A new factor in AIDs prevention? A study has shown that circumcision greatly reduces female-to-male HIV infection — and the results were so overwhelming that French and South African researchers halted the study:
French and South African AIDS researchers have called an early halt to a study of adult male circumcision to reduce HIV infection after initial results reportedly showed that men who had the procedure dramatically lowered their risk of contracting the virus.
The study’s preliminary results, disclosed Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal, showed that circumcision reduced the risk of contracting HIV by 70 percent — a level of protection far better than the 30 percent risk reduction set as a target for an AIDS vaccine.
According to the newspaper account, the study under way in Orange Farm township, South Africa, was stopped because the results were so favorable. It was deemed unethical to continue the trial after an early peek at data showed that the uncircumcised men were so much more likely to become infected.
Why the study?
The hope is that, lacking a vaccine, the nearly 5 million new HIV infections occurring each year could be slowed by circumcision, the surgical removal of the foreskin — a simple, low-cost and permanent medical intervention that is a common but controversial cultural practice in much of the world. In Africa, about 70 percent of men are circumcised at birth or during rite-of-passage ceremonies in early puberty.
Medical anthropologists began noticing as early as 1989 that the highest rates of HIV infection in Africa were occurring in regions of the continent where the predominant tribal or religious cultures did not practice circumcision. Adult HIV infection rates above 30 percent are found in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland and eastern South Africa, where circumcision is not practiced; yet HIV infection rates remain below 5 percent in West Africa and other parts of the continent where circumcision is commonplace.
Laboratory studies have found that the foreskin is rich in white blood cells, which are favored targets of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. So the theory is that men who are uncircumcised are much more likely to contract the virus during sex with an infected woman, and that the epidemic spreads when these newly infected men have sex with other women within their network of sexual partners.
This certainly provides another argument for circumcision, which has become more controversial in recent years. Of course, some circumcision has religious roots, no matter how you slice it..
Famous standup joke. Moses at Mount Sinai: “Now, let me get this straight. We’re your chosen people and you want us to cut off the tips of our WHAT?!”
Still, file this away in the Another Hopeful Sign Department. But not under magic bullets (yet).
Andrew Sullivan, who has posts on his site about him coping with the disease, says it’s conclusive enough to push for circumcision of males in Africa but it does NOT “reverse my view that the circumcision of infants is a violation of every man’s right not to have his body mutilated without his consent.”
The hub of controversial discussion on the Internet for anything dealing with HIV is Dean’s World, where Dean Esmay has written several strong posts doubting it causes AIDS. He writes (in detail so read it all) that this report is “nothing new” and ” based on what’s been reported it looks shaky and sloppy.” He also provides lots of links.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.