Doctors Urge Mass Circumcision

[Claymore]

BTW - as any guy who's ever bypassed queue of women waiting their turn you only need to use a urinal once to see the value of having the remaining 99%.

You know, there are these devices women can get...

 

[ShaunSA]

You know, there are these devices women can get...

Yeah. They call them men

 

[Claymore]

Yeah. They call them men

What, to pee standing up?

 

[rwenzori]

Major HIV Breakthrough!

For Immediate Release
8 July 2007

The Tshabalala Cookery Academy and the Beaurain Institute For Natural Medicine From Cowdung today announce a major breakthrough in the prevention of HIV infections.

Spokesperson Johan 'JB' Beaurain said "This is a non-trivial discovery that has the potential to cut infections by up to 90%. Even though the virus itself does not exist, our studies have shown our method to be virtually foolproof in recent clinical trials. Details cannot be released at this stage pending our patent application."

Nevertheless impeccable sources close to the trials have revealed that the method involves the insertion of an African Potato and a Prickly Pear into the woman prior to intercourse. Male test subjects said "Eish! It's too bad!", confirming the discovery's effectiveness.

 

[bwana]

From the article :

See, I told you I must have missed it.

Just how do you plan to enact mass circumcision WITHOUT targetting children? Invite boys over on their 13th birthday?

Isnt that part of the Xhosa tradition?

Reflecting on the studies mentioned I wonder if one has been done wrt prevalence rates in cultures that practice ritual circumcision.

 

[Xarog]

Isnt that part of the Xhosa tradition?

Turning it into a cultural thing would be an extremely bad idea. Even if you DID succeed, the problem would them become convincing people to stop after the problem of dealing with AIDS had largely been solved.

There are three options : brow-beat doctors into performing the procedure at birth, egging parents on to bring their children in around the time they become sexually active, or waiting until the child reaches the age of majority.

No. 2 is not an option. How many parents are going to assume that their children will simply not engage in promiscuous sex at all? How many parents will willingly fight their sons if that son is dead-against having parts of his genitals cut off? Are they going to tie him down? And sure as hell a kid is not going to ask to be circumcised because it's as good as admitting to his parents that he is either having sex or desires to do so.

No. 3 also doesn't work because by 18 many if not most will have had sex somewhere along the line.

The only practically viable option for mass circumcision is to do it routinely at birth, and as I've already pointed out that's morally disgusting.

Reflecting on the studies mentioned I wonder if one has been done wrt prevalence rates in cultures that practice ritual circumcision.

I doubt it. Cultures rarely differ on only one or two points. It's too easy for there to be other differences which also affects behaviour with regards to sexual intercourse to get a reliable indication of just how effective one particular difference (in this case circumcision) is when looking at AIDS transmission.

 

[noxibox]

Other than certain Religious practiced there is no valid reason to circumcise every boy or man in this country.

Religious or cultural would rank as the least valid reasons.

And I ask for the people out there that are Religious, why in God's Earth did God put a foreskin on a man in the first place, only for us to cut it off afterwards?

They like second-guessing god.

Perhaps it should be illegal to disfigure a child at birth?

It is if that child is female.

I'm behind making circumcision of male babies without very strong medical reasons illegal.

 

[Claymore]

I doubt it. Cultures rarely differ on only one or two points. It's too easy for there to be other differences which also affects behaviour with regards to sexual intercourse to get a reliable indication of just how effective one particular difference (in this case circumcision) is when looking at AIDS transmission.

Well, one can look at some cultures. AFAIK, there's no significant difference in HIV rates between Zulus (intact) and Xhosas (circumcised).

And then there's Western cultures: the US is the only Western country with any significant rate of circumcision, yet they have the highest AIDS rates of any Western country. There's something there that doesn't correlate.

 

[bwana]

Well, one can look at some cultures. AFAIK, there's no significant difference in HIV rates between Zulus (intact) and Xhosas (circumcised).

So it has been studied?

And then there's Western cultures: the US is the only Western country with any significant rate of circumcision, yet they have the highest AIDS rates of any Western country. There's something there that doesn't correlate.

Could the lack of correlation be at least partially due to injection drug users? That is the second largest category of AIDS diagnoses in the US.

 

[Claymore]

So it has been studied?

I don't know. There's no mention of any major differences in rates in the media though, AFAIK.

Could the lack of correlation be at least partially due to injection drug users? That is the second largest category of AIDS diagnoses in the US.

Does the US have a much higher rate of injection drug users than European countries though?

 

[bwana]

Does the US have a much higher rate of injection drug users than European countries though?

In the US, in 2004, 34% of women and 21% of men diagnosed with HIV were users that were considered to have been infected due to their drug use.

In the EU for the same year 2084 of the 24184 newly diagnosed HIV infections (8.6%) were attributed to IDUs.

 

[Xarog]

I think Claymore is actually asking about the number of injecting drug users per capita by itself.

 

[bwana]

I think Claymore is actually asking about the number of injecting drug users per capita by itself.

What would that reveal that hasn't been shown by the figures I gave?

 

[Xarog]

If there are a higher number of injecting drug users in the 'states then it suggests that Europeans and Americans don't behave substancially differently when it comes to dealing with dirty needles. if the per capita rate is the same, then it suggests that Americans have been more careless than their European brethren.

 

[bwana]

And then there's Western cultures: the US is the only Western country with any significant rate of circumcision, yet they have the highest AIDS rates of any Western country. There's something there that doesn't correlate.

More interesting figures I came across - the EU has a population of roughly 500 million - of those there were 74,760 newly reported cases of HIV in 2004. The US, with a population of around 300 million averages around 40,000 p.a. Granted, I do suck at math but to me that says that the US doesnt actually have the highest HIV/AIDS rate of any western country.

 

[Mams]

Another angle:
BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/ethics/malecircumcision/religions_1.shtml

and

http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/menshealth/facts/circumcision.htm
(balanced pros and cons)

and just a note: In SA, muslims (remove the foreskin) circumcise young babies in the 1st month after birth and the procedure is done at clinics by doctors who specialize in the procedure. And its always done under anaesthetic.

 

[Claymore]

More interesting figures I came across - the EU has a population of roughly 500 million - of those there were 74,760 newly reported cases of HIV in 2004. The US, with a population of around 300 million averages around 40,000 p.a. Granted, I do suck at math but to me that says that the US doesnt actually have the highest HIV/AIDS rate of any western country.

Thing is, the rates vary - many of the west European countries have very low rates of AIDS, far lower than the US. Others may have higher. My point is that there does not seem to be any useful correlation between AIDS and circumcision rates, which implies that that studies do not match reality in some aspect.

 

[bwana]

Thing is, the rates vary - many of the west European countries have very low rates of AIDS, far lower than the US. Others may have higher. My point is that there does not seem to be any useful correlation between AIDS and circumcision rates, which implies that that studies do not match reality in some aspect.

We can see that the EU has a higher rate of HIV infection and of those infected a lower rate are infected due to IDU. It doesn't necessarily preclude circumcision making a difference.

 

[noxibox]

Does the US have a much higher rate of injection drug users than European countries though?

They don't need to have a higher number of users because the government has a policy of making drug use as dangerous as possible whereas European countries are interested in harm reduction.

 

[noxibox]

if the per capita rate is the same, then it suggests that Americans have been more careless than their European brethren.

In the US it is difficult to get clean needles and the government always opposes efforts to minimise the dangers of drug use. The US government has the delusion that making needles hard to get prevents intravenous drug use.