Topic (reference)

Location

Reason

Fine-touch sensitivity

(Sorrells et al. [19] )

San Francisco

Poor study design, statistical errors, incomplete

data presentation, missing subjects,

misinterpretation of meaning of findings, bias.

Bulbocavernosus refex

(Podnar [22] )

Slovenia

Questionable author-designed clinical test, results

not confirmed by standard neurophysiological test,

not consistent with US findings, data not presented

for 86% of uncircumcised men in the study, no

demographic information provided.

Alexithymia

(Bollinger and Van Howe [5] )

USA (mainly)

Bias in subject recruitment, cut-off for alexithymia

scores not stated, men categorized with alexithymia

far exceeded the general population prevalence,

lack of association with time of circumcision

contradicts the study’s hypothesis, alexythymia is actually regarded as a stable personality trait,

no support from inter-country comparisons,

questionable assumption, general bias.

“Erogenous sensitivity”

(Bronselaer et al. [29] )

Ghent, Belgium

Recruitment bias owing to self-selection of

subjects, age and reason for circumcision not

obtained, failure to correct statistics for multiple

testing, conclusions not compatible with results,

high risk of confounding, general bias.