HIV/AIDS prevention UPDATE: To briss, or not to briss: that is the question…

Over the past two years I have written a series of articles (the most recent appended below) proselytizing scientific studies which have found that circumcision (a ritual dating back over 15,000 years) is the cheapest and most effective way to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS. After the publication of each of them, however, I have been besieged by a disturbing number of e-mails denouncing the African scientists who pioneered these studies as bush doctors promoting human mutilation (a misleading allusion to the truly brutal practice of clitoral excision, which is performed as a cultural rite of passage in some areas of Africa).

But it is a shame that such hostility towards circumcision persists (primarily from Europeans); notwithstanding the fact that these studies have been peer-reviewed exhaustively and endorsed by the most reputable public health and scientific organizations in the world:

…if male circumcision was more widely available, millions of lives, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa would be saved. WHO and UNAIDS said access to the procedure should be urgently scaled up in areas with high rates of heterosexual infection and low rates of male circumcision. [BBC Report 28 March 2007]

I am painfully aware, however, that all I can do is to continue my modest crusade to raise public awareness about the latest and greatest hope for combating a virus that is condemning so many people (especially blacks in Africa and the Caribbean) to an agonizing death. Accordingly, I am pleased to cite a BBC report, published yesterday, which echoes my informed hope that people all over the world will soon regard circumcision as an effective procedure to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS; much as they now regard condoms as an effective prophylactic to protect them against contracting other STDs.


Circumcision for HIV prevention an "extraordinary development"

Published originally 6 March 2007

For years, as the Related Articles linked to below will attest, I have been proselytizing the findings by African scientists of a positive link between male circumcision and substantial reduction in the incidence of HIV infections. But, notwithstanding confirming studies by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), I’ve been obliged to brook persistent criticisms about the medical (and cultural) viability of this nexus.

Therefore, I was heartened last week when The Lancet, a British journal reputed to be the most “independent and authoritative voice in global medicine”, published the full data from all trials in this respect and endorsed the original findings enthusiastically.

This is an extraordinary development… Circumcision is the most potent intervention in HIV prevention that has been described. [Dr. Kevin de Cock, director of the World Health Organization’s AIDS department]

I am also encouraged by reports that several countries in Africa, where the spread of this virus is pandemic, have already met with UN agencies to discuss funding and facilities to increase circumcision services. Although I remain indignant at professed cultural and religious concerns that would countenance letting millions of people die instead of implementing this medical procedure.

Male circumcision is such a sensitive religious and cultural issue that we need to be careful. [Dr. Catherine Hankins, scientific adviser at UNAIDS]

But I reiterate here what I’ve maintained all along; namely, that our shared humanity compels us to support any scientific development that would help stem the genocidal ravages of HIV/AIDS – especially amongst poor black and brown people.


Related Articles:
BBC: WHO agree HIV circumcision plan
To briss or not to briss…

circumcision HIV/AIDS