WHO, UNAIDS Urge Circumcision for Heterosexual Males to Reduce HIV Infections

Source: AP

WHO, UNAIDS Urge Circumcision for Heterosexual Males to Reduce HIV Infections

03-28-2007 1:49 PM
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer

GENEVA (Associated Press) -- Heterosexual men should be circumcised because of compelling evidence it reduces their chances of contracting HIV by up to 60 percent, U.N. health agencies said Wednesday.

But men should still use condoms and other protection against the virus, said the World Health Organization and UNAIDS, the U.N. agency that coordinates the global fight against the AIDS virus.

"We must be clear," said Catherine Hankins, of UNAIDS. "Male circumcision does not provide complete protection against HIV."


Jos Perriens, left, Coordinator Prevention in the Health Sector Departments of HIV/AIDS WHO, speaks next to Teguest Guerma, right, Associate Director Department of HIV/AIDS of WHO, about the WHO's and UNAIDS' recommendations from expert consultations on male circumcision for HIV prevention, during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wedensday, March 28, 2007. (AP Photo/Keystone, Salvatore Di Nolfi)

Besides condoms, men and women should use protections such as abstinence, delaying the start of sexual activity and reducing the number of sexual partners, she said.

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:popcorn::beer:

Why stop with the foreskin?
(Just joking, of course.)

not always so teeny tiny......

:hide:

with foreskins persists.

I think I'll stick with the condom.

The research shows that circumcision adds a great deal of protection in addition to that provided by condom use.

not that circumcision adds a great deal of protection in addition to condom use, but rather that circumcision has proven more effective than condom distribution precisely because effective condom use has not followed condom distribution or attempts at education.

This isn't the original study, but it is a news report about the same study that the article in the OP refers to:

Condom use, for instance, appears to have dramatically helped prevent the spread of the disease only in countries such as Ghana and Senegal, where sex workers and their partners are the major victims. In such countries as South Africa and Botswana, where the epidemic has reached the general population, condoms show relatively little protective effect, mainly because they are rarely used consistently by regular sex partners.

"There are no definitive examples yet of generalized epidemics that have been turned back by prevention programs based primarily on condom promotion," UNAIDS, the United Nations leading agency on the disease, said in a report in 2003.

http://www.aegis.org/news/ct/2006/CT060407.html

The different groups in the study in Kenya and Uganda, as I understand it, found no significant behavioral differences between the circumcised and the uncircumcised group. I haven't ever seen a study that shows that in two groups who use condoms consistently and correctly, the uncircumcised group would be at significantly greater risk than the circumcised group.

The gist of it is that it isn't that condoms aren't as or more effective at preventing HIV, but rather that condom education has failed as a solution to the AIDS crisis in Africa.

referring to did not, and these new studies were specifically designed to address that issue.

The new studies show that, even among consistent condom users, there was a significantly reduced instance of HIV transmission with circumcision.

The studies in Kenya and Uganda, which were halted this last December, are the most recent ones I've seen. They are adjusted for differential behavior (which was slight)--controlling for condom use in the sense that condom use (or lack of) across the groups is equivalent is not the same as comparing populations which each demonstrate consistent and effective condom use.

Either way, though, it certainly sounds like making circumcision safe and available to these populations will be a more effective way of combatting the spread of the disease, particularly if circumcision proves beneficial in preventing the transmission and not just acquisition.

Talk about a completely unrealistic and almost useless idea. Condoms work whether the cock is cut or not, cut dicks still need to be covered, ergo, the cutting is inconsequential. Talk about crappy "science".

circumcision added much ADDITIONAL protection even to condom users.

And actually, men in Africa -- where AIDS cases are at epidemic levels -- are "lining up" for circumcisions.

if this really turns out to be true. (Which it looks like it will be. I think there have been other such studies/recommendations recently.)

When you think of the fact that women in developing countries tend to get HIV from their husbands who've been sleeping around ... this has enormous health benefits for both men and women. This isn't just about the all mighty penis. This is about adding one more thing to the arsenal to ensure that fewer people die of AIDS.

Having known people with HIV/AIDS -- two close family members, one of whom died during the epidemic in the 80's, I am all for whatever needs to be done to protect people.

I mean, let's face it ... yes, you can tell people to use condoms. But sometimes condoms burst. Sometimes they don't get used at all. Sometimes the woman doesn't have a choice. This epidemic is destroying parts of Africa and Asia. And is still an issue here in the States. And while it's become more of a "chronic" illness the end still isn't pretty.

many of whom who have limited access to water and basic hygeinic tools. For the developed world, it's a stupid recommendation.

I can really see this idea taking off like gangbusters. Especially since you still have to wear a condom. How about removing all women's breasts in order to stop breast cancer? (I think I heard that idea from Dr. Dean Edell who is against routine male circumcision). Would we get the same drum beating and hurrahs if it were proven that female circumcision had some health benefits?

This could be a valuable preventive measure for ALL STDs. After all, if you're not enjoying it, you won't do it very often, and therefore you will not get so many diseases. I think a study should be begun immediately.

I mean the "barbaric" traditions on the black continent or within the Jewish religion don't come from nothing.

That's a typical "cause and effect" thing.

People learnt that somehow those who performed the sacred ritual survived better.
They didn't think about the "why", they just noticed the fact.

Example:
Pointing metallic things towards the sky provokes the gods wrath!!
Cause and effect.
I'm sure early people believed that.

NGO's and many governments are well aware of this- it's part of their campaigns to eliminate the practice.

So I guess you need to find another strawman.

Can't see sarcasm when it hits you in the face?

have thrown my sarcasm and satire detectors way out of calibration....

Of the sexual mores/practices of the heterosexual men in the countries they're so concerned about. The mobile (male) populations in central Africa blamed for the spread of HIV in those countries screwed their way across the continent. Who'd have thought it would result in an epidemic?

Condoms and, perhaps, a change in behavior/culture are a better answer.

condom use.

The UN is recommending that circumcisions be used IN ADDITION to all known safe-sex practices, NOT as a substitute.

I'll have to add another item to my grocery list today:

:popcorn:

and have been replicated. They've also controlled for the factors you're concerned about. Indeed, they had to be halted because it's no longer ethical to not offer the treatment intervention to the control groups.

Read the material for yourself. A Pub Med search for "HIV" "Circumcision" currently yields 366 results.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed

I think we'll have others joining us soon.

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

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According to the article:

"The recommendations were based on a conference in which experts discussed three trials _ in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa _ that produced strong evidence of the risk reduction resulting from heterosexual male circumcision."

An easier solution would be to confine your sex to the REST of the world and use a condom.

is that we had high rates of circumcision in the baby boomer generation, and beyond. This provided some protection before anyone knew how HIV was transmitted, or that condoms would help.

So really, it didn't help much compared to Western Europe. .8% for North America, .3% for Western Europe.

http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm

Interestingly, studies have shown that condom compliance is higher in intact men. Probably because the loss of sensation is less of an issue when you have more to lose.

circumcision, on the grounds that it will promote sexual activity. They're that batshit-crazy.

And began their war on science.

http://www.globalgagrule.org/

This subject has become so muddled and cloudy, the ultimate answer is that every person should have the right to decide what they want to do to their own body, however this will be used as another excuse for people to force their own opinions on other people who may not want it done. AIDS needs a vaccine, or a culling. We're close on the first and don't have the stomach for the second.

if we have a boy, he will get circumsized, he will not have a choice. If you are an adult, choose your own path.

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The former because I'm sure you can find better causes to weep for and the second because it's none of your business. As it happens I chose not to get my son circumsized because it seemed unnecessary and because I felt that it was traumatic for a newborn, but each to their own. I have yet to meet a circumsized male who either remembered the pain of being cut or felt that his life was ruined because of it.

Because when your son is an adult he won't GET a choice. That's a great set of paths to choose from there, one. I don't blame you for being swept into a cultural morality pit though, plenty of societies have fallen for the same thing. We'll all learn better eventually.

our Republican brethren for being "anti-science". Yet, when science clearly opposes a long-held conviction of those same, the shoe slips on to the other foot.

Science shows that removing the entire penis prevents STDs, but is it moral to perform penisectomies to prevent STDs? Of course not, and the same goes for foreskins, female and male circumcision, etc..

No one on this thread has condemned science in general or the source in specific, and despite asking perfectly correct and useful questions regarding the efficacy of a forced circumcision program when condom use would almost eliminate the disease in question, and the immorality of it, here we find the religionists, once again, gleefully contemplating another pogrom of genital cutting, this time with the support of not only Yaweh, but SCIENCE too! Mammon, Science and God in complete agreement, o holy days have come, let's get on with the CUTTING!

Shame on all who would even consider such a thing, whether supported by science, religion, or God, or not.

But the chance of that happening is only a bit less than the chance of consistent, widespread condom use in many parts of Africa.

Your argument is based on the way you think things should be rather than the way they are.

To me, believing that condom use alone is the moral choice here is actually the immoral choice, because most of the people at greatest risk will not use them properly or consistently or sometimes even at all. In other words, this idea, which has been promoted for two decades while millions have died, has shown that in real life, it's not as effective as a surgical procedure. WHO is hardly a religious organization, and the scientists who conducted the research are not religionists. No one is advocating a compulsory program, either.

The findings are powerful and compelling. If crusading against circumcision because of suspicion it's a secret fundie plot isn't anti-scientific, I don't know what the word means.

Just my opinion, nothing personal. :-)

Because the poor blacks in Africa won't wear condoms and won't stop fucking, let's cut them up to save their lives.

And you don't see the immorality of it all? Really?

It notes the real-world efficacy of circumcision. It does not advocate rounding up them darkies and cuttin' 'em up as protection from their wild fuckin' selves, the better to deliver them unto the pasty white arms of Jeebus H. Christ hisself.

That's the part you added.

I don't see the immorality of using science to discover ways of overcoming AIDS. Really.

The reason being that people compensate for the fact that they have anti lock brakes and drive harder and brake later than they would otherwise..

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find such an effect happen with circumcisions, those who are circumcised engage in more and riskier sexual practices thinking that they are protected from STDs.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3165/is_n12_v31/ai_17924502

The insurance industry says automakers have "oversold" the benefits of ABS, causing drivers to expect stop-on-a-dime, physics-defying miracles. Predictably, these same oversold customers are now blaming ABS for the accidents in which they're involved. Currently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Admin. is entertaining a combined 10,000-plus consumer complaints alleging faulty ABS systems on a variety of GM and Chrysler Corp. vehicles.

Untold suffering prevented.

I hope they mainstream a circumcision program soon.

But if someone wishes to be circumcised, then that's their own business.

Gentlemen, you can do whatever you please, unless the choice was made for you in infancy. And most people do whatever they want anyway - smokers continue to smoke, etc. And condoms ARE effective, if used correctly and consistently, at least a very large percentage of the time.

However but:

AIDS is such a terrible disease to get, and perhaps worse, to TRANSMIT to others, that unless you are a very pious person and always toe the line according to the strictest of standards, this is information that you might want to put in your arsenal of strategies for a long and healthy life.

including the HPV virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer. So, although I understand your argument against it, routine circumcision would cut the rate of STD's for men AND their partners. Also, although penile cancer is fairly rare even in uncircumsized men, it's virtually non-existant in men who are circumcized.

BTW, Diego Rivera had penile cancer, although he died of a heart attack.