Circumcision?
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August 16, 2010
State may see push for circumcision after evidence shows health benefits
There may be a new push for circumcision in Washington, thanks to a review of national guidelines for the procedure.
..."The evidence is quite convincing that circumcision has significant health benefits in reducing heterosexual transmission of HIV, HPV and herpes," said Matthew Golden, director of the Public Health — Seattle & King County HIV/STD Program. "The older idea that there isn't enough scientific evidence to support circumcision is no longer true."
During the past five years, three independent randomized clinical trials on adult heterosexual men in sub-Saharan Africa have all shown the same result: Those who were circumcised were 60 percent less likely to acquire HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus.
These results prompted the World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS to incorporate circumcision into their global HIV-prevention strategy...
...The reasons why circumcision, in which all or part of the penile foreskin is removed, may help reduce STDs, sexually transmitted diseases, remains unclear. Some doctors and scientists suggest that the moist region below the foreskin is a more favorable environment for the virus or that the foreskin may increase a man's susceptibility to abrasion and infection during intercourse.
...Both the AAP and CDC have been scrutinizing the latest scientific data and hope to come out with new recommendations later this year.
...the evidence that the procedure helps reduce the risk is overwhelming, [Matthew] Golden [director of the Public Health — Seattle & King County HIV/STD Program
] said.
"All three studies in different regions of Africa showed the same medical benefit for circumcision," he said. "If you had a vaccine that was 60 percent effective for preventing HIV, wouldn't you deploy it?"
You can start at eight days.
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1 comment:
In three trials in different parts of Africa, they circumcised a total 5,400 paid volunteers (not random samples of the populations) and left a similar number for later.
After less than two years, 64 of the circumcised men had HIV, and 137 of the control group. That is the WHOLE basis of this campaign.
327 circumcised men dropped out of the trials, their HIV status unknown, easily enough to hide sufficient HIV+ men to completely nullify any benefits.
The trials were not (of course) double-blinded or placebo-controlled, so they could easily be subjected to experimenter and experimentee bias.
In a subset of one of the trials they found that 18% of the partners of circumcised HIV+ men contracted the virus compared to "only" 12% of the partners of the HIV+ control group, but they halted that trial before it could reach statistical significance.
Studies in the US have found that circumcision is of no value to men who have sex with men, the great majority of those at risk there.
Some people just like circumcising. Maimonides said it should only be done "in consequence of a genuine belief" (Guide to the Perplexed, U of Chicago edition, p609). Mixing in bogus "health benefits" just muddies the waters.
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