The World Health Organization has taken up the banner for circumcising men for the sake of reducing HIV infections. The WHO's position is that there is compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection. That evidence includes the African circumcision trials.

Tim Trent has written a very insightful blog: Do I trust The World Health Organisation? He starts out discussing how the WHO seems to be gaming the system in order to declare H1N1 Swine Flu a pandemic. Displaying distrust of their actions, Tim then presents male circumcision as an example of why the WHO is not easy to trust. There is no reason to repeat more. Read Tim's blog here for yourself.

Unfortunately, those advocating routine infant circumcision point to the WHO's support of circumcision as another reason to support circumcision in the United States. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is considering recommending circumcision as a means for preventing HIV. In August 2009, the CDC sponsored the 2009 National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. It was widely reported that the CDC was considering recommending routine infant circumcision.

The danger in such a recommendation is that, with the culture of circumcision in the US, many more parents will blindly opt for routine infant circumcision of their infant boys. Routine infant circumcision is decreasing in the US currently. With a CDC recommendation for RIC, that trend most likely will reverse. Doctors will be able to point to the CDC recommendation as an excuse to perform the operation (and make money from the surgery).