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S. African AIDS Expert Urges Circumcision
By CLARE NULLIS
LINK
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - A South African AIDS expert Saturday advocated male circumcision as the best available "vaccine" against the virus in his country, where an estimated 6 million people are infected and more than 600 people die every day.
Francois Venter told a congress of health activists in the Treatment Action Campaign that a recent survey in the Soweto township indicated that circumcised men were 65 percent less likely to contract AIDS than those who had not been circumcised.
"We dream of a vaccine which has this efficacy," said Venter, clinical director of the Reproductive Health and HIV Research at the University of Witwatersrand. "The results are phenomenal."
The association between circumcision and a reduced risk of HIV was noted as early as 1987, when Dr. William Cameron of the University of Manitoba in Canada reported findings from a study in Kenya. Some researchers in early studies have said they believe cells in the foreskin may be particularly susceptible to infection.
Venter urged the Treatment Action Campaign, an influential movement of 13,000 activists, to consider promoting circumcision as a vital prevention tool, given that existing methods were failing to slow the spread of the epidemic.
South Africa has the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world. Nearly 30 percent of pregnant women are infected, according to a health department survey published in July, and in the hardest hit province of KwaZuluNatal this rises to 41 percent. The disease is now one of the main causes of death among young adults and infants.
Some traditional communities in South Africa practice circumcision, but there are calls for tighter medical controls to limit health risks from blunt and contaminated instruments.
"We don't want our men to go to the chop shop but have medical circumcision," said Zackie Achmat, an AIDS activist who said the congress - which meets every two years - would debate whether to encourage mass circumcision.
Achmat, who is HIV positive, said much more needed to be done on prevention. He said that even though government distribution of condoms increased from one million in 1994 to 40 million in 2004, this still only amounted to 35 condoms per sexually active male per year.
He said that 73 percent of young people without the virus believed that they were not at risk of catching, and 62 percent of young people with the virus also believed there was no risk.
Achmat criticized the government's record on treatment. Of the 500,000 people who need AIDS therapy, only 76,000 are currently receiving it through the public health sector. The World Health Organization has singled out slow progress in South Africa as one of the main reasons it will likely miss its target of putting 3 million people worldwide on therapy by the end of this year.
"We are dying. We are still dying," he said.
Achmat has for years attacked the government for doing too little too late against the AIDS epidemic. In a sign of the mutual antagonism, health ministry officials refused invitations to attend the congress.
"President Thabo Mbeki tragically still shows symptoms of AIDS denialism," said Achmat. Mbeki reputedly doubts the link between HIV and AIDS. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has repeatedly voiced doubts about the safety and efficacy of antiretrovirals, instead stressing the benefits of a diet heavy in garlic, lemon and olive oil.
The Soweto study, was conducted by French researchers between 2002 and 2005 with more than 3,000 healthy, sexually active males between 18 and 24. About half the volunteers were circumcised by medical professionals, and the rest remained uncircumcised.
All the men received counseling on AIDS prevention. But after 21 months, 51 members of the uncircumcised group had contracted HIV, the AIDS virus, while only 18 members of the circumcised group had gotten the disease.
The World Health Organization and UNAIDS welcomed the results of the study, released at a conference in Brazil in July, but says that more trials should be conducted before circumcision can be recommended as a preventive method.
A study conducted by the U.S. National Health Institute involving 5,000 individuals is now under way in Uganda.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press
(\\__/) And if you don't believe The sun will rise
(='.'=) Stand alone and greet The coming night
(")_(") In the last remaining light. (C. Cornell)
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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A technical answer to this study is simple.
Both the inner foreskin and the glans are not skin per se, but are a mucous membrane.
Mucous membrances tend to be permeable to small items such as the infective agents for HIV.
Circumcision removes the inner foreskin (often restricting the ability of the openis to erect fully and causing painful erections) and causes the glans to keratinise, or thicken. There is thus less probability of the infective agents being able to pass through the glans.
So, technically, circumcision will remove one of the potential routes for HIV infection.
This misses the major point about sexually transmitted infections: Safe sex is the only thing that prevents transmission.
For many years people have been advocation the routine mutilation of infant male penises for many and varied reasons. These include:- Cure for insanity
- Ucre for lethargy
- Punishment for Masturbation
- "He shoudl look like his father"
- It is cleaner
- It will cure AIDS
None of these reasons actually hold water when it comes to mutilating a child.
If an adult decides to get circumcised, so be it. Adults may decide to do what they wish to their own bodies. But making this cedision for a child "in case he gets HIV" is a farcical decision based upon blackmailing parents into "good parenting".
I was recently sent an article from Israel, a nation where a surprisngly large number of Jewish parents are no longer circumcising, that looked among othe rthings at the population from Russia who had been circumcised as adults. For some reason this is controversial! The study had 138 men who were circumcised as adults who declared that sex was less enjoyable after circumcision that before it.
138 men is a statistically significant sample size, but the journalist said "It is mosty unlikely that sex could feel better than it does anyway, and no-one would circumcise their son if it was going to decrease his sexual pleasure". The reaction is not unusual.
The technical facts are more complex than for HIV transmission. Bear with me.
A keratinised glans has heavier tissue between the friction of sex and the nerve endings. It can onoy be less sensitive than one that has retaijed its mucous membrane status.
Additionally the inner foreskin and the tip of the foreskin contains bands of senory cells which are sensitive to movement, and enhance sexual pleasure. Removing those menas they no longer exist.
A side effect of "a neat circumcision" is the removal of the frenulum, the little "bowstring" of tissue between the underside of the shaft and the arrowhead of the glans. For the majority of men this i sthe most sensitive part of the penis, wth orgasm being reached by very small manipulation of that part alone. Removal prevents this.
So, while the study may be technically correct it also seems to recommend that carte blanche circumcision of the male population of the world to remove an infection transmission route that can be removed by use of good condoms. And it recommends the alteration of the sexual response for all men as a matter of course.
This seems to me to be an odd way to prevent the spread of HIV, the more so since it will not do so. It may delay it a little. For some reason a band of researchers spends money that would be better spent on finding a cure on justifying a ritual that has no rational benefit.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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I have been told about the study by several people and I have a simple response, all my friends in college, 20 years ago, were circumcised and today they are all dead of aids! Apparently it doesn’t work as protection.
Maybe they should try condoms.
Sexually mutilating boys and girls is not the answer to anything.
It didn't stop masturbation and it won't stop aids!
The medical industry is just trying to justify the continued practice now that it has been disprove as more hygienic.
My penis was circumcised at birth and I never knew that it didn't have the ability to grow to its full size until I started to restore the foreskin. With just a 1/2 inch of skin added it has grown fatter and longer. The curve that I thought was natural is now straightened out. Restoration attempts to undo what was done as it painlessly grows new foreskin.
My restoration site which shows my progress is at:
http://www.bafanridge.com/restoration.htm
I was butchered for nothing more than money is some doctor’s pocket as are millions of other males. Cutting off our most sensitive skin is mutilation and nothing more. In countries where they do this to girls they have the same attitude as do the people here. They see nothing wrong with what has always been done to the kids.
Did You Know?... (Fact list about circumcision from the book)
That medical circumcision started out in the 1800s as a way to discourage masturbation?
That circumcision decreases sexual sensitivity and dries up a man's natural lubrication?
That infant circumcision is painful, done without anesthesia, and the most common surgery in the United States?
That the United States is the only country to circumcise most of its baby boys for "medical" reasons?
That the U.S. circumcision rate has dropped from 90% to 58%, and to less than 50% in California?
That in some cultures, girls are circumcised, too?
That infant circumcision is a human rights violation under international law?
That Jewish circumcision originally removed only the tip of the foreskin, and that anti-Semitism made it more severe?
That there is a support group for Jews who don't circumcise?
That the main reason parents circumcise is not health or religion, but to make the boy look like Dad or other boys?
That impotence, loss of penis, and death can--and do--result from circumcision?
That infant circumcision brings U.S. doctors $100,000,000 to $200,000,000 a year?
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Protection from circumcision (reality or not) would hold little sway if the friends were taking regular injections of bodily fluids.
Common sense dictates that pitching is safer than catching in ball sports as well as balling sports.
As for snipping babies weenies..... Well that is just sick....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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If 0 circumcised guys got HIV it might be something to look into, but this is just bad science. They also don't explain how monogamous they were, or how many times each group had sex with an HIV+ partner. A virus doesn't care if you are circumcised or not. I know I wouldn't want to risk sleeping with someone if they had HIV and I didn't, regardless if I was cut or not.
I wonder what would happen if they said it was female circumcision that reduced the numbers.
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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This study may be valid for S. Africa, where the rate of heterosexual AIDS is incredibly high and it is very likely that any given partner will be infected.
However, in the USA and Europe, heterosexual AIDS is relatively rare, particularly among middle class Caucasian males. AIDS is mostly a disease of gays, IV drug users, and inner city minorities. Only in the last instance is the female to male transmission addressed by this study relevant.
Readers should note that AIDS is about twice as common in the USA (which has routine circumcision) than in Europe (which does NOT circumcise). So much for any miraculous protective effect, at least in developed countries.
Advocating routine circ in the USA or Europe to prevent AIDS is a bit like recommending routine vaccination against exotic tropical diseases. It simply doesn't make sense. Note that the authors in this study do not appear to advise circ for developed countries where AIDS is not rampant, so people should be very wary of misinterpreting this work as a recommendation for universal circumcision.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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The issue with the study is not the technical conclusion "mucous membranes pass HIV easier that keratinised ones" but the leap to the advice "Cut off the foreskin."
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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