I'm just pointing at the link...

[emmagrant01]

o_0

New study indicates male circumcision may help prevent HIV infection.

I'm not touching this one with a ten foot pole. But still.

Comments

[thalia]

That's interesting, considering how quickly AIDS spread in the U.S. gay community in the '80s, and considering how many men born in the U.S. during the '50s and '60s were circumcised. I hope there'll be more research on that.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

The BBC article doesn't say, but the fact that the research is being conducted in Africa implies that most of the subjects are heterosexual males (since it's overwhelmingly a heterosexual disease there). I wonder if there's something about the physiology of vaginal intercourse that is playing a role?

[alexwatson.livejournal.com]

According to New Scientist the study was done with 3273 heterosexual South African men aged 18-24. Half of them were cut and the other half asked to wait two years. After 21 months, 51 uncut men were HIV+ and 15 cut were.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Wow. Any idea when the study was published?

[alexwatson.livejournal.com]

Assuming it's the same one (and the link in your post is broken so I don't know) the results were presented last week at a conference in Rio de Janeiro. It doesn't have full details but says it was led by Bertran Auvert of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, if that's any help.

And here's another article it references (NS, 3 Apr 2004):

"A team led by Robert Bollinger at Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, Maryland, studied 2300 uninfected men in Pune, India, between 1993 and 2000. Just two of the 191 circumcised men in the group caught HIV-1 - an infection rate of 0.7 cases per 100 person-years, compared with 5.5 cases per 100 person-years in the uncircumcised group (The Lancet, vol 363, p 1039).

However, there was no difference in rates of syphilis or gonorrhoea, as would be expected if circumcised men were less likely to have unsafe sex. "There's something specific about HIV," says Bollinger. The foreskin is rich in cells bearing the CD4 receptor that the virus binds to, so this might explain the effect.

Helen Weiss, an expert on sexually transmitted diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says the result is compelling, but thinks it would be premature to recommend circumcision as a preventive measure. The operation is not risk-free, she points out."

[kriken.livejournal.com]

See, the article says that the foreskin cells are thought to be more susceptible to HIV, but I had heard that the foreskin cells were more susceptible to little bits of tearing, and therefore making direct blood-to-blood contact more likely.

Of course, I think I may have remembered that from the Penn & Teller: Bullshit! circumcision episode. Maybe not the best thing to be pulling these facts from...

[pombagira.livejournal.com]

i get the feeling that they have done there maths wrong as it seems all to convenient...

*ponders math stuff*

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

I read about the study on Andrew Sullivan's website ages ago, and as I remember it, some of the results have to do with *where* they did they study and the cultural attitudes toward prevention and HIV, which happen to correspond with circumcision. For example I believe this study was done in Africa or India (I don't feel like rereading it) and the areas of the country where people tend to get circumsized are also the areas that don't have a lot of prostitution, etc. And anyway I think the study detracts from the main focus of HIV prevention, which should be more looking at prostitution regulation, infidelity in marriage, women's rights, and condom use. Being circucized is hardly a solution or prevention method, you know?

[maeglinyedi.livejournal.com]

I've read about that study before, and the way I understand it it's build up from circumstancial evidence from certain locations in Africa. Because if it is true circumcision prevents HIV, then European men, of which around 95% is uncut, should have a higher rate of HIV infections. But the opposite is quite true. US men, of which a majority is circumsized, have a higher rate of HIV infection than Europeans.

Circumcision has been rumored to cure all sorts of diseases since it was recommended in the US some 200 years ago. Anything from epilepsy to depression to urinary tract infection. And of course it would prevent masturbation as well. We now know circumcision doesn't prevent or cure any of those things, so I expect it will be the same with this HIV story.

[lupin-spirit.livejournal.com]

It is amazing how every time circumcision is disproved as a cure for any one thing, a new study pops up claiming that it cures/prevents another?

You'd almost think it was a conspiracy.

With all the "medical evidence" supporting circumcision, I find it interesting that the #1 reason in support of it, when people hear that we opted not to circumcise our son, is some variation of the "but he won't look the same as his father/ what about the other boys in the locker room" argument.

[mereol.livejournal.com]

i couldn't get past the "falwell" in the title of the article. i can reasonably assume it's going to be a load of rubbish that i should print and line my bunny rabbit's cage with. *hates*

[(Anonymous)]

what do you mean `new study` ?...
i thought everybody knows that O_o

[ex-ella-bane358.livejournal.com]

Emma, have I ever told you just how very cool your random links are?

[ex-ella-bane358.livejournal.com]

Oh! And congrats on LMH :)

[capra-maritimus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, heaven forbid that guys learn to use soap and water. :/

[liesbyomission.livejournal.com]

Hm...yeah, am in agreement with what most of the others have said. I mean, mastectomies would prevent breast cancer, but we don't do that to every girl. Yeesh, shouldn't they be focusing on sex education programs there? And giving out condoms? Besides, in many parts of Africa, I imagine doing circumcision wouldn't be so sanitary...

[charlotteschaos.livejournal.com]

I bet it's because after having bits of their penises removed, men don't feel like having sex as much. *snerk*

Ouch!

Seriously, are condoms that complicated?

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

Don't even get me started on circ.

*proud mom of one intact boy*

[capra-maritimus.livejournal.com]

Me, too. :D I figured that if he wanted to get himself circimcised, then he could get it done as an adult.

[assassinofjoy.livejournal.com]

*blink blink* Oh, REALLY now? Huh. I 'spose that makes sense.

*thanks God/Buddah/Allah for making her a girl*

[ravyn-ashling.livejournal.com]

I might be one of the few people who don't find the idea of circumcision squicky. You see, where I'm from, men (boys) are ridiculed for not being circumcised as early as seven. *shrug*

[glasshouses.livejournal.com]

I'm not touching this one with a ten foot pole.

Would that be a cut or uncut pole? ar ar ar.

oh, I forgot...

[glasshouses.livejournal.com]

that I still have the case for your modem. Will pop that into the mail this week. *wonders if I still have your address*