[Nydhal]

In some sense traditional medicine or traditional\religious healthy habits (I'm thinking something like kashrut) has way larger sample since it's been practiced for millenia and its populations still survived enough to transmit them to offspring. If grandma made it long enough to teach the grand kids some old traditions there's probably some merit to some of them.

[Chickenosaurus]

The only thing that can be deduced from this observation is that these traditions are not deadly in the short term. After all, smoking is a tradition in some cultures, even though we are sufficiently certain smoking is harmful.

[bjourne]

Circumcision is practiced by billions, yet there is no health benefits at all.

[refurb]

That's not true at all. Circumcision is linked to lower rates of penile cancer, lower rates of STD infection (probably why cancer rates are lower) particularly HIV and lower rates of bladder infections. In fact it was recommended that circumcision be standard practice in areas of Africa with high HIV rates.

[bjourne]

Read this article, it demolishes the "health benefits" argument: http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2017/08/15/does-female-g... In short, if male circumcision has health benefits, then female circumcision has too and even African tribes' rituals in which they pull each others teeth out because it prevents tooth decay!

Regardless of that, and assuming that there are major health benefits to circumcision, the Jewish and Muslim communities that practiced it for millennia, couldn't possibly have been aware of any. Because they didn't perform any epidemiological studies measuring rates of penile cancer and HIV infections. But they must have noticed a lot of babies and boys getting fevers and dying from infections shortly after the procedure was performed on them. Clearly, the rite lived on because "God told them to" despite the adversarial effects it had on their children's health.

[throwanem]

Can you cite some substantiation for the claim of high morbidity and mortality historically resulting from circumcision of male neonates? I'm not tremendously in favor of the practice myself, as it seems unnecessarily traumatic, but I also think it's worth paying heed to the occasional fact, no matter how firmly you happen to be against it.

And I'm not especially impressed by that article you linked, either. Several of the sources it cites in support of its arguments, when examined, turn out to be tangentially related at best, and not at all supportive of the claims to which they're linked.

[whiddershins]

Do you really think mutilating people’s genitalia is a reasonable intervention to lower STD rates?

It’s my opinion that circumcision acceptance is based on a cultural/ideological blind spot.

[Jyaif]

Less STDs because of the hardened skin. Look it up.