That would make quite the clever bumper sticker.

Well, guess you really haven't lived here long enough to know exactly
how *traditionally* conservative we are... and how *traditionally*
conservative (that is, "what you do is your business, not mine") can
look look "liberal."  The PRB being an exception of course.

Perhaps you'd be happier in Walnut Creek or other parts of the East Bay
where Atilla the Hun is still considered "that lefty."

B/

Why is it that I have the impression that you have made your mind up all
ready and will accept or reject studies based purely on how the
conclusions line up with your preconceptions?

"Jordi" <Jordace@happy.org> wrote in message

Yes, I suppose it will as long as people stick their dicks in anything that moves.

I needed to add to this the following from UNAIDS:

From: UNAIDS Questions & Answers

Does male circumcision affect the spread of HIV?

Research has identified plausible biological explanations for a
connection between HIV infection and lack of circumcision. The tissue of
the internal foreskin absorbs HIV up to nine times more efficiently than
female cervical tissue, mainly because it contains Langerhans and other
HIV "target cells" in much greater quantities than the cervix or other
genital tissue (including other parts of the penis). In addition, the
internal foreskin has a mucosal surface, as opposed to themore hardened
skinlike surface of the external foreskin. This mucosal surface is
particularly susceptible to tears and abrasions, and, consequently,
infection by STDs and HIV.

These epidemiological, geographic, and biological findings provide very
strong – though not conclusive – evidence that male circumcision
significantly lowers the risk of HIV infection. Large clinical trials to
confirm an association between MC and HIV risk are now underway.
Qualitative research and field studies to assess the acceptability and
feasibility of expanding male circumcision services can also help
identify the possible role of male circumcision in HIV prevention.
Randomized controlled trials funded by the National Institutes of
Health, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other partners are
being conducted in Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda to definitively
assess whether circumcision of adult men protects them against HIV. The
Uganda trial will also test previous findings suggesting male
circumcision may additionally protect the women partners of HIV-infected
men. Combined, these studies will involve about 12,000 men. Results from
the studies should be available within two to four years.

http://www.unaids.org/html/pub/una-docs/q-a_ii_en_pdf.pdf

===============================================
The South African RCT is reported on as follows:

Study Says Circumcision Reduces AIDS Risk by 70%

Findings From South Africa
May Offer Powerful Way
To Cut HIV Transmission

By MARK SCHOOFS, SARAH LUECK and MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
July 5, 2005; Page A1

In a potentially major breakthrough in the campaign against AIDS,
French and South African researchers have apparently found that male
circumcision reduces by about 70% the risk that men will contract HIV
through intercourse with infected women.

Other than abstinence and safer sex, almost nothing has been proved to
reduce the sexual spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
World-wide, the major route of HIV transmission for many years has
been heterosexual sex.

Vaccine developers have said they would consider an AIDS vaccine with
just 30% efficacy useful. But so far, no effective vaccine against the
disease has been developed, leaving AIDS workers desperate for another
tool to help them stem the tide of new infections, estimated at almost
five million last year.

The circumcision findings were so dramatic that the data and safety
monitoring board overseeing the research halted the study in February,
about nine months before it would have been completed, on the grounds
that it would be immoral to proceed without offering the uncircumcised
control group the opportunity to undergo the procedure. While men were
directly protected from infection by circumcision, women could benefit
indirectly because circumcision would reduce the chances their
partners would be HIV-positive.

Researchers in the field have been aware of the study's basic
findings, but they haven't been published, so most experts haven't
evaluated them. The British medical journal the Lancet decided against
publishing the study, but for reasons unrelated to the data and
scientific content, according to people familiar with the matter.
Lancet officials, following standard policy at the journal, refused to
comment on why the study was turned down.

The fact that an independent board ordered the study halted is
considered a strong sign that the science is sound. Bertran Auvert,
the French researcher who headed the trial, declined to discuss the
findings but is expected to present them later this month at an
International AIDS Society conference in Brazil.

Still, the fact that the research hasn't yet been published makes
experts in the field wary about commenting. "Confirm, confirm,
confirm," said Seth Berkley, a veteran HIV researcher and president of
the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. But if the study holds up,
said Dr. Berkley, who wasn't involved with the research, it would be
"quite important" because circumcision would be "an intervention that
works over a person's lifetime and could reduce HIV in a community
setting."

Assuming circumcision is as effective as the new study shows, it would
still require careful implementation. In particular, health experts
are concerned that men understand that circumcision can't fully
protect them and that they maintain other preventive measures, such as
safer sex.

"These preliminary results are quite interesting and we look forward
to examining the data more closely, to looking at the technical
aspects of the study and public-health implications if these results
are confirmed by other trials," said Cate Hankins, chief scientific
adviser to the United Nations AIDS agency, UNAIDS.

More than 30 previous studies have suggested a relationship between
circumcision and lower rates of HIV infection. In Kenya, for example,
HIV prevalence is much higher among the Luo people, who don't practice
circumcision, than among the Kikuyu, who do.

And there are strong biological theories as to why. For example, a
type of cell that HIV targets, called the Langerhans cell, lies close
to the delicate underside of the foreskin, whereas the head of a
circumcised penis tends to develop a thick layer of outer skin that
may armor it against HIV. Another theory: Rather than acting against
HIV itself, circumcision may help prevent other sexually transmitted
diseases that are known to facilitate the acquisition of HIV.

Despite these theories, no study until now has been able to prove that
circumcision reduces the chances of contracting HIV. Longtime
advocates of the benefits of circumcision note that performing such a
study has always faced resistance because of the sensitive cultural
issues involved as well as the challenge of persuading a significant
number of men to undergo the procedure.

The new research was designed to test the hypothesis by the most
rigorous possible method: a randomized, controlled clinical trial.

It was conducted with more than 3,000 HIV-negative men ages 18 to 24
in a South African township called Orange Farm. Half of the men were
randomly assigned to be circumcised and the other half to remain
uncircumcised as controls. The study, headed by Dr. Auvert, a
researcher at the French National Institute of Health and Medical
Research and at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin, originally
planned to follow the men for 21 months. But after all the men had
been followed for a year -- and about half of them for the full 21
months -- the data showed the circumcised group fared far better. For
every 10 uncircumcised men in the study who contracted HIV, only about
three circumcised men did so, according to two people familiar with
the research and a draft of the study reviewed by The Wall Street
Journal.

Stopping trials is common when an intervention is clearly shown to be
effective. Indeed, the result of the South African trial is likely to
spark discussion of whether to halt or modify two other major studies
of circumcision and HIV under way in Kenya and Uganda, funded by the
National Institutes of Health.

Ronald Gray, lead researcher on the Uganda trial, said, "It would be
extremely unwise" to stop the Kenya and Uganda trials at this stage
because "medicine has been burned in the past when policy is based on
a single trial."

It isn't clear how the new study, if confirmed, would influence U.S.
policy. Circumcision wouldn't affect IV drug users who get infected by
sharing syringes, a group that accounts for a large proportion of
American HIV cases. Also, the South Africa study didn't evaluate
whether circumcision would offer any protection to gay men, who make
up another large proportion of American cases. Any direct benefit to
gay men would almost certainly be restricted to the insertive partner
in anal intercourse, not the receptive partner.

In countries where male circumcision is uncommon and heterosexual HIV
rates are high or rising rapidly, the procedure could be a powerful
way of reducing the spread of the disease, the new study shows.

Even so, researchers warn of potential pitfalls in trying to put the
findings into practice. First, circumcision doesn't make a person
immune to infection. Indeed, if men abandon safer sex practices
because they think the surgery completely protects them, then HIV
transmission could rise.

"It will not take very much of an increase in risk behavior to
overcome the benefit from circumcision," said Carolyn Williams, an
American researcher involved in the Kenya circumcision study. AIDS
experts insist that circumcision will have to be accompanied by
intensive counseling.

Secondly, AIDS researchers worry that circumcisions performed in
unsanitary conditions could lead to dangerous complications.

And while many Africans come from cultures that practice circumcision,
many others don't. Would large numbers of men in noncircumcising
cultures consent to go under the knife simply to reduce their risk of
acquiring HIV?

"It's a surgical procedure on an organ that, you know, conjures up a
lot of feelings in people," said Robert Bailey, the principal
investigator in the Kenya study. "It's not just a shot in the arm."

Write to Mark Schoofs at mark.schoofs@wsj.com1, Sarah Lueck at
sarah.lueck@wsj.com2 and Michael M. Phillips at
michael.phillips@wsj.com3

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112052891400077032,00.html