Reuters - CHICAGO |
"We're not saying you have to have it," said
Dr. Andrew Freedman, a pediatric urologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical
Center in Los Angeles who chaired the AAP's circumcision task force.
"We're saying if a family thinks it is in the child's best interests, the benefits are enough to help them do that," he said.
In a statement issued on Friday in anticipation
of the guidelines, the anti-circumcision group Intact America said most
of the studies underlying the new guidelines are based on research done
on adult men in Africa.
"The task
force has failed to consider the large body of evidence from the
developed world that shows no medical benefits for the practice, and has
given short shrift, if not dismissed out of hand, the serious ethical
problems inherent in doctors removing healthy body parts from children
who cannot consent," said Georganne Chapin, the group's executive
director.
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