KEY POINTS:
A Massey University professor has called for the Government to make male circumcision available through the public health system.
Sitaleki Finau, Massey's Director Pasifika, made his call in light of studies suggesting the procedure has health benefits for men and women as well as being considered important to Pacific people.
The studies show male circumcision helps prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including Aids, and there was a proven link between circumcised men and a decrease in cervical cancer caused by the human pampilloma virus.
Remuera gynaecologist John Thomson also favours circumcision becoming available through the public health system as an effective method of preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Dr Thomson has performed more than 6000 circumcisions in his private clinic in the past 30 years using a non-surgical device attached to the penis that causes the foreskin to come off in a few days.
Prof Finau said New Zealand health authorities should take note of World Health Organisation backing for United States trials in Uganda, Kenya and South Africa confirming male circumcision can cut heterosexual HIV transmission by up to 60 per cent.
In a paper titled Circumcision of Pacific Boys: Tradition at the Cutting Edge, presented at a recent Public Health Association Conference in Auckland, Prof Finau provided insights into why most Pacific boys in New Zealand and in the islands continue to be circumcised.
This was despite a dramatic swerve away from the procedure that was almost standard for all army recruits and newborn boys born in New Zealand in the 1940s.
About 95 percent of newborn boys were circumcised in the 1940s, but the numbers started to decline about 1950 to the point where circumcision rates in public hospitals last decade were about 0.35 percent of total male births.
Currently, circumcision on social or religious grounds is unavailable in the New Zealand public health system and although virtually all of the 100,000 Samoan and Tongan males living in New Zealand are circumcised, the procedure must be paid for at private surgeries and health clinics.
Professor Finau thinks the Ministry of Health should review its policy, despite the climate of heightened emotion about human rights and the non-therapeutic removal of foreskin described by some men's groups as genital mutilation.
He said evidence that circumcision lowered a boy's chance of suffering urinary tract infections, eliminated the risk of infections under the foreskin, decreased the risk of developing cancer of the penis (although a very rare condition) and reduced the risk for men of contracting sexually transmitted diseases were grounds for making male circumcision available in the public health system.
"It's in the national interest to circumcise men to protect men and women, and save on cervical cancer management."
- NZPA
