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9/7/2000 - International Conference on Aids misleads by promoting male circumcision
NORM-UK PRESS RELEASE 9 JULY 2000

Dr John Warren, Chairman of NORM-UK, expressed concern that the thirteenth International Conference on Aids being held in Durban, South Africa this week was giving a platform to those who are still promoting male circumcision as a cure for all ills. "It may give a false sense of security to circumcised men that they need not use condoms," he said.

Several studies in Africa have concluded that male circumcision may confer some protection against HIV. However, two meta-analyses pooling the data from these studies [1-2] found these studies to be of poor quality and concluded that male circumcision was inappropriate to prevent HIV. The confounding effect of female circumcision, which occurs in the parts of Africa where male circumcision is practised, has not been studied.

"The USA has both the highest prevalence of HIV and the highest rate of male circumcision in the developed world. The graves of North America, and indeed Africa, contain the bodies of countless young men who died of AIDS despite having been circumcised", said John Dalton, Researcher and Archiver for NORM-UK.

Over the last century it has been claimed that male circumcision protects against many diseases including epilepsy, blindness, diabetes, impotence, tuberculosis, hydrocephalus, cervical cancer, penile cancer and kidney failure. All these have since been disproven.

Dr Warren said that if mass infant circumcision were to be promoted for the prevention of HIV, the number of harmful complications may exceed the number of AIDS cases prevented. "It would give no benefits for least fifteen years. It is possible that an effective vaccine will be developed before then. Meanwhile, the answer is to use condoms", he said.

References

1.Van Howe RS. Circumcision and HIV-infection: meta-analysis and review of the medical literature. Int J STD AIDS 1999; 10: 8-16.

2.de Vincenzi I, Mertens T. Male circumcision: a role in HIV prevention? AIDS 1994; 8(2):153-160.