somethndif
Posts: 136
Joined: 1/1/2004 Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen Ummm... no. Anyway the above study has some issues. Is circumcision 100% or even 90% effective at preventing HIV infection? No. It correlated to a 50% reduction in the rate of infection compared to the control group. Therefore recommending circumcision in place of real safer sex practices is just a route to an early grave for thousands (millions?) of men and their partners. So what was the point of the study? Certainly not to have a significant effect on HIV infection rates in sub Saharan Africa since no attempt to circumcise every male on the continent is underway. To improve understanding of how the HIV virus spreads? No, it was already well understood that the virus spreads best between functional mucus membranes which the glans of a curcumcised male is not. To justify the ongoing mutilation of infant males? I think we have a winner! It is obvious to me, that regardless of how compelling the medical evidence regarding the benefits of circumcision, you will reject them for some unknown, likely very personal, emotional reason. Your dismissal of a 50% reduction in the rate of HIV infection is frankly mindboggling. I don't know what the rate of HIV infection among men is in Africa, but let's say its 100,000 per year, and it is probably much higher. To me, reducing the infection rate by half, to 50,000, by this relatively simple procedure, would be dramatic and fantastic. And no one is recommending circumcision instead of safe sex practices, as you wrongly state, certainly not the authors of the study, NIH or me. In fact, I expect that the use of safe sex practices among the circumcised and uncircumcised men in the study was approximately the same, or was accounted for as an obvious potentially confounding factor. And still the study found a 50% reduction in the rate of infection. The fact remains that this study and others have shown that there are medical reasons -- good ones in my opinion -- for circumcising male infants and, for that matter, sexually active adult men. Instead of just attacking the existing research showing the medical benefits of circumcision, can you point to one, just one study, that reaches the opposite conclusion, that not circumcising has medical benefits? I do not know of any, and I doubt that you do either. To me it seems that your argument comes down to, "don't remove what God has placed there." Which, to me, is not an argument based on facts or evidence at all, it is an argument based on religious and moral reasons. If you want to base your decisions about circumcision on religious and moral reasons, that's fine. But why do you feel you must attack the scientific evidence, which I think is considerable, and compelling? That is what I really don't understand. Finally to argue that the purpose of the study was to "justify the ongoing mutilation of infant males," is just insulting and irresponsible. It also says more about you and your feelings about circumcision, than it does about the researchers who conducted the study. Dan
< Message edited by somethndif -- 2/28/2007 11:30:16 AM >
|