Comments on: Down Low Women, Milan Meeting Update II

By: World AIDS Day 2008: Down Low Women « The Sciphu Weblog

World AIDS Day 2008: Down Low Women « The Sciphu Weblog — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:04:03 +0000

[...] AIDS Day 2008: Down Low Women December 1, 2008 This post is an update from this previous posting and published as a part of Bloggers Unite World AIDS Day [...]

By: sciphu

sciphu — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:27:34 +0000

Hi Hugh. Thank you for a great comment. Let’s see if I can answer equally great then: The foreskin results were results of scientific studies attempting to measure the importance of the prepuce, it was not a statement based on personal accounts. He asked the question about why it has taken so long to discuss circumcision because the first results of the benefit of this procedure dates back to the late 80s. I do believe you are mistaken when it comes to both the quality and the numbers of study-participants. A recent review by Mills et al. lists 11050 male study participants in a number of studies. Also I am not sure you have the same need for stringent double blind placebo controlled studies when the endpoint is as straightforward as HIV positive or not, although I agree that you may have a point there. Lastly I think you are right when you say that this procedure is not emotionally and culturally neutral. However, my point was made compared to the consequences of becoming HIV-positive.

By: Hugh7

Hugh7 — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:51:03 +0000

“the prepuce (aka foreskin) is considered beneficial by some and without importance by others.”
Sure, it’s considered beneficial by those who have one and without importance by those who don’t remember theirs.

“Do we have sex with our penises or with our brains”
Silly question. Both of course. Try (if male) having sex without your penis. It may be possible (for paraplegics and the like) but it’s going to be a greater effort and it’s not the same. Same without a foreskin.

“Why has it taken so long to discuss circumcision to prevent HIV-transmission, and why is it not implemented in prevention programmes when circumcision confers 60% protection rates…?”.
Taken so long? The researchers raced to the media to promote circumcision as soon as their results (which were cut short) claimed to show protection, before any reviews had been published. The studies claiming to show “60% protection” amount to circumcising a total 5,400 men and leaving a similar number intact. After less than two years, 64 of the circumcised men had HIV and 137 of the control group. That’s the WHOLE basis of the claim. The studies were not (obviously) double blinded or placebo controlled, and several times the number infected dropped out, their HIV status unknown (so if circumcised men dropped out when they found they were HIV+ because they didn’t want to go back to the people who’d let them down so badly, while intact men just dropped out through loss of interest, that could easily skew the results). Non-sexual and same-sex transmission were ignored and discounted (some of the men who claimed not to have had sex at all got HIV).

“such a (relatively) simple procedure could potentially save millions of lives.”
It is the same people who held the studies who have made that calculation, and make the claim that circumcised men won’t be more likely to have unprotected sex as a result, or start having sex before their wounds have healed. If they’re wrong, on the contrary, it could cost more lives.

This discussion is always held as if circumcision were an emotionally and culturally neutral topic like, say, tonsillectomy. In fact, cutting off parts of men’s penises has always been riddled with cultural, emotional and psychosexual baggage – among supposedly neutral scientific researchers as much as anyone else.