Circumcision could reduce HIV rates, US studies show

[hazlinh]

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Circumcision Reduces HIV Rates, U.S. Studies Confirm
12.13.06, 12:00 AM ET

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 13 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. researchers in Africa said Wednesday that they found that circumcision is such a good defense against HIV infection that they shut down two studies early, and instead offered all participants a chance to be circumcised.
One study in the east African country of Kenya showed that circumcision cut adult males' HIV infection risk from heterosexual intercourse by 53 percent, while another study in Uganda lowered the risk by 48 percent, according to results released Wednesday.

The findings, financed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), pointed out that the latest conclusions confirmed previous investigations into the value of circumcision as a protection against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. This is especially important in Africa, where AIDS is an epidemic in many countries, infecting an estimated 25 million people on the continent.

Despite the good news, there is still plenty of reason for caution, AIDS experts said.

"Male circumcision is a difficult intervention to implement, and the preventive effect is relative, not absolute," said Thomas Coates, an AIDS specialist and a professor of medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles. "The magnitude of effect is 50 to 60 percent, which still leaves ample room for people to get infected with HIV."

There are other caveats as well: The study did not look at male-to-female transmission, and it was also not clear whether circumcision makes it less likely that gay men could transmit HIV to each other.

In the United States, homosexual transmission of HIV is more common than heterosexual transmission, the experts said. And most men in the United States are circumcised, making the procedure less effective as a possible prevention tool.

Still, the findings could have plenty of meaning in Africa, where HIV is commonly spread between men and women.

Studies have suggested the value of circumcision in the past, but researchers wanted to confirm the previous findings.

According to the NIH, most adult Africans are circumcised, but the rate drops below 20 percent in some areas of southern Africa where HIV and AIDS are common.

In one of the two studies, researchers enrolled 2,784 HIV-negative, uncircumcised men in Kenya beginning in 2002. The other study, in Uganda, started in 2003 and enrolled 4,996 HIV-negative, uncircumcised men.

Some of the men were assigned to immediately undergo circumcision, while others had to wait two years.

Then researchers studied whether the circumcision had any effect on their rates of getting HIV.

The results were so encouraging that an oversight board halted the studies this week, and ordered that all participants be given circumcisions instead of having to wait.

In Kenya, researchers found that only 22 of the 1,393 circumcised men in the study were infected with HIV, compared to 47 of the 1,391 men who had yet to be circumcised.

The numbers for Uganda weren't immediately available.

"Circumcision is now a proven, effective prevention strategy to reduce HIV infections in men," Robert Bailey, a study investigator and professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said in a statement.

It's not entirely clear how circumcision reduces HIV infection. But researchers have suggested that the foreskin may provide a moist, safe environment for the AIDS virus and provide more immune cells for HIV to infect.

Coates called the study results the "second greatest finding in HIV prevention," right behind research that confirmed drugs could stop mother-to-baby transmission of the AIDS virus.

Still, he added, "combination prevention" remains crucial -- combining circumcision with using condoms, reducing sexual partners, and delaying the first time people have intercourse.

The Associated Press reported that the link between male circumcision and HIV prevention was first noted in the late 1980s. The first major clinical trial, of 3,000 men in South Africa, found last year that circumcision cut the HIV risk by 60 percent.

More information

The Nemours Foundation's Web site discusses the pros and cons of circumcision

OF course for medical reasons is fine. Completely different, although I would personally research it carefully.

Hercules its not like I have ever asked him to get cut. I've never even mentioned that I prefered it the other way.

...It's worth also pointing out that the HIV research being quoted was stopped early, is contradicted by other studies and is being driven by an circumcision industry estimated (by the American Association of Paediatricss) to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This includes sales of aparatus like plasti-bells, circumstraints, circboards etc as well as the sale of the foreskin for medical research As the market for circumcision reduces in the US (now only 60% of parents opt for it)this industry badly needs new markets.
And guess what- this new market they're targetting is not just Africa, its also us

My comments were about why someone would do it to their baby for reasons not medical not about a grown man.

Paula there is stuff you can do to your husband's foreskin that will drive him wild. Enjoy his body - mother nature gave him his foreskin with its 20,000+ nerve endings for his and your pleasure. Many women (i am one) find that the rubbing of the foreskin on the gspot makes very intense simultaneous orgasms much more easy to achieve.

Bolleaux in my humble.

Hang on a minute, I seem to have missed something here. The HIV virus doesn't only exist in the folds of skin under a foreskin. You could have a bloody sterilised, circumcised penis but if you are HIV positive and have unprotected sex, you are still putting your partner at a very high risk.

are you saying you prefer your man cut Spidermama?

No viking. Mine was a glib comment aimed at the title and the small bit of OP I managed to read before feeling tension rise and deciding against getting involved in another discussion about how it's absolutely fine to take it upon oneself to mutilate the genitalia of a tiny helpless creature who happens to be your own offspring just because some other people told you to.

Go girl! I totally agree..It's time that genital integrity stopped being a female right and became a human right.

I have always though circumcision must be more hygenic but I hate the though of it - especially cause its done to wee babies

Liesel - if it's logical to amputate flaps of skin which can harbour smegma why don't we do it to our daughter's labia and her foreskin?
The foreskin is a highly specialist peice of skin which has been present in all mammals for an estimated £60 million years. One of its many functions is to protect the delicate glans from rubbing, and in babies, from contact with poo. It contains the kind of anti-infection agents which are also found in mothers' milk, and for pleasure it contains more than 20,000 nerve endings.
To cut it off without the permission of it's owner ought to be unthinkable.

This research is aimed at tackling the huge HIV/AIDS problem in Africa. The worry is that people will take it literally and assume that if they are circumcised, they're no longer able to contract HIV, which is clearly wrong.

Viking - I am liking YOUR comments and I'm going to show this to DW

I mean your comment of 22.16

I don't think there is a comparison between male and female circumcision?

One is for religious reasons and the other is 'cultural.'

Exactly, Dr, something that was pointed out in another thread a few days ago.

Not to mention, the study overlooks that fact that HIV transmission via childbirth is common in Africa and it's often difficult for HIV+ pregnant women to get hold of the cocktail of drugs that can reduce the chances of transmission of the virus to their children.

Advocating routine circumcision of newborns in an area where it's often difficult for people to be treated in sanitary conditions at all is dangerous at best.

Religion IS cultural.

Viking girl I didnt disagree

Nope. Sorry, raven. It's not.

It is, you know.

Not looking for a row - I'm not having a great day as it is.

have a look here, though. religion

Probably too basic for this topic.

Don't believe everything you read on the web.

For example. Bengali women do not feed their babies colostrum as it is considered 'unclean.' This is a cultural practice not religious.

Jews circumcise infant males at 8 days as this is required by their religion. Female circumcision is carried out in some Muslim countries, however, the muslim element is a red herring as there is no calling for this in The Koran.

I would argue that religion is a product of culture. You can have culture without religion, but not vice versa.

& I definitely don't believe everything I read on the web - but the wikipedia article was nice & simple to cite.

I wouldn't normally pike out at this point, but I'm best going to bed - it's been a grim old week.

Catch you another time! night

Bubble - one of the most circumcisions of females - as recommended by Sheikh Al Qaradawi involves cutting the female foreskin (clitoral hood). The law on female circumcision bans even the ritual that involves pricking a girls clitoris with a pin. Surely you can see that it is a huge legal anomaly to protect girls from ANY assault on their genitals but to let defenceless male children be prey to anyone with a knife and an idea of God.

Neither female nor male circumcision are mentioned at all in the Quran.

The practice also predated Abraham and is not even mentioned in the original version of the Torah.