New study shows circumcision reduces AIDS rates

Please note that JeanetteB is a troll who posts under various names. She gets excited when she stirs up the masses -- please ignore her.

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JeanetteB, you have been misinformed. I live in NZ, and even had my son here. Circumcision is not routinely done here. Only those with religious reasons do it, and the rabbi who does it doesn't even work at the hospital. You have to drive to him. In Australia, the UK, and throughout most of Europe it is also not performed routinely.

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JeanetteB - Kind of ironic how you accused *someone else* of stating "patently untrue" and easily verified [wrong] "facts".

I had a real giggle over that. ;)

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JeanetteB:

"But I'm gonna place my bets on dozens of methodologically-sound investigations than on a sprinkle of anecdotes."

Actually, the number is three trials, and the soundness of their methodology is questionable.

To the entry at hand, I wouldn't circumcise a son. I wouldn't have chosen circumcision for myself, if my choice had been left to me. I'm not about to make a permanent, non-medical decision for my children. That's the same standard I'd apply to a daughter. I see no reason other than cultural conditioning to act otherwise, and cultural conditioning is a ridiculous reason to force surgery on a helpless child.

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Oh, additionally, African descendants tend to be more susceptible to AIDS than are European descendants, due to some genetic resistance conferred on the family tree of black plague survivors.

So studies done in Africa are even less relevant to the general population and do not make a widespread case for circumcision.

Removal of the cervix can prevent cervical cancer, do we do that? It could be done very early on, wouldn't impact sexual pleasure, and wouldn't change the looks of the girl. She'd grow up with no memory of it... Same logic. Most cervical cancer is from exposure to HPV. HPV is much more widespread in this country than AIDS is. It would make more sense to remove the cervix of all infant girls than it would to remove the foreskin of boys.

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In Malawi, Tanzania, Ghana, Rwanda, Lesotho, and Cameroon, AIDS is markedly MORE common among the circumcised.

In non-cutting Japan, AIDS is more rare than in 95%-cut Israel.

450,000 US men who were cut at birth have died of AIDS.

Condoms prevent HIV transmission. Circumcision,.. not so much. A cut man loses over half the sensual nerve endings and about 15 square inches of exquisite mucosal sexual interface. He is therefore much LESS likely to want to use a condom.

HIS body, HIS adult decision.

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Wait, wait, wait. Let me get some popcorn. This is almost as good as the posts about breast feeding.

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My husband is not circumcised, and we did not choose to have our son circumcised.

This study will not have any effect upon our future choices, and would not have had any effect even if we`d seen it prior to our son`s birth.

We do not live in Africa. We live in a country where people have access to lots of clean water, and who are blessed with the ability to maintain high levels of hygiene.

This study may be applicable to Africa, but it has NOTHING to do with most other countries. And certainly nothing to do with the US, where people will doubtlessly use it as justification for chopping of parts of their children.

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FGM, circumcision "likely to spread HIV"
afrol News, 26 February - New research dramatically contradicts the popular conclusions of recently published reports, holding that male circumcision protects against contracting AIDS. Scientists looking at male circumcision and female genital mutilation (FGM) practices in Kenya, Lesotho and Tanzania found that the cut in itself was causing many new AIDS cases among adolescents.

The research, published in the March issue of the scientific journal 'Annals of Epidemiology', was carried out by a team of researchers led by Devon Brewer, director of the research firm Interdisciplinary Scientific Research. "We found that circumcised virgins and adolescents in Kenya, Lesotho, and Tanzania were consistently and substantially more likely to be infected with HIV than their uncircumcised counterparts," Mr Brewer said.

The researchers analysed data from the 'Demographic and Health Surveys', which are based on nationally representative samples of adolescents and adults. In the three African countries studied, circumcision is typically performed in adolescence or early adulthood and often in unhygienic circumstances where many individuals are circumcised with shared, unsterilised cutting instruments.

"Sexually experienced male adolescents were no more likely to be infected than adolescent virgins, further highlighting how HIV may be spreading by means other than sex," the researchers concluded.

Mr Brewer said "a key problem with nearly all prior research on circumcision in Africa is that researchers have treated circumcision only as an anatomic characteristic, and not also as a potential exposure to others' blood during the circumcision operation." He continued, "this is striking, because over the last 20 years, many Africans, including children, have warned that HIV can spread through circumcision procedures."

The new results in particular raise questions about how to understand the recent randomised trials of male circumcision in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda. These studies, in which some uncircumcised men were randomly assigned to be circumcised in presumably sterile conditions and others were not circumcised, showed that male circumcision reduced HIV acquisition.

The popular news reporting of these findings has been widespread in Africa. And the basic message in African media has been that circumcising young boys - and sometimes girls - will protect them from contracting HIV-AIDS. The new study however shows that this conclusion is not only wrong, but also a dangerous message, due to the poor hygienic standards normally applied at circumcision ceremonies.

Mr Brewer said, "If we had known several years ago what we know now from the national surveys, there would not have been a good empirical basis even to conduct the trials. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate thoroughly the possible mechanisms - which are speculative at this point - for the protective effect observed in the trials."

The US researcher and his colleagues finally called for more intensive study of HIV transmission in the context of both traditional and medical circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa.



By staff writer

© afrol News

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I will probably be attacked for this, but Ugh, there are many other countries that routinely circumcise boys: all Islamic countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and, of course, in Israel. It is done for religious reasons (as you no doubt know, circumcision is a religious obligation in Islam and Judaism). Perhaps you meant no other Western nations?

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This study is bull-scat! I do NOT believe a word of it. It is HEAVILY biased. My son is intact because there was no concrete reason to do anything otherwise and there *never* will be. We were born as we are for a reason and we should not be changing anything unless it's life-threatening. This statement not only applies to circumcision but also to cochlear implants, cosmetic surgery, etc.

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Man, all it takes is on post in favor of circumcision to bring out the whackos. Not that everyone opposed to circumcision is a whacko, but people who obsessively scan bb for circumcision so that they can post the same old rants about 'genital mutilation' - don't you ever get tired of it?

I'm circumcised, and my son is as well. We both are going fine. I don't harbor any resentment against my parents for circumcising me, in fact, I'm pretty happy with the way I am. I understand that people have made different choices, and I think that's great. Personally, I feel it is a decision that the parents should make, based upon their own research, opinions and life experiences. And I believe that most if not all parents who make that decision have put thought into it, and therefore have made the right decision for themselves and their families.

Others would prefer to lecture about how those who get their children circumcised have 'mutilated' them, and that I myself have 'lost sensation' and have been victimized. Personally, I don't notice any loss, increased sensation would probably make things more difficult, and I don't choose to see myself as a victim.

As a word of advice, before my wife and I made the decision to cut, the posts that honestly spoke of first person experiences and feelings made a lot more impact than those that were combative, nasty, preachy or filled with statistics or facts about random countries.

All that being said, this article makes me more comfortable with our decision. My son will hopefully always use a condom, and never sleep with anyone with an STD, but if he should do so, I'm glad he has a lower chance of getting an STD. He was circumcised for different reasons, so this report is kind of like a 2 for 1 special...

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poster #32: you need to read post #29 REAL close!!!

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I did - and while shared surgical instruments in africa may be a major cause of transmission of HIV, and I fully believe that it is a terrible problem - it really wasn't an issue for me and my son, who were both circumcised in NYC.

Also, transmission of HIV through unclean surgical instruments means ALL surgery in Africa comes with a terrible risk - not just circumcisions. So for people in Africa, I would strongly advise against ANY elective surgery. But for people in any hospital where sterile surgical instruments are used, this article is basically irrelevant, and beyond that, fear mongering. For my purposes, this article has about as much relevance as comments on the rate of circumcision in France. Why don't you post something on the risk of frostbite to circumcised males who spend more than four days above the arctic circle without shelter?

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