CIRCUMCISION & AIDS: MORE PROOF
American research bodies have called an early halt to trials of adult male circumcision in Kenya and Uganda after results showed that men who had undergone the procedure dramatically lowered their risk of contracting the HI virus.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced an early end to two clinical trials of adult male circumcision after an interim review of the data revealed that medically performed circumcision significantly reduced a man’s risk of acquiring HIV from having heterosexual intercourse.
The trial involving almost 3,000 HIV-negative men in Kisumu, in the western highlands of Kenya, showed a 53 percent reduction in contracting HIV among those who were circumcised, while a trial with about 5,000 HIV-negative men in the Rakai District of central Uganda showed that HIV acquisition fell by 48 percent in circumcised men.
“These findings are of great interest to public health policy-makers who are developing and implementing comprehensive HIV prevention programmes,” said NIH Director Dr Elias Zerhouni in a statement. “Male circumcision, performed safely in a medical environment, complements other HIV prevention strategies and could lessen the burden of HIV/AIDS, especially in countries in sub-Saharan Africa where, according to the 2006 estimates from UNAIDS, 2.8 million new infections occurred in a single year.”
This confirmed research conducted last year by a team of French and South African scientists, who found that circumcision appeared to reduce the chances of HIV infection in such men by up to 60 percent. So dramatic was the protective effect that the South African trial was also stopped early because it was considered unethical not to offer the uncircumcised men in the control group the chance to have the operation immediately.
More than 30 studies around the world have suggested that circumcision can protect men from HIV to some degree, but the South African trial was the first randomised, controlled study to demonstrate the extent of protection.
After calls for safe male circumcision to be integrated into national HIV-prevention strategies, several African countries have acted on the results of the South African-based study: Zambia and Swaziland both launched national male circumcision programmes, while a report by the 14-member Southern African Development Community described male circumcision as “a one-off intervention conferring lifelong reduced biological risk”. Other countries, including South Africa, have delayed action until the results of the study in Kenya and Uganda were available.
NIAID has warned that this does not mean circumcision alone can prevent men from becoming infected with HIV during sexual intercourse, emphasising that “circumcision is only part of a broader HIV prevention strategy that includes limiting the number of sexual partners and using condoms during intercourse”.
Circumcision and HIV infection. I cannot see the relevance of this debate. Whether you are circumcised or not, you should be having sex with a condom, no matter whether you are gay or straight. Studies like this will only further increase the existing resistance to the use of condoms in Africa. Furthermore, if this study had any real world relevance, why is it that the rate of HIV infection among American males who are generally circumcised, far higher than the infection rates in Western European countries, where most of the males are uncircumcised.
Even if there was relevance in these studies, and it was agreed that circumcision was the best option, circumcision of sexually active males could be considered then, not the ritualised child-abuse that goes on when neonatal boys are circumcised without anaesthetic as happens today. That is notwithstanding the circumcions that are conducted in the name of various religions.
If it was found that cutting off your pinkie was a means to prevent HIV infection, or circumcision of girls was another way of spreading the virus, how much support would there be – none! Unfortunately, we are all victims of the scam that has been going on for centuries. If the foreskin did not provide a use for the male body, evolution would have removed it thousands of years ago, so obviously it is there for a reason!
Just my few cents worth…
Hmmm. Vaughan, I am somewhat in agreement with you on some of your points but some are a bit flawed. Firstly, evolution doesn’t cause things to disappear if they don’t give an advantage. They only disappear if they give a disadvantage.
Now, what bothers me is that the article doesn’t explain why they think that there is an advantage to being circumcised. I can guess that it’s because the skin thickens slightly in order to protect the “head” from friction but I’d like to know if this is the actual reason.
maintenance and protection are the real issues. brazil is a country where the only circumcised people are jews and american and angolan immigrants.
yet their infection rate is incredibly low.
why?
they are, generally, obsessed with cleanliness AND they condomise like crazy.
it’s not about circumcision per se, it’s about maintenance and using protection.
i really wish more people would wake up to that.
Why not lop the whole thing off?. As ridiculous as my heading suggests, I feel equally repulsed by the silly argument made in the article.
Apart from the sudden HIV linkage to foreskins (whatever next??), for years ignorant parents have advocated circumcision for “hygienic” reasons. It’s tantamount to saying that for hygienic reasons, if you don’t keep your ears clean, remove them as well..
Now the HIV foreskin thing has suddenly surfaced and the danger is that many more ignoramuses hiding behind so called statistics will make the call to circumcise their sons, without their permission, in an attempt to address a sexually transmitted disease. What is the issue really? A parental (or medical) attempt to force males to address sexual hygiene, (as if sexual practices could be enforced at birth anyway!) or simple fear?
I agree with Vaughan – circumcised Americans weren’t immune!
WHY?? HOW??. I also want to why that stats point to this being the case – what is the physiological reason… ???
Captain. According to the San Francisco Chronicle: “Laboratory studies have found that the foreskin is rich in white blood cells, which are favored targets of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. So the theory is that men who are uncircumcised are much more likely to contract the virus during sex…”
circumcision. let’s start calling a spade a spade: circumcision is male genital mutilation and outrage should be similar to outrage against female genital mutilation. Circumcision without consent (and that includes religious and cultural pressure) is a violation of human rights.
Anytime Bob!. I do try… 😉
Circumcision and HIV. Unfortunately, the Star published an article on this today, but the emphasis on condom use is not there. The bottom line is that a condom should be used, whether or not the male is circumcised. This whole palava about circumcision ignores the fact that it is male genital mutilation (almost always by force, without consent by the boy concerned) and is also Child Abuse. Instead of going out on a mass-circumcision drive, boys should be taught to keep clean and use a condom.
I wonder, however, if the Catholic Church, with its vehement anti-condom position, isn’t somehow behind this movement for mass circumcision…