Oh No! It's Another Thread About Circumcision.

[metta]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061213/ap_on_he_me/hiv_circumcision&printer=1

Circumcision may cut risk of HIV
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical WriterWed Dec 13, 6:46 PM ET


Circumcising adult men may reduce by half their risk of getting the AIDS virus through heterosexual intercourse, the U.S. government announced Wednesday, as it shut down two studies in Africa testing the link.
The National Institutes of Health closed the studies in Kenya and Uganda early, when safety monitors took a look at initial results this week and spotted the protection. The studies' uncircumcised men are being offered the chance to undergo the procedure.
The link between male circumcision and HIV prevention was noted as long ago as 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.
Still, many AIDS specialists had been awaiting the NIH's results as a final confirmation.
"Male circumcision can lower both an individual's risk of infection, and hopefully the rate of HIV spread through the community," said AIDS expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.But it's not perfect protection, Fauci stressed. Men who become circumcised must not quit using condoms nor take other risks — and circumcision offers no protection from HIV acquired through anal sex or injection drug use, he noted."It's not a magic bullet, but a potentially important intervention," agreed Dr. Kevin De Cock of the World Health Organization.
Male circumcision is common at birth in the United States. But in sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than half of the world's almost 40 million HIV-infected people, there are large swaths of populations where male circumcision is rare.
The WHO plans an international meeting early next year to discuss the studies' results and how to translate them into policies that promote safe male circumcision — done by trained health workers with sterile equipment — while teaching men that it won't make them invulnerable.
If male circumcision were widely adopted, officials predicted that could help to avert tens of thousands of HIV infections in coming years; Fauci cited one model from South Africa that suggested possibly up to 2 million infections could be averted over a decade.
"This is tremendous news, and it could help millions of men while in turn reducing the risk faced by millions of women," said Paul Zeitz of the Global AIDS Alliance.
Why would male circumcision play a role? Cells in the foreskin of the penis are particularly susceptible to the HIV virus, Fauci explained. Also, the foreskin is more fragile than the tougher skin surrounding it, providing a surface that the virus could penetrate more easily.
Researchers enrolled 2,784 HIV-negative men in Kisumu, Kenya, and 4,996 HIV-negative men in Rakai, Uganda, into the studies. Some were circumcised; others were just monitored.
Over two years, 22 of the circumcised Kenyans became infected with HIV compared with 47 uncircumcised men, a 53 percent reduction. In Uganda, 22 circumcised men became infected vs. 43 of the uncircumcised, a 48 percent reduction.
The researchers are offering all of the studies' uncircumcised men the chance to undergo the procedure, and 80 percent of the uncircumcised Ugandans already have agreed, said lead researcher Ronald Gray of Johns Hopkins University.
Side effects were rare, including some mostly mild infections that were easily treated. The rate of side effects was comparable to those seen in circumcised U.S. infants, said Robert Bailey of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who led the Kenyan trial.

 

[Johnny Yen]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

Amputation will eliminate the risk of broken limbs... anyone in?

 

[onetwothreefour]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

Why don't they make this headline:

IF EVERYONE USED A CONDOM AIDS COULD BE VIRTUALLY ELIMINATED IN ONE GENERATION

Circumcision is a solution that has been seeking a problem for thousands of years. It's sick. This advice will only cause more misinformation to plague Africa.

Condoms--not circumcision--are a barrier to HIV.

 

[hotcbr]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

This report also stressed that the finding only applies to heterosexual sex only...I'm not a doctor, so I don't know why (maybe because the tests only included heterosexuals???)

 

[luminum]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

There are also enough studies that show that circumcision doesn't make any difference. So this idea is still inconclusive.

As well, behavioral choices are shown to make a bigger impact in studies than having a foreskin or not having a foreskin.

 

[Soilwork]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

Yeah... if people would fuck with condoms....

or have a lower but still extrememly high risk without by cutting part of their body off.




Oh, if you cut off your dick altogehter, you eliminate your chances of catching HIV.





if you're a top.

 

[luminum]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

Let's also bear in mind that certainc outnries like Africa make it hard to educate and create easy access to sexual health information and condoms since people live in great expanses, far away from each other or clinics and many do not have faster travel like cars. In fact, that's one of the biggest challenges facing clinical workers and educators in Africa, since many times, people walk for three hours just to go to a clinic and if you tell them to come back for their results tomorrow, they probably won't or can't.

So condoms are effective, but getting them distributed is harder than in well populated and dense locations like the US or major cities.

 

[star-warrior]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

But there are carriers of HIV who don't show any antibodies...

 

[cocktales]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

............OR, if we had NO sex, then the world would be NOT only STD (sexually transmitted disease) free; as well as NO HIV either!

I am Cut; but darn it all, I do NOT for the life of me see how getting cut will/would STOP HIV/AIDS...........do you??

I think it's just some stupid ploy; but for the life of me I canNOT determine just what the "circumsizers" are getting out of this....??

 

[onetwothreefour]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

Let's also bear in mind that certainc outnries like Africa make it hard to educate and create easy access to sexual health information and condoms since people live in great expanses, far away from each other or clinics and many do not have faster travel like cars. In fact, that's one of the biggest challenges facing clinical workers and educators in Africa, since many times, people walk for three hours just to go to a clinic and if you tell them to come back for their results tomorrow, they probably won't or can't.

So condoms are effective, but getting them distributed is harder than in well populated and dense locations like the US or major cities.

I am friends with a medical school student who has visited South Africa to learn about AIDS treatment in Africa. She said that free condoms are available everywhere, but that the prevailing attitude in the tribes (not the cities), is that if a woman asks a man to wear a condom it's a sign of disrespect and not trusting the man. She also told me that grown men with AIDS will rape and in the process sometimes kill female infants because they believe it cures AIDS.

I have no idea how to approach AIDS given that context. Obviously in the US we still have an AIDS problem in spite of the education we all get regarding condoms.

My point is that from what I have heard where condoms are available for free in Africa they aren't being used. And obviously in the United States, people aren't using condoms when they should or we wouldn't still have all these new infections, and we obviously have enough condoms.

I don't know the solution. But I don't think the solution is circumcision.

The only thing I can muster is that we have to push condoms more and more and more and more.

Circumcision is barbaric and it's also headlining Drudge and the NYT which is a distraction from what we KNOW works! ARGGGGG...CONDOMS WORK. Circumcision may do a little something but it's a crazy barbaric procedure that should be illegal!

 

[mega]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

Circumcision is a solution that has been seeking a problem for thousands of years. It's sick.

Well said!!

 

[Roland00]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

Stop mutilating beautiful men's cocks.

Teach about condoms, of course this may be too much to ask for such a backwards part of the world where people believe having sex with a virgin will cure all your diseases.

 

[_AJ_]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

I am Cut; but darn it all, I do NOT for the life of me see how getting cut will/would STOP HIV/AIDS...........do you??

it wont it just reduces the odd of getting it a little bit i assume the differance is that when you uncut "bodily fluids" would get under your foreskink and stay there longer so it would be more likley to transmit the virus but i am sure it only a small amount and isnt really protection just one of those scientific facts

 

[HiddenMalePassion-]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

Why Did You Start This Thread.

It's Just An Endless Cycle These Threads, Puking Out The Same Exact Posts Over And Over And Over And Over And Over And Over.

 

[_AJ_]

Re: Circumcision may cut risk of HIV

uuummm no one is suggesting that people get circucised to prevent aids just that it has that effect

 

[Michael Luc]

Circumcision Protects Men from AIDS

Circumcision protects men from AIDS, puts women at risk



LONDON, MAR 7: Circumcision may reduce men’s chances of contracting HIV by up to 60%—but the procedure could put women at increased risk of infection, according to preliminary data.
Early results announced on Tuesday at a UN consultation in Switzerland on the potential impact of male circumcision on AIDS in Africa showed that if HIV-positive circumcised men did not abstain from sex for about one month after surgery, their female partners might actually have a higher chance of catching HIV.
Previous studies have demonstrated the dramatic impact circumcision has in cutting men’s HIV infection rates, but a big question has been whether there would be a similar effect on women.
The first evidence - though very preliminary—suggests there is a period immediately following the surgery which may allow the virus to more easily infect women.
“This is a very big caveat,” said Jennifer Kates, an AIDS expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Kates was not connected to the study. “But there could still ultimately be a protective effect for women, this just underscores the importance of education,” she said. Researchers at the Rakai Health Sciences Programme and Makerere University in Uganda and the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US tracked 997 HIV positive men and their female partners in Uganda.

 

[Crashdown]

Re: Circumcision Protects Men from AIDS

Indeed.



(Yeah, just go and blame HIV on the foreskin)

 

[Pyramus11]

Re: Circumcision Protects Men from AIDS

You have to admit that the data is interesting.

 

[kevin23]

Re: Circumcision Protects Men from AIDS

60 percent is a huge benefit , more than medical science can otherwise produce. I say snip'um and lock them up for 30 days till the danger to women is over.

And yeah Mike, they gona slaughter you...........

Informative post. Thanks

 

[Yves]

Re: Circumcision Protects Men from AIDS

These are early results. The study will be COMPLETED in two years. The final analysis and detailed methodology have not been published. More data (as usual) is needed.

This recent article has some interesting statements from WHO Director General and researchers from Johns Hopkins. Politics is another element to consider in this discussion. The final evidence needs to be statistically robust in order to convince public health officials, donors and policy makers.

Study raises questions about circumcision in AIDS
Wed Mar 7, 2007 1:45PM EST

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Circumcision helps protect men from getting the AIDS virus but may make an already-infected man more likely to infect a woman if he does not let his penis heal completely, researchers said on Tuesday.

Researchers working in Uganda released early findings from a study of 997 HIV-infected men. It indicated that women who had sex with a man who did not wait to heal fully after circumcision seemed to have a higher risk of infection than through sex with an uncircumcised infected man.

Intercourse might cause tiny tears in the surgical wound, which in turn could put HIV-infected blood into the woman's vagina, the researchers speculated.

They found no apparent increased risk for female sex partners of infected men who waited until a doctor certified that the wound had completely healed.

"We thoroughly agree that this should not be used to discredit the incredible value of male circumcision for the prevention of HIV acquisition in men," Dr. Maria Wawer of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who leads the study, told reporters.

Women make up the majority of HIV-infected people in Africa, where HIV largely is spread through heterosexual sex.

The wounds from circumcision take about four weeks to heal. The findings emphasized the importance for men to abstain from sex until fully healed, said Dr. Ron Gray of Johns Hopkins.

The study will be completed in two years. The preliminary findings were issued in Switzerland as U.N. health officials consider circumcision policy recommendations.

Public health leaders think circumcision may be a powerful way to reduce HIV infection in Africa, the continent hardest hit by AIDS. Three previous African studies showed circumcised men are 50 to 60 percent less likely to become infected with the human immunodeficiency virus.

Experts say the lower risk may be because cells on the inside of the foreskin, the part of the penis cut off in circumcision, are particularly susceptible to HIV infection. HIV also may survive better in the warm, damp environment beneath foreskin.

'PARADOXICAL SITUATION'

"The data shows a paradoxical situation," Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of the World Health Organization's Department of HIV/AIDS, said in a conference call with reporters.

De Cock said the new findings were preliminary, incomplete and statistically insignificant because of how few people were involved. He said when the study is completed, it might even show circumcision can protect a man's female sex partner.

The team at Johns Hopkins, the Rakai Health Sciences Program and Makerere University in Uganda said they viewed circumcision as important in AIDS prevention efforts.

The researchers tracked infection rates of 113 previously uninfected female partners of infected men. Of 12 women who had sex with infected men before the circumcision wound was fully healed, three became infected within six months

Of 55 female partners of infected circumcised men who waited to resume sex until the wound healed, six became infected. That was similar to the infection rate of female partners of uncircumcised infected men -- four of 46.

Of the 39.5 million people worldwide infected with HIV, 24.7 million are in sub-Saharan Africa. About 25 million people have died from AIDS since it was first identified a quarter century ago.

Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN0644125520070307?pageNumber=1