the American Academy of Pediatrics...
Oh dear oh dear…
The American Academy of Pediatrics is a trade organisation, and exists for the promotion of its members - paediatric doctors. It is not, and never will be, a patient advocacy group.
The AAP members make millions of dollars from circumcision infant baby boys, and millions more from selling the amputated foreskins for medical research and cosmetics.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked
Many other sane pediatric association from around the world has declared the AAP's stance to be against all sane, rational analysis.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/03/12/peds.2012-2896.full.pdf+html
The British Medical Journal also published an extensive critique:
Also the Journal of Medical Ethics:
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2013/03/18/medethics-2013-101346.abstract
The Danish Society of Family Physicians has even declared male "circumcision" to be genital mutilation. Other countries in Europe will soon follow:
“The National Board of Health has sent Guidelines Regarding Circumcision of Boys into hearing. DSAM (Danish Society of Family Physicians) has debated the issue and agreed that circumcision may only be performed when medical indication is present. Circumcision in the absence of a medical indication is mutilation.”
Plus, the circumcision policy committee of the APP had many members with a conflict of interest, not least because of their religious belief in the requirement by their God to have their sons' penises mutilated as a sign of their devotion and love.
These people are terrified that the general public is going to get wise to this child-abuse and ban it.
Dr. Andrew Freedman was one of the members of the committee, and was asked:
"Do you have a son and, if so, did you have him circumcised?"
"Yes, I do. I circumcised him myself on my parents’ kitchen table on the eighth day of his life. But I did it for religious, not medical reasons. I did it because I had 3,000 years of ancestors looking over my shoulder."
http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/new-york-minute/fleshing-out-change-circumcision
Here is the AAP policy statement. Can you please point me to the section where there task force members state their "conflicts of interest"? (Hint: you won't find it because it doesn't exist):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/08/22/peds.2012-1989.full.pdf+html
Note that as three of the task force members were women; and the rest men all born before 1980, there is a very high degree of certainty that none of them possess a male foreskin.
In addition, at least four of them subscribe to a set of theological beliefs that require them to mutilate the genitals of their infant sons. And one of whom (as detailed previously) did so on his kitchen table. Not only is this in violation of the AAP’s code of bioethics prohibiting physicians from conducting surgery on family members (let alone in non-sterile environments), it also provides additional evidence of a pro-circumcision bias among the hand-picked task force members.
These people will mutilate your penis just because they think it pleases their sky-god. Forget about "medical benefits".
And recently, Steven Svoboda, a Harvard educated lawyer who runs "Attorneys for the rights of the child", debated two of the AAPs "Taskforce on Circumcision" members: Michael Brady, M.D. and Douglas Diekema, M.D.:
"Asked if people present could explain the functions of the foreskin Brady said, “I don't think anybody knows the functions of the foreskin,” then reiterated, in nearly identical words, “Nobody knows the functions of the foreskin.” I noted that there was not a word about the functions of the foreskin in the 2012 AAP report, and asked, shouldn't we know something about the functions of the healthy body part that is being removed?"
Tellingly, the AAP pamphlet "Care of the Uncircumcised Penis", used to contain this information:
"The glans at birth is delicate and easily irritated by urine and feces. The foreskin shields the glans; with circumcision, this protection is lost. In such cases, the glans and especially the urinary opening may become irritated or infected, causing ulcers, meatitis, and meatal stenosis. Such problems virtually never occur in uncircumcised penises. The foreskin protects the glans throughout life".
But this was deleted in the 1996 reprint, and despite numerous letters to the editors, no explanation was ever given as to why it was removed. Of course the reason is obvious: they want to deny that the male foreskin has any function at all, so they can continue to mutilate infant boys.
http://www.circumcision.org/pamphlet.htm
The foreskin is not "just a little bit of skin." The foreskin is a complex, double-layered fold of flesh, laden in thousands of nerves and blood vessels. Keep in mind that as a child grows into a man, his foreskin grows too; it isn't so little by the time the child is an adult. And adult foreskin can be from 12 to 15 square inches in size.
The foreskin is not a birth defect.
Neither is it a congenital deformity or genetic anomaly akin to a 6th finger or a cleft.
Neither is it a medical condition like a ruptured appendix or diseased gall bladder.
Neither is it a dead part of the body, like the umbilical cord, hair, or fingernails.
The foreskin is not "extra skin." The foreskin is normal, natural, healthy, functioning tissue, with which all boys are born; it is as intrinsic to male genitalia as labia are to female genitalia.
Unless there is a medical or clinical indication, the circumcision of a healthy, non-consenting individual is a deliberate wound; it is the destruction of normal, healthy tissue, the permanent disfigurement of normal, healthy organs, and by very definition, infant genital mutilation, and a violation of the most basic of human rights.
Genital mutilation, whether it be wrapped in culture, religion or “research” is still genital mutilation, and it needs to stop NOW.