Posted on 07/10/2006 8:36:10 PM PDT by July 4th
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Circumcising men routinely across Africa could prevent millions of deaths from AIDS, World Health Organization researchers and colleagues reported on Monday.
They analyzed data from trials that showed men who had been circumcised had a significantly lower risk of infection with the AIDS virus, and calculated that if all men were circumcised over the next 10 years, some two million new infections and around 300,000 deaths could be avoided.
Researchers believe circumcision helps cut infection risk because the foreskin is covered in cells the virus seems able to easily infect. The virus may also survive better in a warm, wet environment like that found beneath a foreskin.
So if men were circumcised, fewer would become infected and thus could not infect their female partners.
The human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, which causes AIDS, now infects close to 40 million people and has killed another 25 million. It mostly affects sub-Saharan Africa and the main mode of transmission is sex between a man and a woman.
Several studies have suggested that men who are circumcised have a lower rate of HIV infection. This has been especially noticeable in some parts of Africa, where some groups are routinely circumcised while neighboring groups are not.
Last year, Dr. Bertran Auvert of the French National Research Agency INSERM and colleagues at WHO found that circumcised men in South Africa were 65 percent less likely to become infected with the deadly and incurable virus.
His team then did an analysis to see what would happen if all African men were circumcised.
"In West Africa, male circumcision is common and the prevalence of HIV is low, while in southern Africa the reverse is true," they wrote in the current report, published in the Public Library of Science Medicine.
"This analysis shows that male circumcision could avert nearly six million new infections and save three million lives in sub-Saharan Africa over the next twenty years," they wrote.
Overall, they project that universal male circumcision would reduce the rate of infections by about 37 percent.
"Male circumcision alone cannot bring the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa under control. Even circumcised men can become infected, though their risk of doing so is much lower," the journal cautioned in a commentary.
In some African tribes, it is a rite of passage for boys to be circumcised when they reach puberty. They do these procedures with NO anesthetics or drugs. It's barbaric.
Hmmmm, could take care of AIDS and birth control all at the same time with the proper cut........
I was thinking (chemical?) castration.
Well, if nothing else, it'll get them to stop for a while.
I completely agree: circumcision at any age is barbaric.
(Yes, I know you probably didn't mean that although I do.)
they should just make contracting aids illegal. Should be as effective.
http://www.infocirc.org/winn.htm
Foreskin far from useless, HSC pathologist says
Newborn boys in North America may have a Winnipeg doctor to thank for growing up to be natural men.
That’s the nickname for men who survive their infancy with foreskins intact – avoiding the encounter with a scalpel that their fathers suffered.
Dr. John Taylor, a pathologist at Health Sciences Centre, has identified vital functions for the foreskin, which is usually dismissed as a useless flap of flesh.
“There’s nothing like it anywhere else on the body,” Taylor said recently, after the medical world was introduced to his work.
It’s the first new finding about the human anatomy – in this case the foreskin – since two Italian anatomists theorized back in 1450 that the foreskin both protects the penis from damage and heightens sexual pleasure.
It does, on both counts.
Taylor’s research over eight years confirmed that often-dismissed medieval theory by identifying thousands of nerve endings in the foreskin which are stimulated during sex.
Nerve endings
“You can almost see these nerve endings with the naked eye, lined up along the top ridge. They’re the size of a pin.” Taylor said.
His research on the foreskin – the prepuce, specialized mucosa of the penis and its loss to circumcision – in the British Journal of Urology caused a flurry in the United States where the circumcision rate approaches 90 per cent in some states.
One doctor in ultra-conservative Utah, for instance, confided to a researcher whose organization opposes routine circumcision that he recommends it.
It turns out that the practice of retracting the foreskin to clean the penis makes some mothers feel they are masturbating their babies.
It’s easier for Utah women to have their boys circumcised instead, said the researcher, Steve Scott, who is the national education co-ordinator for NOCIRC – the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centres.
“American men who have been circumcised don’t know what they are missing,” said Scott.
[MORE] http://www.infocirc.org/winn.htm
Deciding NOT to have sex or share drug needles with someone who has HIV/AIDS or will prevent a lot MORE infections.
From CIRCUMCISION: Did you know?
"The debate about neonatal circumcision is over. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), neonatal circumcision is the result of ignorance, bad medical practice and American social and cultural pressure. Regarding the three most commonly cited justifications for neonatal circumcision (penile cancer, venereal disease and penile hygiene), the AAP now states that the benefits are negligible, which means that the majority of American men are walking around without foreskins for no good reason."
whoops, I guess the ink wasn't even dry on their statement. Further, this new info adds a whole new spin on: Circumcision battle lands parents of eight-year-old in US court. I'm sure the mother will be thankful for the tip (intended).
It's not the balls they want.
I know there are many who think like you, but this article reinforces that health aspect of it.
We learned all about that from "Roots." "Perhaps you have noticed, the phalumbwebwe of a man is much different than that of a boy."
If men did not have promiscuous sex especially with other men, they would not get AIDS no matter what was cut off. Unless the whole dang thing were cut off.
Believe it or not, I never saw ROOTS. I saw a National Geographic real documentary that showed the faces of the boys while it was being done. It was horrible.
"Well, if nothing else, it'll get them to stop for a while."
LMFAO!!
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