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A scientist or researcher of [[circumcision]] may have a cultural bias in favor of [[circumcision]] if (s)he comes from a country, society, cultural background, or ethnic group where [[circumcision]] is common. A cultural bias is a conflict of interest because reporting accurate findings in studies regarding circumcision is at odds with what one has been conditioned to believe about the practice. A person may be circumcised himself, married to a circumcised spouse, and/or a parent to circumcised children.
Circumcision has been near-universal in the [[United States]], [[Israel]], the [[Tuli| Philippines]], and most Muslim nations. Circumcision is also considered a rite of passage in some African tribes. In these societies, a man who has not been circumcised is often considered to be inferior, and in some cases, a social outcast, so there is a strong incentive to circumcise one's self and/or one's children.
LeBourdais (1995) reported "the likelihood of a baby being [[circumcised ]] is influenced by an expanding array of usually non-medical factors: [[Adamant father syndrome| circumcision status of the father]], attitude of the mother, age of the attending physician, sex and circumcision status of the physician, geographic location and religion factors that have little to do with the baby himself."<ref name="lebourdais1995">{{REFjournal
|last=LeBourdais
|first=Eleanor
</blockquote>
Because the [[United States]] circumcises so many of its male infants, [[circumcision]] is often said to be an American cultural value, and it is has been accepted as “normal.” Cultural bias on this issue may be most obvious when considering the practice of female circumcision in Africa. Americans regard the practice with horror, the way Europeans, who do not cut the genitals of male or females, regard American circumcision.<ref name="CRC2011-03-06">{{REFweb
|last=
|first=
}}</ref>
American bias in favor of circumcision could be attributed to a number of different factors. The history of [[circumcision ]] in [[United States| America ]] goes back to the Nineteenth Century, when it began as a way to curb [[masturbation]] in boys and men.<ref name='Stay Free!'>{{REFweb
|quote=The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic...
|last=McLaren
|url=http://www.ibiblio.org/stayfree/10/graham.htm
|accessdate=2011-03-06
}}</ref> Thereafter American doctors began on a quest to medicalize the formerly religious practice of circumcision as a claimed preventer of a myriad of diseases, and that endeavor continues to this day.
===Media bias===
|accessdate=2020-08-08
|note=
}}</ref> As a result of the long history of doctors condemning the presence of the [[foreskin]] and expounding the alleged virtues of [[circumcision]], curriculum regarding the [[foreskin]] and its [[Foreskin#Physiological_functions| multiple functions]] remain largely absent from American medical literature. Information on the [[Retraction of the foreskin| proper development of the foreskin]] is largely absent, diagrams of male genitalia present the [[penis]] as [[circumcised]], and if the foreskin is mentioned at all, it is in the context of circumcision. In short, most of what is taught in American medicine regarding the [[foreskin ]] is how to cut it off. When [[circumcised ]] doctors attempt to write a [[circumcision ]] policy, the outcome is likely to heavily biased in favor of circumcision.<ref name="goldman2005">{{REFjournal
|last=Goldman
|first=Ronald
|DOI=10.1093/pch/9.9.630
|accessdate=2019-12-10
}}</ref> <ref name="hill2007">{{REFjournal
|last=Hill
|first=
|init=G
|author-link=George Hill
|title=The case against circumcision
|journal=Journal of Men's Health and Gender
|date=2007
|volume=4
|issue=3
|pages=318-23
|url=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=04ace5046cc27f01b8fbe4aa359c059778983912
|quote=
|format=PDF
|accessdate=2023-10-02
}}</ref>
|volume=105
|pages=682-683
}}</ref> The voices of Jewish doctors — [[Abraham L. Wolbarst|Wolbarst]], [[Abraham Ravich|Ravich]], [[Gerald N. Weiss| Weiss]], [[Aaron J. Fink| Fink]], [[Edgar J. Schoen|Schoen]], and others — are disproportionately prominent in circumcision advocacy.
Although physicians may act with what they consider to be sound medical judgement, some Jewish physicians may be influenced also by non-medical consideration. Cultural background of many Jewish circumcision advocates predisposes them to view the practice in a positive light, to welcome evidence that the most particular and problematic religious custom of their people is medically beneficial, and to dismiss arguments to the contrary. The presence of a large and influential population of Jewish physicians in this country, their concentration in leading centers of research and publication, and their remarkably active participation in the century-long debate on circumcision seems too obvious and too significant to be rejected out of hand, or worse, to be avoided because it might be wrongly interpreted as gratuitous defamation.<ref>{{REFbook
== Personal bias ==
Like anyone else, a scientist or researcher of [[circumcision]] may have a personal bias in favor of circumcision if he is [[circumcised]], a father of [[circumcised ]] children, or if she is married to a [[circumcised ]] partner and/or is a mother of [[circumcised ]] children.<ref name="lebourdais1995" /> A personal bias is a conflict of interest, because reporting accurate findings in studies regarding circumcision is at odds with a personal interest in defending the irrevocable procedure of circumcision for one's self, a [[circumcised ]] spouse, or one's [[circumcised ]] children. The interests of a circumcision "researcher" may also lie in a personal sexual fixation with the [[circumcised ]] penis and/or the act of [[circumcision ]] itself. (See [[circumfetish]].)
== "Anti-circumcision bias" ==
{{SEEALSO}}
* [[American Academy of Pediatrics]]
* [[Circumfetish]] -- A bias sicker than the rest.
* [[Issues with American urologists and the practice of male circumcision]]
* [[Psychological issues of male circumcision]]
* [[Circumcised doctors]]