circumcision and health

There is a big debate online in certain mother forums about circumcision and "why would you want to operate on something that God created?" along with big icons "NO CIRC" and references to mutilation when it comes to the practice in the US. It's amazing to me that mothers become so heated in discussing something already proven to reduce the incidence of HIV infection in men and now, according to the New York Times, reduces the transmission of both herpes simplex virus Type 2 and human papilloma virus. The study was a randomized clinical trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine assigned more than 3,000 uncircumcised Ugandan men who were not infected with HSV-2 to undergo immediate circumcision or to be circumcised 24 months from the start of the investigation. A subgroup was similarly evaluated for HPV infection. The study showed a 25% reduced risk of infection. Of course, the results don't apply to their partners. For the types of HPV that cause genital cancer, the results were about 18 percent of circumcised men were infected at the end of two years, compared with almost 28 percent in the control group making a 35 percent reduced risk of infection. Unfortunately, when you are in the hospital or at home with a midwife giving birth to a baby boy, the full information isn't given to the parents (the ones making the decision) concerning the benefits or risks in either. In fact, in the US, the rates of circumcision are declining, especially among black and Hispanic patients, the same groups with high rates of HIV, herpes infection, and cervical cancer. Sixteen states don't allow Medicaid to pay for routine circumcision.