The iPINIONS Journal

Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.

© Copyright 2005-2024 (Images appear pursuant to 17 U.S.C. sec 107)
You are here: Home / General / Good (news) Friday: Circumcision confirmed as the most effective way to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS

Good (news) Friday: Circumcision confirmed as the most effective way to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS

Friday, December 15, 2006 at 11:38 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

This is not iffy data [or bush medicine]. This is serious data.

[Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Health, at a press conference on Wednesday confirming the dramatically positive correlation between circumcision and reductions in the incidence of HIV/AIDS]

I’ve been promoting circumcision as an effective treatment for the prevention of HIV/AIDS ever since African doctors published the results of their trials in this respect over two years ago. But I’ve been dismayed by the number of people who either dismissed their scientific findings as “bush medicine” or accused me of helping to pervert African cultural and religious customs by imposing neo-colonial notions of hygiene.

My initial thought was that their criticisms were patently uninformed because circumcision was practiced by Africans (including Egyptians and Ethiopians), Jews and Muslims long before it was adopted by Westerners (and, even then, more in America than in Europe).

But then it occured to me that their criticisms constituted a classic case of transference – where those accusing me of neocolonial bias were themselves exhibiting this bias. After all, it was entirely reasonable to infer that they simply could countenance simple and inexpensive circumcisions performed by African doctors being more effective in treating this virus than a cocktail of expensive antiretroviral drugs manufactured by multinational pharmaceutical companies.

But I finally realized that these critics were just congenitally opposed to this procedure when they were not disabused of their ignorance and misguided concerns even after circumcision was endorsed by leading scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations programme on HIVAIDS (UNAIDS) at the 16th Annual International Aids Conference in Toronto, Canada last August. Indeed, I found most troubling the inescapable fact that their perverse paternalism made these critics more concerned about African customs than they are about African lives….

Nonetheless, here’s how I entreated people who are genuinely grieved by the spread of HIV/AIDS – especially in Africa and Francophone Haiti – to deal with critics of circumcision:

…join me in condemning and dismissing – as either a religious hypocrite or inhumane or both – anyone who opposes circumcision as a necessary and effective medical procedure. Because our shared humanity and moral rectitude clearly compel us to support any scientific development that would help stem the genocidal ravages of HIV/AIDS amongst poor black and brown people.

Now comes the good news that the most influential scientific body in the world, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), held a press conference on Wednesday to announce the results of their own trials which mirror those of earlier trials conducted by African doctors. Here’s what the NIH scientists reported:

…two clinical trials in Africa have been stopped because an independent monitoring board determined the treatment was so effective that it would be unethical to continue the experiment….Circumcising African men may cut their risk of catching AIDS in half.

And, here’s how Daniel Halperin, an HIV specialist at Harvard’s Center for Population and Development described the potential impact of this announcement:

This is very exciting news…. I have no doubt that, as word of this gets around, millions of African men will want to get circumcised and that will save many lives.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply