufy control for or collect information on culture (social or ethinic, religion), education, sexual knowledge, sexual frequency, sexual practices, and can this be correlated or cross referenced against studies in other countries that may have differences in sociocultural aspects but come up with the same results?
www.worldcantwait.com
who would have guessed
Just weeks after headlines (and blogs) promulgated the unsubstantiated and anomalous claim that circumcision dramatically reduces sexually transmitted disease, the lead researcher on the study admitted his results were not to be trusted.
Here are the post-publication peer reviews which point out the severe flaws of the very small study, including the one in which the researcher retracts his original claim.
The genital cutting of non-consenting boys not only lacks merit on strictly clinical grounds, but also causes non-clinical ill-effects such as loss of pleasure-producing tissue, and exposure of the glans to uncomfortable friction for a lifetime. Additionally, it is a violation of every human's right bodily integrity.