Some doctors involved in writing the AAP's circumcision policy no longer stand by it
Two physicians who sat on the American Academy of Pediatrics' 2012 circumcision task force now say, on the record, that the case for the procedure never really added up medically. The same Academy just told every state in the country to stop letting religious and philosophical belief override the science on vaccines. It cannot keep doing both and expect to be trusted on either.
This is a personal take, not a lab report. It reflects the author's own personal beliefs and reading of any sources below.
In interviews recorded between December 2024 and February 2025, bioethicist Dr. Douglas Diekema and pediatric urologist Dr. Andrew Freedman — both members of the AAP task force that wrote the Academy's 2012 circumcision policy — were asked whether they'd stand behind it today. Neither would.[1]
Diekema: "When you look at all the data, I don't think you can honestly say the benefits outweigh the risks." His advice to parents on the fence: they're "probably better off not doing the procedure." Freedman went further, describing the 2012 statement as a compromise among a divided committee and calling circumcision "a non-therapeutic procedure" that the Academy might be better off leaving alone entirely: "Maybe the AAP should get out of the circumcision business, since it's not really a medical practice."[1][2]
That statement, notably, is also five years past its own expiration date. AAP policy statements automatically lapse after five years unless reaffirmed, revised, or retired. The 2012 policy never was. The most-cited defense of infant circumcision in American medicine has been sitting there, technically expired and never replaced, since 2017.[1] The full timeline is laid out on the History page.
This isn't the first time an outside reviewer flagged this
In 2013, pediatric and urological societies from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and Canada published a joint rebuttal of the AAP's 2012 statement in the same journal that ran it — arguing its conclusion reflected American cultural norms around circumcision more than a neutral reading of the evidence.[3] Two of the statement's own authors now appear to agree.
Put those two facts together and you get an uncomfortable picture: the organization that sets the tone for American pediatric practice produced a "medical" policy that, by the account of the people who wrote it, was actually a negotiated compromise shaped by what American parents and culture were comfortable with — not a clean read of risk versus benefit.
Here's why that matters beyond circumcision. In July 2025, the AAP published an updated policy statement calling on every US state and territory to eliminate non-medical (religious and philosophical) exemptions from school vaccination requirements, while continuing to allow exemptions that are actually medically indicated.[4] The position is that when a child's health, and the health of everyone around them, is on the line, personal or cultural belief is not an acceptable reason to override the evidence. That is the correct position. Vaccines work, herd immunity depends on high coverage, and a school system riddled with belief-based exemptions puts immunocompromised kids at real risk.
So the same Academy is telling parents, in the same decade, two different things about the relationship between culture and medical guidance. On vaccines: the science stands regardless of what your community believes, and exemptions carved out for belief are a public-health problem to be closed. On circumcision: a policy statement that two of its own authors now call a values compromise, not a medical read, stood as the Academy's official position for over a decade and technically still hasn't been withdrawn.
The obvious objection, addressed
Circumcision and vaccination aren't identical procedures, and this isn't an argument that they are. Vaccines prevent communicable disease and protect third parties; forgoing a vaccine can put other children at risk in a way that an intact foreskin does not. That's a real disanalogy, and it's not the point being made here.
The point is narrower and, we'd argue, harder to escape: it's about how the AAP treats culture itself as an input to medical guidance. An organization that tells states cultural and religious belief must yield to the evidence on one childhood medical question, while its own former task force members say cultural comfort quietly shaped the "evidence-based" conclusion on another, doesn't get to claim a consistent standard. Pick one. Either cultural belief is a legitimate factor a national pediatric body can weigh into a policy statement, or it isn't. The AAP is currently acting like the answer depends on whose culture is asking.
None of this requires the AAP to declare circumcision harmful, or to ban it, or to take a side in the culture war that flares up every time this subject comes up. It requires something much smaller and much harder to argue against: retire the expired 2012 statement, and build whatever replaces it (if anything does) using the same rule the Academy just applied to vaccines. Evidence first. Belief disclosed, not laundered into a policy conclusion. One proposed reform already on this site asks for exactly that: guidance panels screened for the conflicts of interest specific to this one procedure, with the perspectives currently missing from the room brought into it.
An institution can be the place where science overrides culture, or the place where culture gets to override science depending on the topic. It can't credibly be both at once and expect parents to know, procedure to procedure, which one they're getting.
Sources cited in this article
- Buckler M. "As controversies mount, circumcision policies need a rethink." Journal of Medical Ethics, 2025. Based on on-record interviews (recorded December 2024–February 2025) with two members of the AAP's 2012 circumcision task force — bioethicist Dr. Douglas Diekema and pediatric urologist Dr. Andrew Freedman — neither of whom would stand behind the 2012 statement's benefit-outweighs-risk conclusion today. Also notes the 2012 policy automatically expired in 2017 under the AAP's own five-year reaffirmation rule and has not been replaced.
- Bruchim. "Experts Who Shaped U.S. Circumcision Policy Now Voice Doubts." Press release, EIN Presswire, 24 October 2025, summarizing and quoting the Buckler interviews above.
- Frisch M, Aigrain Y, Barauskas V, Bjarnason R, Boddy SA, Czauderna P, et al. "Cultural Bias in the AAP's 2012 Technical Report and Policy Statement on Male Circumcision." Pediatrics, 2013;131(4):796–800. Joint rebuttal signed by physicians and heads of pediatric societies from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Canada and elsewhere, arguing the AAP's 2012 conclusion reflected American cultural norms rather than a neutral reading of the evidence.
- Hackell JM, Brothers K, Bode S, Kafer LM, O'Leary ST, et al., on behalf of the AAP Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine, Committee on Infectious Diseases, Committee on State Government Affairs, and Council on School Health. "Medical vs Nonmedical Immunization Exemptions for Child Care and School Attendance: Policy Statement." Pediatrics, 2025;156(2):e2025072714. Calls on states to eliminate non-medical (religious and philosophical) exemptions from school-entry vaccination requirements while continuing to permit medically indicated exemptions.
Full AAP circumcision timeline, including the Freedman quote in context: History page. Related reform proposal: guidance panels free of undeclared bias.