The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAD) has announced "Adult Male Circumcision Significantly Reduces Risk of Acquiring HIV: Trials in Kenya and Uganda Stopped Early."
The results of these two randomized trials in African adults adds evidence to the hypothesis that female to male transmission of HIV is reduced along with the amount of skin on the penis.
This data adds to the single previous study, ANRS-1265, which found similar results. Unfortunately, a full description of the data and the methodologies employed were not made publicly available at the time of this press announcement, and peer-reviews are not yet available. Meta-analysis of publicly available results from the three studies combined showed that of 10,908 African men who chose to participate, 149 contracted HIV while remaining genitally intact, while 64 contracted aids after circumcision.
The fact that there is no known way to do a fully placebo controlled blind study, the gold standard in medical science, is reason for treating these results with caution. Peer-reviews will likely scrutinize potential weaknesses, such as:
- The circumcised group were instructed to avoid sex until their wound fully healed. Since the study terminated early and went only (approximately) 15 months, might one group's abstinence for the first weeks of the study skew the results?
- Did the study fully measure the number of sex partners, and the frequency and duration of intercourse? If they did not, could post-operative discomfort have skewed the results?
On the opposite and of the spectrum from sexually active African men are newborn American babies. Some pro-circumcision advocates are already using these studies to promote and defend the non-consensual genital cutting of infants. Doing so is, at best, conflating the choice any informed and consenting male has the right to make for himself, with the helpless predicament of an infant.
Removing healthy, normal body parts from non-consenting newborns for potential reduction in behavior-linked diseases at sexual maturity is a violation of that person's autonomy, and their right to genital integrity. It fails the test of urgency, because it's a question which can be deferred until the person at issue can make the choice for himself. It presumes that American men will not be prudent enough to use non-invasive means of protection, such as condoms. It presumes that what is lost to circumcision has no value.
There are presently a large number of Americans with a vested interest in believing that non-consensual circumcision is not a human rights violation. They are primarily circumcised men, women with circumcised mates, parent's who have circumcised their sons, and medical professionals who perform, facilitate, or profit from circumcision. Infant circumcision remains the most common surgical procedure in the United States, performed on an estimated 3,300 babies each day.