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Loading ...Circumcision doesn’t protect gays from AIDS virus
08.25.2009 3:39pm EDT
(Atlanta) Circumcision, which has helped prevent AIDS among heterosexual men in Africa, doesn’t help protect gay men from the virus, according to the largest U.S. study to look at the question.
The research, presented at a conference Tuesday, is expected to influence the government’s first guidance on circumcision.Circumcision “is not considered beneficial” in stopping the spread of HIV through gay sex, said Dr. Peter Kilmarx, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, the CDC is still considering recommending it for other groups, including baby boys and high-risk heterosexual men.
UNAIDS and other international health organizations promote circumcision, the cutting away of the foreskin, as an important strategy for reducing the spread of the AIDS virus. There hasn’t been the same kind of push for circumcision in the United States.
For one thing, nearly 80 percent of American men are already circumcised – a much higher proportion than most other countries. Worldwide, the male circumcision rate is estimated at about 30 percent.
Also, while HIV spreads primarily through heterosexual sex in Africa and some other parts of the world, in the United States it has mainly infected gay men. Only about 4 percent of U.S. men are gay, according to preliminary CDC estimates released at the conference this week. But they account for more than half of the new HIV infections each year.
Previous research has suggested circumcision doesn’t make a difference when anal sex is involved. The latest study, by CDC researchers, looked at nearly 4,900 men who had anal sex with an HIV-infected partner and found the infection rate, about 3.5 percent, was approximately the same whether the men were circumcised or not.
Government recommendations on circumcision are still being written and may not be final until next year, following public comment. CDC doctors and many experts believe there is a good argument for recommending that baby boys and heterosexual men at a higher risk for HIV be circumcised.
The definition of “high risk” is still being discussed, said Kilmarx, chief of the epidemiology branch in the CDC’s HIV division.
Circumcision is a sensitive issue laden with cultural and religious meaning, particularly when babies are involved, Kilmarx acknowledged.
“It’s seen by many as more than just as medical procedure,” he said. It’s possible the government won’t make recommendations but instead will promote an education campaign for parents about the procedure’s potential benefits and risks, he added.
The prospect of the government promoting circumcision of infants has already drawn fire from an advocacy group called Intact America. The organization, based in Tarrytown, N.Y., parked a motorized billboard this week outside the hotel hosting the HIV conference, displaying the message: “Tell the CDC that circumcising babies doesn’t prevent HIV.”
“It’s removing healthy, functioning, sexual and protective tissue from a person who cannot consent. You’re mutilating a child,” said Georgeanne Chapin, the group’s executive director.
Circumcision doesn’t protect GAYS from HIV infected men on the “down low” either. They try to convince you that they aren’t infected because they only have sex with their “girl”…News flash…if he is having sex with YOU…He has had sex with other gay men, regardless if he identifies with GAY or not. USE CONDOMS PEOPLE!
I agree with the teacherman. All these african men are claiming that theyre becoming positive from hetero sexual contact.
Working in the HIV prevention field, I know high risk heterosexual contact is actually very little risk for the male. The penis doesnt recieve infectious fluid easily.
So I’m supposed to believe MAJORITY of these men became positive because they were uncircumsised? I realize there are different HIV strands more prominent in Africa, but I think we just have a case of African “Down low” being just as much an issue as it is here.
Not saying all these men are lying, but would you admit to getting penetrated in Africa when in most places its still illegal?
Am I the only one who thinks it is suspicious that only heterosexual males benefit from circumcision while homosexual males don’t?
In this context, there’s not really “gay sex”. I assume they are talking about anal sex, as oral sex is regarded as lower risk.
So men who got male genital mutilation in hopes of reducing their chances of HIV infection through anal sex with women will apparently have done it for nothing.
Nobody has the right to mutilate boys’ genitals, particularly when the stated purpose is only to help future heterosexuals.
There’s nothing wrong with ABC. Abstain, or
Be faithful, or use
Condoms.
Let’s see: they arranged for an unspecified but equal number of gay & straight HIV- men, half of which were circumcised, to engage in vagina, oral & anal sex with HIV+ individuals of their sexual preference, recorded, then tabulated the results? No? Then it is, and always was, anecdotal, with a large helping of Western bias towards circumcision.
The African governments need to get into their lands and teach the people that sleeping with virgins WON’T remove or cure the virus.
This honestly just seemed silly to me when I read the headline on my cell phone… who would’ve assumed that being cirumcised helped with anything? We all know how the deed is done and we all know what other deeds get done beforehand, so why the big news?
Education is going to be key for the people of Africa…
http://www.citizenzero.us
I am a glad I am circumcised and I prefer men who are circumcised. It looks better and is easier to keep clean. Circumcised or not you can still get a variety of health-destroying STDs and HIV/AIDS. Like any poster I saw in English and Spanish said, “Even if he is an angel, use a condom”. Because even though he’s sweet, cute, loving, beautiful and he wants to spend time with you, you never quite know where he’s been and who he has been with before he finally met you.
Yes, such studies by necessity rely on self-reporting of behaviors by the subjects. The reliability of such reports are usually open to question.
If there was a problem with men “on the down low” lying about anal sex, I would assume that would tend to even out the differences between gay and straight participants not accentuate them. If I were to make any predictions about lying influencing the results it would be members of the “gay” group lying about receiving during anal intercourse which is already known to have a higher risk factor (and as such would have made such participants less than ideal subjects for comparison to straight men who presumably never received during anal intercourse). Or straight men lying about their number of sexual encounters during reporting.
However, everyone is right, the discussion here shouldn’t have been characterized as gay vs straight [Was anyone who described themselves as anything other than 100% gay or straight omitted from the study? I doubt it. Historically researchers tend to bias anyone they find non-hetero conforming into the "gay" group.], the discussion should have been about men who engage in anal intercourse versus those who don’t. Even in the US doctors get 10 times as many men answering in the affirmative when they ask if the patient has had sex with another man than if they ask the patient if he is gay. That is why the new medical acronym MSM (men who have sex with men) was created. It has also been demonstrated that even many relatively open gay and bi men will feel pressured to withhold information from their doctors during interviews for fear of ill treatment. Hearing the CDC frame the discussion as gay vs straight makes me wonder about the interview techniques that were used to obtain the participant’s behavioral information.
I also wonder how other environmental factors were taken into account. Could it be that there was a higher incidence of other risky behaviors in the “gay” group that contributed to the results? How was this controlled for? I would have to assume that it again relied on the interviewer/subject relationship heavily.
4% of US men are gay? Ha. Don’t believe it.
4% does seem rather small. I’m used to estimates around 15%. :/
4% would around 9 million gay men in the US enough to populate a small state or a small country. but enough to be in every state, county and town. And there are enough gay men having unprotected sex along with heteros also having unprotected sex to pass a myriad of health problems and STDs along ALL FOR THE LACK OF AN EASILY OBTAINED FRESH CONDOM!!!
I wonder how the government deduces that 4% of men in the U.S. are gay? There’s never been a census of gay people so how can they come up with such a figure. I suspect its a lot higher since most men wouldn’t even own up to being gay when it comes to government, state or federal, asking questions.
I find it hard to believe that straight males having anal sex with an infected woman have a far lower risk contracting HIV, or vaginal sex for that matter. Don’t women ejaculate too or lubricate during intercourse and if they do, isn’t ejaculate a body fluid that can carry the virus which could enter the urethra of the male?
Circumcision is just another bad American idea. Mothers who cannot take an extra 10 seconds to wash their son’s foreskin are just lazy. Boys and men who cannot take an additional 10 seconds to wash daily are just lazy. There really is no point to male circumcision other than laziness in taking care of personal hygiene. Plain and simple, baby boys should not be mutilated. The creator didn’t add foreskin just to look pretty, it helps protect the glans. As you can see from the statistics, AIDs and HIV prevention hardly have any correlation to circumcision. Keep the extra skin and enjoy better and safer sex.
If gay men were at 15% gay dating websites like Match.com would have far fewer repeated choices of the same men one already didn’t want and many more fresh photos and descriptions to choose from. Our county gay men’s group would be twice as large as it is with new guys joining all the time. AND THERE WOULDN’T BE ONLY TWO OPENLY GAY MEN IN CONGRESS. There would be maybe about 8 of them beside just Jared Polis and Barney Frank. TED KENNEDY JUST DIED AT 77 TODAY OR YESTERDAY. There goes our progay lion of the Senate for all kinds of minorities. On his way to the grave. Forever silenced. When will a gay man or a lesbian become the lion of the Senate for our own community?
At 15%, there would be about 28 million gay men. Enough to have gay men and their partners out and visible on many more street corners in the USA and jamming more ocean beaches with many more gay men and their partners and with some with their kids at say Rehoboth Beach, DE (DC’s summer capital) than one sees already. I don’t rightly know what percentage of men are gay men as you tend to have more gay men jammed into the big cities on and near the coastal fringes of the country than anywhere else
But I feel that after 44 years of living in the same nice Maryland county next to Northwest DC that 15% seems too high. If that number were so, I would see many more gay couples in the stores and restaurants than I do even these days of increased local population.
According to the article, “Circumcision “is not considered beneficial” in stopping the spread of HIV through gay sex, said Dr. Peter Kilmarx, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, the CDC is still considering recommending it for other groups, including baby boys and high-risk heterosexual men.” – So how are they going to screen which baby boys are gay and straight????!!!
Support Intact’s view that the removal of the healthy, functioning, sexual and protective tissue from a person who cannot consent is child mutilation!