New circumcision study

I have previously written quite a lot about circumcision. See for example (1) here, (2) here, or (3) here. Circumcision proponents use different arguments when they try to spread this surgical procedure. Sometimes they say that your hygiene benefits, which may be true if you never ever clean yourself under the foreskin - hardly a reason for removing the foreskin. Another rather medievil argument is that circumcision will make it harder for the child to masturbate, and after all sexual pleasure is something you should avoid!


The only potentially valid argument for the use of circumcision, an argument which has only been around for perhaps five years (before that circumcision was conducted for irrational reasons entirely), is that it may reduce the risk of getting HIV if you have unprotected sex. Based on this some people argue that we should use mass circumcision to prevent the spread of HIV. There are many arguements against this.

First of all, people normally don't make their sexual debut when they are still in diapers, so let them choose themselves whether they wan't to be circumcised when they have reached an age where they can actually make such decisions. Secondly, condoms work much better than having your penis circumcised, so why not spend all the money advocating the use of condoms and handing them out for free instead? Furthermore, people who have been circumcised may feel safer and therefore have more unprotected sex, thus cancelling the potential gain...

Another serious argument against circumcision is that circumcision may cause serious problems for the patient in terms of penile function and penile sensitivity. The foreskin has a lot of sensory nerve endings. According to estimates that I have read, 50% of the nerve endings in the penis are in the foreskin. Just recently a study investigating the consequences of circumcision came out.

The study seems to show that people who have been circumcised do not suffer from reduced pleasure, at least that is what they say. However, as Mary Crewe points out, studies like these do not take into account psychological biases which are very likely to be at work. If you go and have yourself circumcised (the people in the study voluntered of course), then you will want to justify that decisions afterwards. As a result, minor troubles are likely not to be reported. The patient will simply bite together and say "I am fine, and my sex life is great".

For this reason I think it would be a mistake to start circumcising people based on this type of questionnaire evidence. Some sort of medical examination of penile function (or dysfunction) would be preferred.

South Africa finally starting to realize what AIDS is…

Each time I have read about AIDS policies in South Africa I have been amazed. South Africa is, as far as I know, a relatively developed country if you compare it to other nations in the same area, yet somehow they have managed to avoid reading about AIDS research for at least a decennium. Only a few years ago president Mbeki (picture) questioned whether HIV and AIDS were related(!). Since then his unbelievable ignorance has generated headlines on a regular basis. On one of his particularly bright moment Mbeki said that he did not know anyone who had died in AIDS. Not long before he uttered these words his own press secretary had succumbed to the disease, not to mention the 600 people who die from AIDS in South Africa every single day!

The climax happened in august this year when South African representatives visited the international AIDS conference, proudly exhibiting their best cures against the disease, such as beets and garlic. They were severely ridiculed because of this, and a speech by AIDS activist Stephen Lewis (who is by the way not welcome in South Africa) received wild cheers when he described South Africa’s AIDS policy as insanity (I would have clapped to). Since then South Africa, thank god, have started to give their population conventional medicine which can help increase life span as well as life quality. Out of the 5.5 million HIV carriers in South Africa today, 213000 are receiving medicines, a figure which is currently increasing with 11000 per month. Too slow indeed, but better than it has been before.

What I really find hard to understand about all this is why? What do politicians have to gain by letting their people suffer more than is necessary? Does anyone know? Or is it really true that they believe Garlic and beets (or having sex with infants) really helps? Do religious beliefs play a role? In all fairness you can find weird cures for most things in most countries, but rarely does the government itself hold such outrageous beliefs about such a serious belief…

Most of this I read in yesterdays (14^th of December 2006) issue of In yesterdays Svenska dagbladet.