Update on circumcision and HIV/AIDS

Regular readers of this weblog are no doubt aware of my championing the study by African scientists, which found that:

. . . if male circumcision were 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 March 28, 2007]

However, I became indignant late last year when a urologist challenged my proselytizing in this respect. Because he upbraided me in an open letter to the Caribbean Net News (CNN) for failing to disclose the desensitizing effect circumcision has on the penis as a sexual organ. (Note: CNN is the most widely read newspaper in the Caribbean – a region that has the highest prevalence of HIV infections in the world outside sub-Saharan Africa.)

But this presumably informed urologist provided no scientific basis for his assertion. And frankly, even though I pride myself on my insatiable intellectual curiosity, I found many of the details he proffered far more than I needed to know about the subject.

Unfortunately, I had no the data to counter his arguments. Therefore, I responded simply by maintaining that, given the consensus in the scientific community about the prophylactic effect of circumcision on HIV transmissions, most men would probably be happy to give up whatever marginal pleasure they derive from the prepuce.

Now it turns out that urologist was just talking out of his ass. Because yesterday the BBC reported on the most comprehensive study ever undertaken on this matter, which found that:

Circumcision does not reduce sexual satisfaction and so there should be no reservations about using this method as a way to combat HIV.

Nevertheless, let me hasten to admonish that condoms are still the most effective guard against contracting HIV and other STDs. So please use them diligently and properly – no matter how much they purportedly inhibit sexual satisfaction….

Related Articles:
To briss or not to briss: that is the question
BBC report, “circumcision does not curb sex”

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