South Africa health professional are debating pros and cons of starting a mass circumsion program as part of the fight against the increasing incidents of HIV infections. What is your view on this issue? No, not a chance.
The WHO is really incompetent on this one.
A lot of the information perpetuated about it preventing diseases is false.
The study that you are less succeptible to aids if you are circumcised is flawed. Here is a discussion of the report and its methodology by "Doctors Opposing Circumcision": http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.o... . A condom is still required to prevent transmission of STI's.
Have a read through their statement. It is very informative. It shows the methodological flaws and poor conclusion in the report that the WHO has jumped upon. Everything is aptly sourced.
"The medical literature is full of protective claims for various diseases, such as sexually transmitted disease , male and female cancers, and urinary tract infection. All such claims have been disproved."[ http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.o... ]
"The United States has one of the highest rates of male circumcision and also one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the developed world, suggesting that circumcision is having exactly the opposite effect. Conversely, Finland and Japan have some of the lowest rates of circumcision and also some of the lowest rates of HIV/AIDS."
Condoms have been proven to be an effective means of combatting AIDS.
A parent does not have a right to mutilate their childs genitals by the following UN conventions: the U.N. Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the U.N. International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. These violations were brought to the attention of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 2001 both orally and in writing by NOCIRC. However, the U.N. has yet to take action. [ http://www.mgmbill.org/un.htm ]
The vast majority of the world(83%) is not circumcised.
There is no good reason to perform male genital mutilation.
No medical institution in the developed world actually reccommends the practice.
Here is a video of the operation. Watch it if you want to learn more. Please do watch it.
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=35...
It is not just a little snip here and there. Watch the above video of a circumcision in progress.
The foreskin is the most sensitive part of the penis and therefore very significant during sexual intercourse. Circumcision removes as much as 75% of sensation [ http://www.nocirc.org/touch-test/bju_668... ].
The foreskin reduces the force required by the penis to enter the vagina. It also increases the sexual enjoyment of the female partner. Here is a study to back this up: http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/ohar...
The foreskin keeps the glans soft and moist and protects it from trauma and injury. Without this protection, the glans becomes dry, calloused, and desensitized from exposure and chafing.
Specialized nerve endings in the foreskin enhance sexual pleasure.
The foreskin may have functions not yet recognized or understood.
Performing circumcision on a child can and does result in the deaths of children due to blood loss and/or failure of the immune system.
It can and does result in very significant scaring.
It can and does result in sexual problems later in life.
Circumcised males have a much higher rate of sexual dysfunction.
See these sites specifically:
http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.o...
http://www.mgmbill.org/
http://www.nocirc.org/
http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/
http://www.noharmm.org/
Here is a tracking of circumcision news articles which is kept very up to date:
http://www.cirp.org/news/
Have a look at this website:
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9712/23/circum...
Have a look at these videos:
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=13...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=... This is such nonsense:check how you get HIV.
Sky I don't believe it will lower the rate of HIV... to lower the rate of HIV they should be talking about the importance of using condoms and safe sex. Circumcised or not you can pass HIV on and you can have HIV if you are circumcised or not. No, no, and no.
If public health authorities start touting circumcision as a means of reducing the incidence of HIV, there will be idiots who rely on that to protect them, and will be lax about testing, common sense and condom use. Therefore, the cycle will continue. Condoms (and proper use of them) need to be strongly encouraged for the people in Africa. It's a shame that many of these people cannot even afford food, much less, a "luxury", like condoms. I wonder if there's a fundraiser out there to donate condoms...
I don't know if there's any cultural barriers to condom use - but I still think safe sex should be highly advocated. I don't understand what effect the presence or absence of a foreskin would possibly have on the transmission of HIV. Use of condoms and judicious choice of partners seems the more practical approach. Yes. Overall it will lessen the transmission of the disease. But it will also give people a false sense of security and probably cause MORE of a spread of HIV. (It's okay baby, you won't get sick, I'm circumcised!) the best advice one can give to africa is to stop being promiscuous that is the only way of reducing the spread of aids why has it taken so long for African men to see that taking advantage of women is against the interests of all of africa regardless what you do to the penis once it is inserted in a woman then she can get aids mass education on values and some honest talk would go much further than circumsicing everyone.if you are from Africa then do something real for the place and start passing the message on if you have a shag you could be commiting someone and or yourself to an early and undignified death the ytotal emasculation of women of africa is what is required. HIV enters the penis through the lining of the urethra, and through the mucous membrane of the foreskin. If you are looking at populations where men have unprotected sex with people who are HIV+, then yes, circumcision reduces the transmission rate by 50%.
First, you shouldn't have unprotected sex with casual partners - when you use condoms, the transmission rate is the same for circumcised and uncircumcised men.
Second - who wants to have a 50% chance of getting AIDS? Those are pretty bad odds. Relying on circumcision to stop AIDS is a really stupid idea.
Condoms stop AIDS. I agree with the consensus that condoms and safe sex prevent AIDS/HIV. To be honest, I simply do not understand why some people in Africa refuse to use condoms. With their bad HIV rates, I'd use a condom all the time unless I'm having sex with my wife and we both know that we've been tested.
As far as circumcision and HIV go, there has been one study (in Africa; but then again, they don't have that much hygiene there compared to more developed nations) you just have to look and compared developed nations.
The uncircumcised developed nations (Europe and Japan, and heck, even parts of poorer Latin America) have lower HIV/AIDS rates than the industrialized nation that circumcises a lot (the United States). So when you look at it that way, circumcision doesn't reduce HIV rates. That's using CIA statistics; they aren't made up.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/fac...
I also agree with the other posted, if circumcision is promoted for this, it'll lead to a false sense of security. If you want to be safe from HIV, use condoms and be smart (don't have multiple sex partners). That can be a difficult question to answer, as there are so many factors involved. All things being equal and unchanging in sub-Sahara Africa, circumcision might help. In reality, it won't significantly change the HIV rates.
While several recent studies seem to indicate that circumcision may reduce the rate of getting HIV by up to 60%, it should be known that there are studies showing that proper genital hygiene essentially negates any difference between uncircumcised and circumcised groups (link 1). Basically, as long as a guy keeps clean and cleans regularly and diligently, there's essentially no difference in the rate of getting HIV, regardless of circumcision status. Realistically, good hygiene may be difficult in South Africa due to its poverty levels.
And despite what the media frequently says, no one has definitively discovered the link between circumcision and HIV. Thus there is still debate as to whether these studies supporting circumcision should be considered cause-effect or just a lucky (or unlucky, depending on your view) coincidence. To circumcise when you don't know for sure if it'll help is iffy at best (link 2 for further discussion).
And with only a supposed 60% efficacy rate, there's still a 40% chance of getting HIV. If a guy is lured into a false sense of hope and has sex almost twice as often after being circumcised, even that statistical benefit is negated. Also, until the circumcision wound has fully healed, both he and his partner are actually at a much greater risk of getting HIV (link 3).
And lastly, a condom is much better at preventing HIV than circumcision. Yet there's a stigma against condoms because the belief is that they diminish sexual pleasure too much (link 4). Ironically, some recent studies seem to show that circumcision probably decreases sexual sensitivity and pleasure a lot more than a condom ever would (links 5, 6). So in addition to being lured into a false sense of security, sex might feel less pleasurable than before and the guy might be even less willing to use a condom.
All this together works synergistically to greatly reduce any benefit potentially derived from circumcision. There's no education system/program that can overcome this, because if there was, it would've worked for condoms and circumcision would probably have never been considered. And clearly, this hasn't happened.
Human behavior will override any potential benefit from circumcision. Overall, circumcision will do little (if anything) to help reduce the high HIV infection rate in South Africa. If the false security is strong enough and the opposition to condom use is greater after circumcision, then circumcision might do a lot more harm than good.
As a side note, of the modern industrialized nations, the US has the highest HIV rate and among the greatest proportion of circumcised men. Clearly, good hygiene + safe sex + education >>> circumcision. |
