Comments on: To circumcise or not to circumcise?

By: Eliah Zvimba

Eliah Zvimba — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:36:19 +0000

Education first, use of condoms and those who want to die can decide to get circumsised and deep the fingers in pure acid. No need to debate but to educate the need before they die.

By: iriph

iriph — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:48:42 +0000

There always appears to be a panel of experts to push their “findings” and it is rather disturbing that the poor – not researchers who gobble millions of funds trying to put their finger on the pulse of the epidemic – who live the reality of HIV/Aids. Some argue the disagreements that experts have about circumcision is just but one of many pointers of how poor people across the world are given false hope each time about winning against this terrible thing. One physician asked rather cruelly a long time ago that is it because Africans love sex more than their kind up North for the pandemic to have found a permanent home in the continent? After all, it looks like circumcision is being prescribed for Africans!!!

By: Markoel

Markoel — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:18:45 +0000

Surely the solution to this problem should begin with Education first. I wrote a piece on this epidemic about a week ago http://bit.ly/199ouN and the statistics are shocking. Education has to come before circumsion

By: Tom Tobin

Tom Tobin — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:10:49 +0000

Use of condoms is the answer, not circumcision. Men who get circumcised feel they are safe, and often indulge in sex without a condom. For these men, circumcision merely delays the infection, it doesn’t prevent it. For the unfortunate wife, there is no protection.
Condoms protect both partners, and the man gets to keep all of his genitalia.

By: Simon Collery

Simon Collery — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:01:43 +0000

The ironic things is that those trying to persuade people to be circumcised also admit, you still have to use condoms, circumcision on its own will not help much.

By: Frank OHara

Frank OHara — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:05:43 +0000

To circumcise or not to circumcise is definitely not the question nor is it the answer to any question. Male circumcision will have no effect on the HIV scourge. None at all!

Here’s why: The research is a fraud, pure and simple. We can accurately predict the path of a communicable disease by way of previous epidemics. For instance, we can compare the polio epidemic and the Salk Vaccine for an example of the effect. The claim is that male circumcision has a 61% effect at preventing infections. The Salk polio vaccine is known to be 70% effective at preventing infections. Now, we have to compare the two diseases. HIV is relatively difficult to pass requiring the exchange of infected tissue or fluids. Those fluids are most commonly blood, semen or vaginal fluid. HIV has a very short lifespan measured in minutes outside the body while the polio virus can survive days. Polio can be transmittd by simply touching a surface that an infected person has touched hours or days before. The polio also exists in the natural environment.

We know the effect of the Salk vaccine. It wiped the disease from the populace ina single generaation. An intervention such as male circumcision has been claimed to be should show equal or better results. These interventions work by interupting the vectors of transmission. With 80% of sexually active males in The US having received the “vaccination” of circumcision, if the claims were correct, HIV would have continiously encountered road blocks and died out before it could spread. This certainly has not happened. The US has the highest infection rate of the industrialized nations.

If male circumcision were effective to any significant degree, there would be vast differences in the infection rates of nations that circumcise their males and those who don’t. Those differences are not observed any where in the world. No where!

Now, something that must be understood is that some professionals and individuals have an investment in male circumcision and apparently the authors of this study fit into this category. Robert Bailey, the prime motivator in the study has been preaching male circumcision for more than 25 years. Daniel Halperin, another vocal participant has also been a rabid promoter of male circumcision for more than 25 years. Halperin is also Jewish and has a religious motivation. Bailey is also a professor of epidemiology at The University of Chicago and knows full well the effect of a 61% effective intervention. For either of these men to find anything other than a protective effect would negate their entire professional career.

The effect of this deception is horrendous. Already this year, 53 young men have died and hundreds have been horribly mutilated and hospitalized as a result of their cirucmcisions in African “circumcision camps.” Bailey and Halperin should be held responsible for the damage and death their campaign has caused.