Why is this a debate?

[sanul...@yahoo.com]

I wonder why this is so much a debate. In my country every single boy
is circumcised, that means Christians, Hindus, Muslims. We prefer it
that way because we have many tourists and you can believe me when I
say we know enough about uncircumcised to have an excellent opinion.
We do not like it and that is why we circumcise all our boys. All
you must do is look at uncircumcised, to know it cannot be hygienic.
But now foreigners who have never been here, write letters to our
newspapers and say we should keep foreskins "intact". What is their
business that they need to meddle in our life and our preference?

[sanul...@yahoo.com]

My country is Fiji. It is in my email address but the Groups made it
shorter so they cut the country out, sorry.
It is not just Fiji. All Melanesian people circumcise their boys.
Most Polynesians too but I am not sure if it is all of them.

[jul...@y7mail.com]

Historically supercision rather than circumcision has been more common
among Melanesian peoples. This method is also known as the "dorsal
slit". Instead of cutting off the foreskin, it is slit longitudinally
down its entire length on the top of the penis. This method keeps
the foreskin but it hangs loosely like an apron below the head of the
penis. The method helps solve the odour problem which is very bad in
hot, humid climates. The head of the penis can "breathe" and this
discourages build up of smegma and urine within the foreskin. It is
also less painful than a cut around the entire foreskin which is
another reason it was more popular. Today circumcision is more common
because it is more convenient now that painkillers are available for
the surgery. Melanesian women will not have sex with a man whose
penis has not been circumcised or supecised. It is considered unclean
and immature. The operation is done at puberty.

The exception is the Maori. They used to practice circumcision but
most gave it up at the time of European colonization. It seems to be
coming back into fashion now because the Maori are trying to establish
a distinct identity and look to past practices. New Zealand hospitals
will not perform circumcision for non medical reasons but many Maori
parents take their boys to private practitioners now for circumcision.

[windinghighway]

On Oct 27, 4:27 pm, sanulo.f...@yahoo.com wrote:

> But now foreigners who have never been here, write letters to our
> newspapers and say we should keep foreskins "intact".   What is their
> business that they need to meddle in our life and our preference?

I dont know your newspaper but I can give a good guess who is behind
the meddling. A foreskin fanatic named Hugh Young, who used to make a
fool of himself regularly here, now spends his time writing to the
online versions of local newspapers all over the world under various
pseudonyms, particularly "Hugh 7". He sends out versions of a
standard letter in which he attacks the research showing that
foreskins contribute to the spread of HIV.

Here's the really revealing part. In the early days of research into
the HIV-foreskin link, almost every survey from different countries
showed that foreskins were implicated. Hugh Young rejected ALL these
studies as useless, claiming that you cant rely on surveys and their
correlations -- only on random controlled trials. When THESE were
done, he confidently proclaimed, it would be proved that there was no
link at all. He insisted over and over again that nothing else is
scientifically reliable.

Well, eventually not one, not two, but THREE random controlled trials
were done, and all showed conclusively that foreskins DO contribute to
the spread of AIDS. So what did this shameless charlatan do then?
Easy. He withdrew from this group where he had made all his previous
statements, and now he writes letters to newspapers asserting that the
random controlled trials are invalid! And why are they are invalid?
Ah, he says, there is an occasional survey study that doesnt match
all the others -- and those must be taken as proof that theres no
connection between HIV and foreskins. Random controlled trials be
damned.

A true triumph of intellectual dishonesty in the service of the lowly
foreskin!

[Ron Low]

On Nov 11, 2:00 pm, windinghighway <windinghigh...@aol.com> wrote:
> In the early days of research into
> the HIV-foreskin link,  almost every survey from different countries
> showed that foreskins were implicated.

You are utterly ridiculous as usual.

Stats from about half the nations in Africa show that the circumcised
have markedly higher HIV incidence. This includes nations like
Swaziland and Rwanda who have been sold mass circumcision campaigns.

> THREE random controlled trials
> were done, and all showed conclusively that foreskins DO contribute to
> the spread of AIDS.

NOT conclusive at all, as you would see if you read the critiques
published by medical experts.

- The men were not a random sample but a self-selected group who ALL
wanted to be circumcised for cultural reasons, which include being
seen as more of a responsible adult after submitting to circumcision.

- In all three trials at least three times as many men were lost to
follow-up (status unknown) as were infected.

- The cut men had a long period of abstinence after surgery. Since all
three of the studies were cut short to only 25% of their original
agreed-to protocol durations (akin to wagering on best 2 out of 3 in
dice but claiming your winnings after the first roll) this effect was
exaggerated. The intact men basically had up to twice as much time to
have sex during the trials.

- The cut men had multiple follow-up visits with the clinic, receiving
safe-sex counseling and condoms at each visit.

- The men were all paid for their participation and they knew that
their benefactors were trying to prove the value of circumcising.

- When study authors have a strong history of bias and advocacy,
extraordinary measures are appropriate to ensure that the bias does
not affect the results of their work, but none were taken.

- The supposed reduced HIV risk from being circumcised is NOT born out
in any real-world scenario. In half the African nations it is the
circumcised who have markedly higher HIV incidence. The US has three
times the HIV incidence Europe has despite most Europeans being intact
and most sexually active adults in the US being cut. Most of the US
men who have died of AIDS were circumcised at birth.

- Follow-up studies by the SAME researchers refute the findings: Wawer/
Gray 2009 found that the Ugandan men they circumcised were 50% MORE
likely to infect their female partners with deadly HIV than the men
they left intact were. Bailey 2010 reported the men of Kisumu were no
less likely to have HIV if circumcised.

[Jake Waskett]

On Sun, 13 Nov 2011 17:50:00 -0800, Ron Low wrote:

> On Nov 11, 2:00 pm, windinghighway <windinghigh...@aol.com> wrote:
>> In the early days of research into
>> the HIV-foreskin link,  almost every survey from different countries
>> showed that foreskins were implicated.
>
> You are utterly ridiculous as usual.

Actually, he's perfectly correct. See, Weiss et al (2000), in which 21
of 27 studies found evidence of a protective effect. http://
www.circs.org/index.php/Library/Weiss

>
> Stats from about half the nations in Africa show that the circumcised
> have markedly higher HIV incidence. This includes nations like
> Swaziland and Rwanda who have been sold mass circumcision campaigns.
>
>> THREE random controlled trials
>> were done, and all showed conclusively that foreskins DO contribute to
>> the spread of AIDS.
>
> NOT conclusive at all, as you would see if you read the critiques
> published by medical experts.

Nonsense.

> - The men were not a random sample but a self-selected group who ALL
> wanted to be circumcised for cultural reasons, which include being seen
> as more of a responsible adult after submitting to circumcision.

So are you claiming that the uncircumcised men became HIV positive on
purpose? Come on, this isn't plausible.

> - In all three trials at least three times as many men were lost to
> follow-up (status unknown) as were infected.

And what evidence is there that these men would be any different from
those who were included? None.

> - The cut men had a long period of abstinence after surgery. Since all
> three of the studies were cut short to only 25% of their original
> agreed-to protocol durations

Not exactly correct.

> (akin to wagering on best 2 out of 3 in
> dice but claiming your winnings after the first roll) this effect was
> exaggerated. The intact men basically had up to twice as much time to
> have sex during the trials.

And all three studies included multiple points at which HIV testing
occurred. Consequently, if the protection were due to the period of
abstinence, it would only be observed in the first testing period, not
those afterwards. In fact, of course, it was quite consistent.

> - The cut men had multiple follow-up visits with the clinic, receiving
> safe-sex counseling and condoms at each visit.

As did the uncircumcised men.

> - The men were all paid for their participation and they knew that their
> benefactors were trying to prove the value of circumcising.

Ah, well, that's sure to make the uncircumcised men leap to become HIV+...

> - When study authors have a strong history of bias and advocacy,
> extraordinary measures are appropriate to ensure that the bias does not
> affect the results of their work, but none were taken.

But they don't have a history of bias, and only a small minority have any
history of advocacy.

> - The supposed reduced HIV risk from being circumcised is NOT born out
> in any real-world scenario. In half the African nations it is the
> circumcised who have markedly higher HIV incidence. The US has three
> times the HIV incidence Europe has despite most Europeans being intact
> and most sexually active adults in the US being cut. Most of the US men
> who have died of AIDS were circumcised at birth.

Between-country comparisons are notoriously unreliable.

> - Follow-up studies by the SAME researchers refute the findings: Wawer/
> Gray 2009 found that the Ugandan men they circumcised were 50% MORE
> likely to infect their female partners with deadly HIV than the men they
> left intact were.

First, you've misrepresented the results: they actually found no
statistically significant difference. And second, that was testing a
different issue: male->female transmission rather than female->male.

> Bailey 2010 reported the men of Kisumu were no less
> likely to have HIV if circumcised.

That wasn't an RCT.

[TLC Tugger]

On Nov 14, 11:13 am, Jake Waskett <j...@waskett.org> wrote:
> > - The supposed reduced HIV risk from being circumcised is NOT born out
> > in any real-world scenario. In half the African nations it is the
> > circumcised who have markedly higher HIV incidence. The US has three
> > times the HIV incidence Europe has despite most Europeans being intact
> > and most sexually active adults in the US being cut. Most of the US men
> > who have died of AIDS were circumcised at birth.
>
> Between-country comparisons are notoriously unreliable.

The stats stand as concrete indisputable proof that circumcision is
neither necessary nor sufficient to thwart AIDS.

> > - Follow-up studies by the SAME researchers refute the findings: Wawer/
> > Gray 2009 found that the Ugandan men they circumcised were 50% MORE
> > likely to infect their female partners with deadly HIV than the men they
> > left intact were.
>
> First, you've misrepresented the results: they actually found no
> statistically significant difference.  And second, that was testing a
> different issue: male->female transmission rather than female->male.

Of course it's about male to female transmission. That's what I
said.

When most of the afflicted are females one can't ignore an increased
infection rate that washes away any benefit in f-to-m transmission
when making public health policy decisions.

You say they found no "siginificant" difference. If I recall it was
something akin to 12% of cut men infecting their partners and only 8%
of intact men infecting their partners. If you did an experiment to
see from which groups the next 20 infections would come, assuming the
cut/intact status was NOT a factor, the outcome 12/8 would occur less
then 20% of the time. That is, one could say there is an 80% chance
that there IS an underlying difference in M-to-F transmission between
cut and intact. And WHERE is the follow-up study to rule out this
grave threat to the partners of the men lining up for these free mass
circumcisions? Nowhere. Gray is practically in hiding about it
compared to the blitz he went on to publicize the earlier Uganda
findings. In fact his report on the 50% increased threat to cut mens
partners included the recommendation that known HIV+ men get
circumcised anyway. Anything to keep the knives busy.

A similar recommendation by Bailey in his 2010 report (that found no
protective effect for cutting) demonstrates that these guys are up to
something and it's not about reducing HIV.

[Jake Waskett]

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:36:00 -0800, TLC Tugger wrote:

>> > - Follow-up studies by the SAME researchers refute the findings:
>> > Wawer/ Gray 2009 found that the Ugandan men they circumcised were 50%
>> > MORE likely to infect their female partners with deadly HIV than the
>> > men they left intact were.
>>
>> First, you've misrepresented the results: they actually found no
>> statistically significant difference.  And second, that was testing a
>> different issue: male->female transmission rather than female->male.
>
> Of course it's about male to female transmission. That's what I said.

You said they refute the findings. Which is difficult to do if you have
a different research question.

> You say they found no "siginificant" difference. If I recall it was
> something akin to 12% of cut men infecting their partners and only 8% of
> intact men infecting their partners. If you did an experiment to see
> from which groups the next 20 infections would come, assuming the
> cut/intact status was NOT a factor, the outcome 12/8 would occur less
> then 20% of the time. That is, one could say there is an 80% chance
> that there IS an underlying difference in M-to-F transmission between
> cut and intact.

Well, rather than relying on your memory and guesswork, let's try some
facts and statistics, shall we?

First, the article is here:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%
2960998-3/abstract

17 of 93 partners of circumcised men became HIV+ (so 76 didn't)
8 of 70 partners of uncircumcised men became HIV+ (so 62 didn't)

Now, the correct procedure is to formulate a null hypothesis (that there
is no underlying association), and to calculate how likely it is that
such a result would have occurred by chance.

Now, go to the following page and enter these values in clockwise order:
17 76 8 62.

http://www.graphpad.com/quickcalcs/contingency1.cfm

The result, you will see, is a p value of 0.2760. Put another way,
there's a 28% chance of seeing such a result if the null hypothesis is
true. By convention, a p value of more than 0.05 is considered not
significant.

> And WHERE is the follow-up study to rule out this grave
> threat to the partners of the men lining up for these free mass
> circumcisions? Nowhere. Gray is practically in hiding about it
> compared to the blitz he went on to publicize the earlier Uganda
> findings.

If you find no statistically significant difference, why would you need
to worry? You're not making any sense.

> In fact his report on the 50% increased threat to cut mens
> partners included the recommendation that known HIV+ men get circumcised
> anyway. Anything to keep the knives busy.
>
> A similar recommendation by Bailey in his 2010 report (that found no
> protective effect for cutting) demonstrates that these guys are up to
> something and it's not about reducing HIV.

No, it demonstrates that they understand epidemiology. Bailey's 2010
report, for example, was an *observational* study, not an RCT. If he
discarded the results of three RCTs in favour of an observational study,
he'd be completely incompetent! Higher quality trumps lower quality
evidence, not the other way around.

[windinghighway]

On Nov 13, 8:50 pm, Ron Low <tlctuggerserv...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Nov 11, 2:00 pm, windinghighway <windinghigh...@aol.com> wrote:
>

> > In the early days of research into
> > the HIV-foreskin link,  almost every survey from different countries
> > showed that foreskins were implicated.

>
> You are utterly ridiculous as usual.

Let's wait till I have finished with you, then we can decide who is
ridiculous.

Meanwhile, my statement above is entirely correct, so what's
ridiculous about it?

>
> Stats from about half the nations in Africa show that the circumcised
> have markedly higher HIV incidence.

Utter nonsense. There are 54 nations in Africa and most of them have
never even collected stats on the issue. What fatuous anti-circ
website did you copy and paste this drivel from?

> This includes nations like
> Swaziland and Rwanda who have been sold mass circumcision campaigns.

Yes both those countries are conducting circumcision campaigns that
ultimately may rid their entire populations of foreskins. They are
in the thick of an AIDS epidemic and believe it or not, they know all
about HIV and foreskins. In your remote arrogance, you think they
have no idea what they are doing and were "sold" the campaigns, rather
than that they made a rational choice. The fact is that the
governments there are familiar with the scientific literature -- a lot
more so than you are, if I may so so. The also notice that if you
overlay maps of HIV rates and uncut rates in Africa, you find that
that the two overlap almost perfectly. And they know that because of
confounding factors, observational studies will sometimes turn up some
findings that are inconsistent with the rest. In the two countries
you cite, the indigenous populations do not practice circumcision at
all, hence data on circumcised males there is likely contaminated by
foreign refugees from Congo in the case of Rwanda and from Zimbabwe in
the case of Swaziland, who have completely different histories than
the host populations. It may be hard for you to believe that African
scientists know more about how to handle lethal disease in their
countries than you sitting in Chicago, but it's a fact. To you its
just a game of copy and paste. To them its a matter of life and
death.

>
> > THREE random controlled trials
> > were done, and all showed conclusively that foreskins DO contribute to
> > the spread of AIDS.
>
> NOT conclusive at all, as you would see if you read the critiques
> published by medical experts.

Of course they are conclusive - - that's why they are accepted by the
WHO and most governments in the worst affected areas. Your
"critiques published by medical experts" are often by rank amateurs
and appear mostly on foreskin lover websites and in a handful of
obscure publications that the medical community doesn't take
seriously. The medical community knows that most of these people are
cranks (and that much of the impetus for these websites comes from
homosexual foreskin fetishists). In many ways the HIV-foreskin
denialist position is similar to that of the HIV-AIDs denialist
position -- similar little incestuous groups publishing ignorant
critiques and junk science to a tiny circle of credulous enthusiasts.
These groups would just be a joke, or at worst an irritant, except
for the danger that somebody in power might actually listen to them.
That happened in South Africa when President Mbeki bought into the HIV-
AIDS denialist myth, with truly tragic consequences for his country.
Let us hope that national leaders dont make the same mistake with the
HIV-foreskin link. Fortunately most of them are on the right track
and Africa is experiencing a welcome wave of circumcision campaigns.

>
> - The men were not a random sample

Oooooh? We need a random sample for a study to be valid, do we?
Tell me, does this apply to the anti circumcision studies too?
Because if it does, out goes most of the "studies" that the anti circ
side quotes here so approvingly, doesnt it? I take it this means, at
a minimum, that you reject studies by Dan Bollinger et al that rely on
members of foreskin lover organizations and other unspecified
subjects? Please confirm.

By the way, have you thought about how you would persuade a random
sample of the population to get circumcised? Of course you havent.
If you think about it you will see what a ridiculous objection that
is.

Anyway you misunderstand the nature of a RCT. If you were doing a
study like an opinion poll you would need a random sample. For an RCT
like this you would actually be better off if you could study a sample
of a few hundred identical genetic clones, who you would then assign
randomly to be circumcised or not, rather than a random sample of the
population with all the baggage they would bring. In an RCT its
actually preferable that the subjects be as similar as possible in all
respects OTHER than the variable you are studying.

>but a self-selected group

This is true of virtually all medical trials but I dont see you
objecting to our leading drugs for hypertension, cholesterol,
migraine, chemotherapy, etc, which were tested the same way. It's
just foreskins that get your goat, isnt it? What a silly objection
-- but no doubt it's copied and pasted from one of those dumb sites.

> who ALL
> wanted to be circumcised for cultural reasons, which include being
> seen as more of a responsible adult after submitting to circumcision.

Uh huh. And so your argument must be, that made more of the
uncircumcised ones go out and get AIDS. Do you have any idea how
ridiculous that is?

>
> - In all three trials at least three times as many men were lost to
> follow-up (status unknown) as were infected.

High drop out rates are common and expected in many long term medical
trials and dont matter, unless you have some reason to suppose that
the randomly chosen ones who stayed in are different in some critical
respect from the randomly chosen ones who dropped out. You seem to
be saying that those who dropped out would have different or even
opposite results to those who stayed in, which is pretty ridiculous.

>
> - The cut men had a long period of abstinence after surgery.

You really cant be sure of that, but what I find interesting here is
the reversal of the usual anti circ argument. A favorite claim of
the anti circers is that circumcised men will run out and have sex
before their wounds are healed, therefore circumcision increases the
likelihood of getting HIV. Gee, I dont see you copying and pasting
that one from the anti circ websites. I wonder why not? A bit too
inconvenient this time, perhaps, since youre trying to make the
opposite argument for once?

> Since all
> three of the studies were cut short to only 25% of their original
> agreed-to protocol durations (akin to wagering on best 2 out of 3 in
> dice but claiming your winnings after the first roll) this effect was
> exaggerated.

It's called ethics. If it appears during the a medical trial that the
variable is having a marked effect in saving lives or improving severe
conditions, the researchers are ethically obligated to stop the trial
and offer the intervention to all the participants. It happens all
the time. Just last week an AIDS trial was stopped because the
variable (a viricidal gel) was not working and might actually be
causing a dangerous vaginal irritation. I suppose you would want that
trial to continue too? Or not?

> - The cut men had multiple follow-up visits with the clinic, receiving
> safe-sex counseling and condoms at each visit.

So did the uncut men. This raises an interesting question. Did you
know that fact, so that you were deliberately making a deceptive
statement? Or didn't you know that fact, so you were making an
invalid critique out of ignorance? My guess if that you have never
read the originals and just copied and pasted from one of your anti
circ websites, which leaves you looking, well.....ridiculous, at
best.

>
> - The men were all paid for their participation

So what? Are you saying that if they were all paid, then the uncut
men OF COURSE would go out and get infected at a higher rate than the
cut men? Are you implying that if they WERENT paid, you would get the
reverse effect, and, the cut men would get higher infection rates? Or
what? You really don't have a clue, do you?

> and they knew that
> their benefactors were trying to prove the value of circumcising.

Actually they knew the experimenters wanted to find out if
circumcision had any protective effect against HIV infection. But
again, so what? Anybody who enters an RCT for an antidepressant or a
stent or a shingles vaccine is in the same position. Are you saying
you have a problem with almost all research on medical interventions?
Or again, it is just foreskins that get your goat? And if so, you
must be claiming that knowledge of the goal of the experiment made
uncircumcised men go out and get more than their fair share of HIV.
Which frankly, is ridiculous.

Let me try again. Listen up now, you might learn something. It
DOESNT MATTER if all of the men were paid, or all were not paid, or
all were vegetarians, or all were not vegetarians, or all wore pink
ribbons in their hair, or all didnt wear pink ribbons in their hair --
just so long as they all shared that characteristic before they were
randomly divided into two groups, one of which was subjected to the
variable, and one not. That's what a random controlled trial IS, you
see. It might matter if the cut or uncut group was paid, or wore pink
robbons, while the other group wasnt. But that didn't happen because
the researchers did the experiment properly. This paragraph is not
difficult to understand and I earnestly suggest you read it a couple
more times to make sure you understand the nature of an RCT, because
its obvious from your comments that you have no clue at all.

>
> - When study authors have a strong history of bias and advocacy

The researchers actually have histories of academically sound, peer
reviewed research findings, and if some of them have advocated
circumcision as a strategy against AIDS, it is because that is the
logical conclusion of their work and the ethical thing to do. The
same would apply to researchers who discovered a critical link for any
other disease, be it malaria or cancer.

,
> extraordinary measures are appropriate to ensure that the bias does
> not affect the results of their work

Golly, does that apply to anti circ researchers too? Are there any
anti circ studies you would care to mention that meet your criteria
for perfection? I'd love to have a list so I can take a look at the
methodologies you admire.


>but none were taken.

None? They took no measures to protect against bias? That's an
extraordinary claim. If you can back it up you can probably get the
journals that published the studies to retract them. Please list for
us the measures they didnt take -- this will be dynamite!!

> - The supposed reduced HIV risk from being circumcised is NOT born out
> in any real-world scenario.

Check the real world map of Africa. Check the HIV rates in
circumcised v uncircumcised African countries. Im amazed you havent
done it before but when you do you will get a big surprise.

>In half the African nations it is the
> circumcised who have markedly higher HIV incidence.

.
Utter nonsense, as I pointed out earlier. But hey, why not show YOU
arent ridiculous and make ME look ridiculous by listing the (minimum)
28 African countries that you say have a "markedly higher HIV
incidence". A definition of "markedly" would help too.

Here Ill make it easy for you. When you hit "reply" you can just
fill in the blanks, OK?

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28

> The US has three
> times the HIV incidence Europe has despite most Europeans being intact
> and most sexually active adults in the US being cut.

As has been pointed out to you here before, the US has a quite
different history and epidemiology from Europe, including an earlier
epidemic arrival and peak, a different initial government response, a
mass orgiastic gay culture in the seventies such as never existed in
Europe, a much higher rate of non-sexual infection via IV drugs, a
population that practices more unsafe sex, etc. Despite all this the
US rate is below the world average. It is notable that the HIV rates
in the US are significantly higher among the disproportionally
uncircumcised black and hispanic populations than among the more
circumcised white population. Finally, the almost completely
circumcised white heterosexual American population has a negligible
HIV rate, even after 30 years of an epidemic raging about them. How do
you explain that? All this has been patiently explained to you
before and you have never had a response to it, yet you still bring it
up. I suppose it just goes over your head.

>Most of the US
> men who have died of AIDS were circumcised at birth.

Hardly surprising, since almost of the men in that age group were
circumcised. This is a thoroughly disingenuous argument which you
should really be ashamed of. I could smugly assert that "Most of the
men who have died of AIDS in Norway were left uncircumcised from
birth", but I have enough intellectual honesty not to make such an
argument. And I have enough facts that I don't need to resort to
anything so tawdry.

>
> - Follow-up studies by the SAME researchers refute the findings

Hold on, are these the SAME researchers that you have claimed all
along are biased and whose findings cannot be trusted?

I'm trying to work out your position on this, so tell me if I have got
this right:

1. Any researcher whose findings support foreskins is to be trusted
and their findings accepted without question.
2. Any researcher whose findings support circumcision is probably
biased and the results were probably rigged.
3. Except that any researcher whose findings normally support
circumcision, but who produces some results that support foreskins, is
definitely correct in respect of that research, but that research
only.

If I didn't get that right, please correct me and let me know where
you stand on this.

Here's where I stand. I look at the quality of the research and judge
it accordingly. Heres the proof. If you go back through the archives
here, you will see that when observational studies started showing the
HIV-foreskin connection, every anti circer here who expressed an
opinion declared WITHOUT EXCEPTION that the findings must be wrong!
They couldnt say why, except to suggest unknown confounding factors,
but they were unanimous that the findings must be wrong, even as study
after study came to the same conclusion. But I didn't take a firm
position, because there wasnt enough evidence and I wanted to keep an
open mind. I started by using words like "may" and "might". As the
evidence mounted, I started saying the link was "possible" and then
"likely". As it mounted further, I started using words like
"probably" and then "almost certainly". But I wanted to wait until
there was a RCT to settle the issue. The anti circers, led Hugh Young
and Dan Bollinger, constantly demanded an RCT because they were 100
percent sure -- BEFORE the experiment was even done -- that it would
support their position. At the time I predicted that if an RCT did
prove a link beween HIV and foreskins, they would immediately refuse
to accept it. And that's what happened. I follow the science, you
see, and when we had three RCTs I knew the issue was settled. But the
anti circers suddenly did a total about-face and became great critics
of RCTs -- and now claim that occasional incongruent observational
studies trump everything else, confounding factors be damned! Theres
a phrase for this, Rob, and its "intellectual dishonesty".

>: Wawer/
> Gray 2009 found that the Ugandan men they circumcised were 50% MORE
> likely to infect their female partners with deadly HIV than the men
> they left intact were. Bailey 2010 reported the men of Kisumu were no
> less likely to have HIV if circumcised.

Yes. They do their research and they publish their findings, whatever
they might be. Thats good science, and exactly what I would expect
from them.

However as Jake Waskett has pointed out, you got your facts about
these studies wrong or interpreted them incorrectly.

So now, Rob Low aka TLC Tugger -- who is ridiculous?

[windinghighway]

On Dec 31 2011, 12:54 am, M...@edu.edu wrote:
> There are other things that affect this problem FAR MORE and Political
> Correctness (pronounced Bullshit) stops people from addressing the real
> problem.

>
> It takes many exposures, on average, to contract AIDS/HIV.  Some
> estimates are around 8 exposures.

Youre seriously over simplifying. Several factors affect how many
exposures might result in infection, the most important one probably
being the viral load of the infected partner. This load is usually
highest soon after infection, after which it usually decreases until
full blown AIDS appears, which is on average about ten years later.
So it's really not a matter of how many exposures, but rather of what
kind of exposures and with who.


>The people in these countries don't
> use condoms (thank you religion)

Its sometimes about religion but more often about economics. With
billions of people living on a dollar a day or less, they aren't going
to spend much on condoms.

> and seem to have sex with anything with
> two legs as often as possible, whether married or not.

I'm not sure what your objection to that is... unless its
religion??? Is it?

>
> In some countries, the women are expected to dry fuck by virtue of
> excessively washing their vaginas until squeaky (literally) clean.

Quite rare, actually, and irrelevant to most of the HIV epidemic.


>
> So to slow it down, leave foreskins alone

Why, when they are proved to be implicated in the spread of HIV?


> and stop the rampant
> promiscuity.

Yeah well good luck with that. How do suggest we get humanity to
finally stop fucking around? Let me guess. Sex education in
schools? LOL LOL LOL.


> Keep it zipped (or tied or whatever).  Just act in a more
> responsible manner.  I know that will never happen and my political
> correctness prevents me from saying more on the subject.  But one can
> ask for a change.  Too bad it won't occur...

Yep. It won't occur. So it's a waste of time proposing it.
Better to hand out condoms and snip foreskins, methinks.

>
> And a second reality check on your proposition:
>
> Remember, the US is among the most circumcised countries and, for a
> while, lead the way with AIDS/HIV infection.  So how good is that "get
> cut, no AIDS" monologue standing up for you now?

Nobody ever said "get cut, no aids", or anything like it. Scientists
have proved that getting cut reduces the spread of HIV, a finding
which stands up very well.



>It makes absolutely no
> sense!!  Just think a few seconds before spewing back.  Think!  Count to
> 100 and let it soak through.  Most cut country = Most AIDS/HIV.

The US is not and never has been the most cut country, and it doesnt
have the most AIDS/HIV. In fact the US rate is below the world
average.


> GOT IT
> NOW ???

You are the one who needs to get it, actually.


>So circumcision is NOT the big deal you claim, is it?  NOPE!!

I just claim what the scientific literature claims. If you have an
argument with that, please let us have the specific details here and
we will take a look. Facts please, not unsupported opinions.


>
> A Thinker

Er....your NOT a thinker.

[Henry Thaler]

Mr Ron Low presents himself as an expert on circumcision and HIV but it is obvious to anyone that he does not understand scientific research and has not even read the research that he tries to to criticize with such extraordinary ineptitude.

It is now more than a decade since an expert panel, convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), concluded that “the efficacy of male circumcision in reducing female-to-male HIV transmission has been proven beyond reasonable doubt.” [March 2007]

Thirteen countries in eastern and southern Africa, along with Ethiopia’s Gambella Province, have been identified as priorities for expanding access to voluntary medical male circumcision. Modelling studies estimate that achieving — and then maintaining — 80 percent prevalence of male circumcision in the 13 priority countries would prevent 3.4 million HIV infections by 2025. Of course increased circumcision in other countries would prevent even more infections.

The health and even the lives of millions are at stake.

[Uckister777]

I didn't realize this was the thread where self proclaimed expert Ron Low ("TLC TUGGER") first peddled his claim that AIDS is markedly more common in circumcised than uncircumcised men in more than half the countries of Africa. That was 2011 and despite many, many requests the world is still waiting for him to provide proof of this absurd claim. He never will -- he knows it and we know it.

I read through Low's entire contribution here and the informed critiques from Winding Highway and Jake Waskett which expose him as an ignoramus, a deceiver, and most of all a fool. No surprise that he slinked away without either defending his positions or admitting his errors...that's who he is. For more exposes of this guy's falsehoods see the thread --

"PING! Ron Lowe aka TLC Tugger!!! Respond please!"

[Brasil Barry]

Em domingo, 13 de novembro de 2011 22:50:00 UTC-3, Ron Low escreveu:


. Most of the US
> men who have died of AIDS were circumcised at birth.
>

And most of the Brazilian men who have died of AIDS were NOT circumcised at birth.

So what do you conclude from this?

I conclude you are stupid.

The right question is this, of the all the men in both countries who died of sexually transmitted AIDS (not through drug needles and other causes) what are relative proportions of circumcised and uncircumcised?

Then you conclude from the FACTS that like everywhere the uncircumcised men are more likely to get AIDS from sex.

[craigle...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 1:23:11 PM UTC-6, windinghighway wrote:

Wow you really took that bullshitter Ron Low to pieces. I dunno where you get the patience to go through all his inventions and mistakes and check the facts and correct it all. Im thinking you are very conscientious prof who grades graduate student papers? Most people would let his lies and tricks slip by because they couldn't be bothered to take on the job.. which is probably what he counts on.

[Wakka]

On Tuesday, 15 November 2011 16:36:00 UTC, TLC Tugger wrote:


> The stats stand as concrete indisputable proof that circumcision is
> neither necessary nor sufficient to thwart AIDS.

That is Straw Man argument! Nobody ever said circumcision is necessary or sufficient to thwart AIDS!

Much evidence is that circumcision significantly reduces chance of getting infected. You can challenge that if you like, not a belief that nobody holds!

[CanadaLad]

On Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 10:27:00 PM UTC+1, sanul...@yahoo.com wrote:

> I wonder why this is so much a debate.

Indeed. All the scientific evidence supports the benefits of circumcision, so the "intactivists" fall back on emotional arguments or dishonest statistics and turn what should be a routine snip into a controversial topic.

The sad fact is that a lot people are just plain dumb and will believe anything regardless of the facts. At the moment I write this Donald Trump is claiming that he really won an election that he lost, and 70 percent of Republicans agree that the election was stolen from him. The actual evidence doesn't affect what they believe in the slightest. Emotion can often triumph over glaring fact.