Offical Circumcision Statement of the Australian Pædiatric Association (1971)

Note:

The Medical Journal of Australia published a brief letter from the Australian Paediatric Association (APA) in its May 22, 1971 issue in which the APA announced its official position on infant circumcision. This is believed to be the first official statement on circumcision by a professional body in Australia.

CIRCUMCISION

SIR: The Australian Pædiatric Association, at a meeting on April 24, 1971, resolved as follows:

The Australian Pædiatric Association recommends that newborn male infants should not, as a routine, be circumcised.

Institute of Child Health, Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Camperdown, N.S.W. 2050.

[CIRP Note: After publication of some letters that commented on the resolution, The APA issued a second brief letter of explanation of the resolution.]

CIRCUMCISION

SIR: In the last quarter of a century, numerous publications have appeared on this subject, and the Australian Pædiatric Association has no present intention of adding to this literature. Instead, your correspondents whose letters appeared in the Journal of June 19, 1971, are referred to three papers in the June 1970 issue of The Australian Pædiatric Journal—those of Leitch (page 59), Birrell (page 66) and Durham Smith (page 67).

Some of our members wished the Australian Pædiatric Association to declare an opinion on this matter, and to make this opinion known; hence the resolution which was carried unanimously last April, and the letter to your Journal published on May 22, 1971.

Institute of Child Health, Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Camperdown, N.S.W. 2050.

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