ZIKA VIRUS I wonder if uncircumcised men are more likely to get it and spread it?

[parke...@yahoo.co.uk]

The zika virus is spreading like crazy and causing deformed mentally defective babies. Mostly spread by mosquitoes but also by sex!!!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/zika/12204820/Men-with-Zika-should-wait-six-months-before-unprotected-sex-say-US-health-experts.html

Most STDs are more common with uncircumcised men. (Maybe all of them? Offhand I don't know an exception).

So maybe zika is like HIV, herpes, HPV, other viruses, more likely to be got and spread by uncircumcised??? If so this will be HUGE.

[David Edwards]

On Sunday, 27 March 2016 12:25:51 UTC+1, parke...@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

> The zika virus is spreading like crazy and causing deformed mentally defective babies. Mostly spread by mosquitoes but also by sex!!!

>

> So maybe zika is like HIV, herpes, HPV, other viruses, more likely to be got and spread by uncircumcised??? If so this will be HUGE.

I betcha it will. Uncut dick is exactly the kinda grody environment viruses like. It's gotta be paradise for them. They'll divide in there so fast they'll be fallin all over each other.
HUGE?? It will be GIGANTIC if this is right and the news gets out. Nothing makes a girl reach for the scissors quicker than the idea that some uncut guy is gonna give her a pointy head imbecile baby.

[jackpi...@gmail.com]

- - - - -

It remains to be shown that Zika causes microencephalitis. Likely it does, but the mechanism is unknown, so the hypothesis is supported only inferentially.

[Quentin]

It is very likely that uncircumcised men will be a useful host and vector for this virus. The foreskin is warm, moist, and rich with organic debris, providing an ideal environment for pathogens like viruses and bacteria. This is almost certainly the reason for the increased susceptibility of uncircumcised men to most STDS. (In the case of HIV, the virus also directly infects the victim through the Langerhans cells of the foreskin).

So far the virus has been found not only in semen and blood products, but also in urine. Uncircumcised men inevitably leave traces of urine within the foreskin every time they urinate. An infected man might deposit urine-born viruses inside his foreskin, where they would multiply rapidly and add significantly to the viral load he might transmit to a partner.

[mehdi...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, March 29, 2016 at 4:40:19 PM UTC+7, Quentin wrote:
>
>
> The foreskin is warm, moist, and rich with organic debris, providing an ideal environment for pathogens like viruses and bacteria. This is almost certainly the reason for the increased susceptibility of uncircumcised men to most STDS. (In the case of HIV, the virus also directly infects the victim through the Langerhans cells of the foreskin).

Not just that, there are other reasons too because uncut men get more STDs so they have more lesions and sores and portals for infection on their dicks. Also they have more physical problems like balanitis, torn frenulum, cracking of foreskin from diabetes and so on that leave more openings for HIV

OF COURSE uncut men will be more likely to get ZIKA and spread it! Think about it.

[jackpi...@gmail.com]

mehdi...@gmail.com

. . . . . .

Aren't you the one who just slammed mudpuppy for lack of citation? Or is "think about it" your source of information?

[mehdi...@gmail.com]

On Monday, April 4, 2016 at 5:48:38 PM UTC+7, jackpi...@gmail.com wrote:
> mehdi...@gmail.com

>
>
>
> Not just that, there are other reasons too because uncut men get more STDs so they have more lesions and sores and portals for infection on their dicks.  Also they have more physical problems like balanitis, torn frenulum, cracking of foreskin from diabetes and so on that leave more openings for HIV 
>
> OF COURSE  uncut men will be more likely to get ZIKA and spread it!  Think  about it. 
> . . . . . .
>
> Aren't you the one who just slammed mudpuppy for lack of citation? Or is "think about it" your source of information?

Huh???? are you retarded or something? Reading disability maybe? Nobody gives citations for common knowledge. What I stated is common knowledge and been so for years. Try going through it with me, take it slow n easy so you follow OK?

''uncut men get more STDs" -- common knowledge
"so they have more lesions and sores and portals for infection on their dicks" -- common knowledge
" also they have more physical problems like balanitis, torn frenulum, cracking of foreskin from diabetes and so on" -- common knowledge
"that leave more openings for HIV" -- common knowledge

"Think about it" wasn't source of information, anybody can see it's an invite to draw obvious conclusion from evidence on OTHER stds and uncut dicks to THIS std and uncut dicks. It's an invite to THINK. Can you do that?

I saw from other posts that you don't really care about citations for knowledge sake, because you admit you keep demanding them if it suits your "ideology" . Seems you just try to be annoying that way because that's all you can come up with. You know something? You have a petty mind. Think about THAT.

[jackpi...@gmail.com]

>OF COURSE uncut men will be more likely to get ZIKA and spread it! Think about it.
. . . . .

If you're going to insist others cite their information, then so should you. What you have written above requires citation.

[jackpi...@gmail.com]

6:45 AMmehdi...@gmail.com

. . . . . . .

Tissue type is ikportant. If the Zika virus is transmitted only through semen, for example, then "infection portals" may be not be a factor.

[mehdi...@gmail.com]

Proved again what a petty, mental dwarf you are. I won't play your kindergarten games.

[Kim]

On Thursday, 7 April 2016 21:01:50 UTC+9, jackpi...@gmail.com wrote:

>
> Tissue type is ikportant. If the Zika virus is transmitted only through semen, for example, then "infection portals" may be not be a factor.

Zika virus has been found in several body fluids including blood, saliva, urine, semen, amniotic fluid, and saliva. The infection portals found more frequently or solely on uncircumcised penises make it more likely that uncircumcised men will become infected or transmit the infection. The foreskin also provides a site suitable for the survival and reproduction of the virus.

[jackpi...@gmail.com]

Kim

On Thursday, 7 April 2016 21:01:50 UTC+9, jackpi...@gmail.com wrote:

>
> Tissue type is ikportant. If the Zika virus is transmitted only through semen, for example, then "infection portals" may be not be a factor.

Zika virus has been found in several body fluids including blood, saliva, urine, semen, amniotic fluid, and saliva. The infection portals found more frequently or solely on uncircumcised penises make it more likely that uncircumcised men will become infected or transmit the infection. The foreskin also provides a site suitable for the survival and reproduction of the virus.

.. . .. . . . . ... . . . . ...

http://www.cdc.gov/zika/transmission/sexual-transmission.html


What we do not know -

We do not know how long the virus can stay in the semen of men who have had Zika.

We do not know if men infected with Zika who never develop symptoms can have the virus in their semen or spread Zika through sex.

We do not know if a woman can spread Zika to her sex partners.

We do not know if Zika can be spread through oral sex.

Although there are no known cases of Zika transmission from mouth-to-penis oral sex, Zika is known to be spread through semen. It may be possible for a man to spread Zika to his partners through oral (mouth-to-penis) sex.

It is not known if Zika can be spread from other body fluids that may be exchanged during oral sex, including saliva and vaginal fluid

[mehdi...@gmail.com]

It's confirmed that the virus causes microcephaly in infants and it's suspected it can cause other serious neurological problems in children and adults.

It's established that zika virus can be spread through anal as well as genital sex. It will probably turn out that it can be spread through all bodily fluids exchanged during sex.

According to CDC the three most common modes of transmission are mosquito bites, mother to child, and sex but there will likely be others.

It's probable that uncircumcised men will be more likely to get it and spread it as is the case with other sexually transmitted diseases.

Watch foreskin defenders go into denial about this just as they did about HIV!

[Uckister777]

On Monday, May 2, 2016 at 7:41:55 AM UTC+1, mehdi...@gmail.com wrote:

>
> It's probable that uncircumcised men will be more likely to get it and spread it as is the case with other sexually transmitted diseases.

>
> Watch foreskin defenders go into denial about this just as they did about HIV!

You bet they will! If the Zika-foreskin link turns out to be like the HIV-foreskin link the following will happen:

1. Before any scientific evidence is at hand, the foreskin lovers will strenuously deny that foreskins can encourage the spread of Zika.

2. Numerous surveys and case studies will show that uncircumcised men are more likely to be infected and to spread the infection. Foreskin lovers like Hugh Young and Dan Bollinger will claim that these studies must be corrupted, but won't be able to say why. They will call for a Random Controlled Trial as the only reliable way to settle the issue, and will express confidence that such an experiment will prove foreskins innocent.

3. Three RTC experiments in three different locations by three different sets of researchers will all show that uncircumcised men are much more likely to be become infected with Zika. Young, Bollinger, and the rest will promptly do an about-face and denounce all the RTCs as somehow corrupted, and still insist that there is no evidence that uncircumcised men are more likely to get infected.

4. The CDC and WHO will endorse the findings of the RTCs, leading the foreskin lovers to produce conspiracy theories to explain why the entire medical establishment is hoodwinking the public. These theories will include a Jewish plot to make all foreskins look the same; a plot by the cosmetics industry to get a supply of foreskins to create a rejuvenating cream; a plot by the world's epidemiologists to fake results to help pediatricians make money through circumcisions, etc etc.

5. With all the respectable research going against them, scientifically naive foreskin lovers like Robert van Howe, Dan Bollinger, and Morten Frisch will do methodologically ludicrous "studies" to conclude that foreskins don't encourage the spread of the virus, or even that they discourage it! With luck this junk science will be accepted by the obscure British Journal of Urology, a supposed scientific publication that adores foreskins but doesn't do proper peer review and so has a history of publishing articles laded with mathematical and logical errors.

6. The scientific community and world governments will move on, shaping public policies based on proven links between the virus and foreskins. But Hugh Young, Ron Low and a tiny handful of others will fight a pathetic rearguard action, writing propaganda letters to online newspapers all over the world in which they claim that the science is all wrong. Ron Low alone will write dozens of letters claiming that Zika is more common in circumcised than uncircumcised men in more than half the countries of Africa, but will flat out refuse repeated requests for a source for this nonsense.

That's what happens you fetishize the foreskin so much that you can't see the truth: that it's a public health hazard responsible for spreading many diseases.

[parke...@yahoo.co.uk]

I saw an article in the Guardian about how in Brazil which is the main zika location they now want to tackle it as an STD just like HIV and not just a mosquito problem. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/28/zika-virus-brazil-std-who-cdc-aids-hiv

So far I can't find anything on internet about circumcision and zika except what I wrote here about uncircumcised men more likely to have it. Seems I was the first to raise it?

Maybe I will be famous? LOL

[jackpi...@gmail.com]

mehdi...@gmail.com
- hide quoted text -

...............

No, I don't think calling names substitutes for citations.

[tanab...@gmail.com]

UNCIRCUMCISED MAN SPREADS ZIKA TO WOMAN, FIRST KNOWN CASE

Today there this report, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/nyregion/zika-virus-female-to-male-sexual-transmission.html?_r=0

It says this is the first known case of female to male spread of this terrible virus that deforms babies.
The investigators say the man was UNCIRCUMCISED and they say this could be FACTOR.

Just like AIDS I predict this will be another STD spread by uncircumcised men more than circumcised. Like other STDS too.

Read this :

Twist in Zika Outbreak: New York Case Shows Women Can Spread It to Men
By MARC SANTORAJULY 15, 2016

Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2014. “The more we learn about Zika, the more concerned we are,” he said. Credit John Bazemore/Associated Press
The first case of female-to-male sexual transmission of the Zika virus has been documented in New York City, raising the prospect that the disease could spread more widely beyond the countries where it is already endemic and largely transmitted by mosquitoes.

For months, there has been growing concern about the dangers of sexual transmission, but until now the virus has been thought to pass only from men to women or between two men.

“This represents the first reported occurrence of female-to-male sexual transmission of Zika virus,” said a report issued on Friday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The evidence of a previously undocumented transmission means is the latest twist in a viral outbreak that continues to baffle and surprise leading experts. It is prompting officials to rethink, once again, the guidance for health care providers and the general public on how to limit the danger of infection, as the pool of those who could be at risk widens.

Much about how the virus works is a mystery, and it remains challenging to detect; 80 percent of those infected show no symptoms. For those who do get sick, the illness is often mild, and there is no treatment.

But Zika can pose a dire risk to pregnant women. It targets developing nerve cells in fetuses and can lead to a birth defect called microcephaly, in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and brain damage. It may also cause developmental problems after birth.

Zika is primarily transmitted by the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, which thrives in warm, tropical climates. But 11 countries have documented cases of sexual transmission from a man to a woman. Among the 1,130 people who have received a Zika diagnosis in the continental United States, including 320 pregnant women, the C.D.C. has reported 15 cases of sexual transmission.

In a reflection of the urgency of the situation, White House officials joined with congressional leaders and public health officials this month to denounce the failure of lawmakers to provide much-needed funding to combat the virus. The legislative session in Congress ended on Thursday with lawmakers failing to provide money to fight it.

“The more we learn about Zika, the more concerned we are,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the director of the C.D.C., said during a recent conference call with reporters.

At least seven children have been born with birth defects and five pregnancy losses related to Zika in the United States. The lifetime cost of care is estimated to be $10 million for each sick child.

“Each case is a tragedy,” Dr. Frieden said. “A child that may never walk or live independently.”

The New York case is the first in which a man was infected by a woman, and it raises the prospect that other men — with no travel history to Zika-affected areas and no reason to suspect that they might have the virus — could become infected and pass the virus on, creating a new chain of transmission.

In the report, researchers found that a man, who was in his 20s and did not travel outside the United States during the year before his illness, contracted the virus after one instance of vaginal intercourse, without a condom, with a woman who had recently returned from a country where the virus is endemic.

Dr. Mary T. Bassett, the city’s health commissioner, said there were several factors in this case that might have raised the risk of infection: The man was uncircumcised, the woman was in the early stages of her illness when her viral load was high, and she was also at the beginning of her menstrual cycle.

The woman, described as being in her 20s and not pregnant, had sex with her partner the day she returned to the city. The report does not name the country she visited, but the virus is now widespread in nearly 50 countries throughout South America and the Caribbean.

“She reported having headache and abdominal cramping while in the airport before returning to N.Y.C.,” the report said. The next day she developed a number of symptoms associated with Zika, including fever, fatigue, a rash, back pain, swelling of the extremities, and numbness and tingling in her hands and feet.

She reported that her period, which began that day, was also heavier than usual.

Her primary care physician sent blood and urine samples to the city and state health department laboratories for testing. The tests detected the virus but not antibodies to it, which suggested she was newly infected; it takes four or five days for the body to begin producing antibodies.

Seven days after intercourse, the woman’s partner developed a fever, followed by a rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis. The report said the man had not had any other recent sexual partners or been bitten by a mosquito within a week before his illness.

Three days later, the man went to the same primary care physician who had diagnosed Zika in his partner. The physician sent samples of his urine to the same laboratories, and the virus was detected.

According to the report, the man “did not report noticing any blood on his uncircumcised penis that could have been associated with vaginal bleeding or any open lesions on his genitals immediately following intercourse.”

It is unclear if the virus was transmitted to the man by the woman’s menstrual blood or by vaginal fluids. If the virus was passed along through vaginal fluid, there is very little information on how long it might persist there or how great the risk of transmission during intercourse is.

The report cites a recent study of nonhuman primates where three nonpregnant females were found to have the virus present in vaginal fluid up to seven days after exposure.

“Further studies are needed to determine if the virus is also found in the vaginal fluid of humans and, if so, for how long,” the report said.

Zika has previously been known to be transmissible via semen, where it can persist for months. The current guidance from health officials is that men who may have been exposed either abstain from sex or use a condom for six months.

Women who are pregnant or trying to conceive are warned not to have unprotected sex with men who have been in areas where the virus is spreading during that time.

Even though it is just one case, the fact that the disease can be transmitted from women to men — widening the pool of those at risk — will have to be factored into the response from public health officials.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito remains the major means of infection. In the United States, that species is found mostly in the South and the Southwest, though its range can spread in the summer. That mosquito is not present in New York, but a similar species, the Asian tiger mosquito, could theoretically pose a threat of transmission, health officials have said.

In response, the city has stepped up its mosquito control and surveillance, and it will soon be starting a new public education campaign that will continue to highlight the risks posed by mosquitoes but with added emphasis on the risks of sexual transmission.


++++++++++

I am so happy all men in my country Madagascar or Malagasy are cirucmcised!!!!!!!

[parke...@yahoo.co.uk]

On Monday, June 20, 2016 at 7:59:10 PM UTC+1, jackpi...@gmail.com wrote:

> No, I don't think calling names substitutes for citations.

Didn't you read what he wrote, or were you too blotto as usual to understand it? HIs statement doesn't need citations. This is what Mehdi said:

<<<Nobody gives citations for common knowledge. What I stated is common knowledge and been so for years. Try going through it with me, take it slow n easy so you follow OK?
''uncut men get more STDs" -- common knowledge
"so they have more lesions and sores and portals for infection on their dicks" -- common knowledge
" also they have more physical problems like balanitis, torn frenulum, cracking of foreskin from diabetes and so on" -- common knowledge
"that leave more openings for HIV" -- common knowledge
"Think about it" wasn't source of information, anybody can see it's an invite to draw obvious conclusion from evidence on OTHER stds and uncut dicks to THIS std and uncut dicks. It's an invite to THINK. Can you do that?
I saw from other posts that you don't really care about citations for knowledge sake, because you admit you keep demanding them if it suits your "ideology" . Seems you just try to be annoying that way because that's all you can come up with. You know something? You have a petty mind. Think about THAT. >>>

But Jack you always have to have the last word like the alcoholic pest you are, so you come back and demand citations anyway. So Mehdi says he won't play your kindergarten games because you're a mental dwarf. Which is true. So now which is typical of you, you start whining that he's insulting you. Wow poor Jack the DRUNKEN FOOL gets insulted again!

Jack you hand out more insults than anybody here. Especially to women! I don't think I've seen a single case where a woman disagreed with you and you didn't insult her with your usual sarcastic sneers and even vicious personal remarks. Basically you're scared of women in real life because they don't like you so you come online and bully them. But if a MAN insults you you start whimpering about how unfair it is. What a nasty little man you are, Jack.

[quentin...@gmail.com]

On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 8:35:38 AM UTC+1, michael...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Saturday, 16 July 2016 06:55:49 UTC+3, tanab...@gmail.com wrote:

> You mean the same HIV virus that's far more prevalent in circumcised America than intact Europe?

Ah, that old chestnut from the anti-cirumcision websites, quoted word for word! I responded to that the last time you offered it here but perhaps you did not see it? Here is my response again:

"Unlike in Europe, less than a quarter of US cases are through heterosexual contact. The rest are almost entirely through homosexual or IV transmission. Circumcision does not protect against transmission by intravenous drug abuse or anal sex. If you compare only heterosexual rates, the US compares favorably with Europe. In fact white heterosexuals in the USA, a mostly circumcised group, have one of the lowest rates in the world. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/overview/ataglance.html "

Do you understand? It means that when you compare US rates with rates elsewhere, circumcision status is irrelevant to more than three quarters of the infected. The presence or absence of a foreskin cannot affect the transmission of a virus via a needle in your arm or via sperm deposited in your rectum. The only really valid comparisons are among heterosexually transmitted cases (which constitute the overwhelming majority of cases worldwide). Cases among white heterosexuals in the USA, an overwhelmingly circumcised group, are so rare that the CDC often doesn't bother to report them when it breaks down infection rates by sex, race, and mode of transmission.

Incidentally the USA HIV rate, even with its great proportion of non-sexually transmitted cases, is lower (0.6) than the world average (0.8), and it is lower than some European countries with mostly uncircumcised populations, such as Portugal (0.7), Russia (1.1), Ukraine (0.8), Moldova (0.60, and Estonia (1.3). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HIV/AIDS_adult_prevalence_rate

If you are seriously interested in this topic I would urge you to do some original research on your own rather than credulously parrot material from anti-circumcision websites, which are notorious for concealing scientific evidence that does not fit their mission.

[nasty...@gmail.com]

You ass wipes will do anything to keep circumcision alive and well. Quacks that you are.

[jackpin...@gmail.com]

michael...@gmail.com

- hide quoted text -

That seems to be the case. The words 'frothing' and 'mouth' come to mind quite often. I fail to understand the revulsion for natural male genitals. I think they're beautiful.
.... . . .. . . . ..... . ..

Control and identity. These are the origins.

[parke...@yahoo.co.uk]

On Saturday, August 6, 2016 at 5:01:37 PM UTC+1, michael...@gmail.com wrote:

> You seem fixated on the role of foreskin in HIV transmission. I'm wondering what this is based on. Is it the studies that were done in Africa, the same ones that WHO bangs on about?


There's a LOT more evidence than that, old sport. Dozens of studies all showing the same thing. Here's a summary I found from the US Centre for Disease Control -

International Observational Studies

Multiple cross-sectional, prospective, and ecologic
(population-level) studies have identified lack
of male circumcision as a risk factor for HIV
infection.

A systematic review and meta-analysis that
focused on heterosexual transmission of HIV in
Africa was published in 2000 [6]. It included 19
cross-sectional studies, five case-control studies,
three cohort studies, and one partner study. A
substantial protective effect of male circumcision
on risk for HIV infection was noted, along
with a reduced risk for genital ulcer disease.
After adjusting for confounding factors in the
population-based studies, the relative risk for HIV
infection was 44% lower in circumcised men. The
strongest association was seen in high-risk men,
such as patients at sexually transmitted disease
(STD) clinics, for whom the adjusted relative risk
was 71% lower for circumcised men.

A review that included stringent assessment of 10
potential confounding factors and was stratified
by study type or study population was published
in 2004 [7]. Most of the studies were from
Africa. Of the 35 observational studies included
in the review, the 16 in the general population had
inconsistent results. The one large prospective
cohort study in this group showed a significant
protective effect, with the odds of infection being
42% lower in circumcised men [8]. The remaining
nineteen studies were conducted in high-risk
populations. These found a consistent, substantial
protective effect, which increased with adjustment
for confounding. Four of these were cohort
studies: all demonstrated a protective effect, with
two being statistically significant .

Ecologic studies

Ecologic studies also indicate a strong association
between lack of male circumcision and HIV
infection at the population level. Although links
between circumcision, culture, religion, and risk
behavior may account for some of the differences
in HIV infection prevalence, the countries
in Africa and Asia with prevalence of male
circumcision of less than 20% have HIV-infection
prevalences several times higher than countries
in those regions where more than 80% of men are
circumcised [9].

International Clinical Trials

Three randomized, controlled clinical trails have
been undertaken in Africa to determine whether
circumcision of adult males will reduce their risk
for HIV infection. The study conducted in South
Africa [10], was stopped in 2005 and those in
Kenya [11] and Uganda [12] were stopped in 2006
after their interim analyses found that medical
circumcision reduced male participants’ risk of
HIV infection.

In these studies, men who had been randomly
assigned to the circumcision group had a 60%
(South Africa), 53% (Kenya), and 51% (Uganda)
lower incidence of HIV infection compared to men
assigned to the wait list group to be circumcised
at the end of the study. In all three studies, a few
men who had been assigned to be circumcised
did not undergo the procedure, and vice versa.
When the data were reanalyzed to account for
these deviations, men who had been circumcised
had a 76% (South Africa), 60% (Kenya), and
55% (Uganda) reduction in risk of HIV infection
compared to those who were not circumcised.

References

1 Fink AJ. A possible explanation for
heterosexual male infection with AIDS. N
Engl J Med. 1986 Oct 30;315(18):1167.
2 Alanis MC, Lucidi RS. Neonatal
circumcision: a review of the world’s oldest
and most controversial operation. Obstet
Gynecol Surv. 2004 May;59(5):379-95.
3 Patterson BK, Landay A, Siegel JN, Flener
Z, Pessis D, Chaviano A, et al. Susceptibility
to human immunodeficiency virus-1
infection of human foreskin and cervical
tissue grown in explant culture. Am J Pathol.
2002 Sep;161(3):867-73.
4 Szabo R, Short RV. How does male
circumcision protect against HIV infection?
BMJ. 2000 Jun 10;320(7249):1592-4.
5 Weiss HA, Thomas SL, Munabi SK, Hayes
RJ. Male circumcision and risk of syphilis,
chancroid, and genital herpes: A systematic
review and meta-analysis. Sex Transm Infect.
2006 Apr;82(2):101-9; discussion 10.
6 Weiss HA, Quigley MA, Hayes RJ. Male
circumcision and risk of HIV infection in
sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review
and meta-analysis. AIDS. 2000 Oct
20;14(15):2361-70.
7 Siegfried N, Muller M, Volmink J, Deeks J,
Egger M, Low N, et al. Male circumcision
for prevention of heterosexual acquisition of
HIV in men. Cochrane Database Syst Rev.
2003(3):CD003362.
8 Gray RH, Kiwanuka N, Quinn TC,
Sewankambo NK, Serwadda D, Mangen FW,
et al. Male circumcision and HIV acquisition
and transmission: cohort studies in Rakai,
Uganda. Rakai Project Team. AIDS. 2000
Oct 20;14(15):2371-81.
9 Halperin DT, Bailey RC. Male circumcision
and HIV infection: 10 years and counting.
Lancet. 1999 Nov 20;354(9192):1813-5.
10 Auvert B, Taljaard D, Lagarde E, SobngwiTambekou
J, Sitta R, Puren A. Randomized,
Controlled Intervention Trial of Male
Circumcision for Reduction of HIV Infection
Risk: The ANRS 1265 Trial. PLoS Med.
2005 Nov;2(11):e298.
11 Bailey RC, Moses S, Parker CB, et al. Male
circumcision for HIV prevention in young
men in Kisumu, Kenya: a randomized
controlled trial. Lancet 2007; 369:643-656.
12 Gray RH, Kigozi G, Serwadda D, et al. Male
circumcision for HIV prevention in men in
Rakai, Uganda: a randomized trial. Lancet
2007;369:657-666.

[Uckister777]

On Saturday, August 13, 2016 at 8:33:47 AM UTC+1, michael...@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks Parker for all that data on years of scientific investigations. But look how this ignorant fool responds:


> I'm losing count of the amount of times I've already addressed this. Take a look at the table on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HIV/AIDS_adult_prevalence_rate. As you can see, there is no correlation between circumcision status and HIV rates.


LOL! Michael, NOBODY can see if there's a correlation or not because there is NO information on the table about circumcision rates! What an imbecile!

Michael, let me try to explain something very basic about science. I know that in your foreskin lover world it's considered legit to point to a table in Wikipedia, misunderstand it, and then crow that you have "debunked" dozens of peer reviewed scientific reports including observational studies, case controlled studies, cross-sectional studies, cohort studies, meta analyses and random controled trials.

But get this: the scientific world doesn't work that way! To debunk those studies you would have to READ each one, which have never done, and then develop an informed methodological critique of each.

You see Michael, in the scientific world good evidence from rigorous studies is preferred over uninformed musings lifted from from partisan websites. Archives of good, peer-reviewed evidence using diverse methods are preferred over an ignoramus waving an inappropriate wikipedia link. That's why most people in alt.circ can't be bothered to reply to your drivel despite your pleas that they do.

It's clear from your post that you're clueless about international HIV rates. If you had actually read any of the studies you so carelessly dismiss, or if you'd actually looked up HIV rates and compared them with circumcision rates, you'd have found very clear correlations. Look at these numbers which Prof Kaletsky posted here last year:

CIRCUMCISION RATES IN AFRICAN COUNTRIES WITH LOWEST HIV RATES

COUNTRY........CIRC %............HIV RATE

Algeria.........98.0.............. 0.1
Benin...........98.0...............1.1
Burkina Faso....89.0...............1.0
Congo DR........97.0...............1.0
Djibouti........99.0...............1.3
Egypt...........94.6...............0.1
Eritrea.........99.0.............. 0.7
Ethiopia........92.0...............1.3
Gambia..........98.0...............1.3
Ghana...........96.0...............1.4
Guinea..........99.0 ..............1.7
Liberia.........94.0...............0.9
Libya...........96.6...............0.3
Mali............99.0...............0.9
Mauritania......99.1 ..............0.4
Morocco.........99.0...............0.1
Niger...........99.0...............0.5
Senegal.........98.0...............0.5
Sierra Leone....94.0...............1.5
Somalia.........99.0...............0.5.
Tunisia.........99.5...............0.1



CIRCUMCISION RATES IN AFRICAN COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST HIV RATES

COUNTRY........CIRC %...........HIV RATE

CAR.............55.0................4.7
Lesotho.........48.0 ..............23.1
Mozambique......60.0...............11.1
Tanzania........69.0................5.1
Uganda..........25.0................7.0
Botswana........14.0...............23.0
Malawi..........21.0...............10.8
Namibia.........21.0...............13.3
South Africa....35.0...............17.9
Swaziland........8.0...............26.5
Zambia..........13.0...............12.7
Zimbabwe........10.0...............14.7

In fact:

ALL countries with very high rates of HIV -- over 6 percent -- have low circumcision rates -- below 35 percent.

ALL countries with high circumcision rates -- over 95 percent -- have very low rates of HIV -- below 2 percent.

[The sources are: http://www.photius.com/rankings/2015/population/hiv_aids_adult_prevalence_rate_2015_0.html; http://www.photius.com/rankings/circumcised_men_country_ranks.html; http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2007/9789241596169_eng.pdf; circs.org estimate reproduced https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/alt.circumcision/H_mYGEYXYPs. I can't be bothered to look up newer data for you but you can find a more recent estimate of circumcision rates at https://pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12963-016-0073-5, although the numbers will hardly change. You might get a newer HIV rates at the UNAIDS website, which would no doubt show some decline in newly circumcising African countries.]

Also if you look at Figure 2 in the https://pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12963-016-0073-5 article you will find two maps of Africa. The first shows HIV prevalance in shades of blue. The second shows circumcision status in shades of red. THESE OVERLAP ALMOST PERFECTLY. But hey, why don't you get out your crayons and do your own map to show there's no correlation? Maybe crazy yellow and bilious green? You could send it to the authors, I'm sure they would be amused!

And yes, correlation doesn't prove causation, although a vast trove of correlation is quite persuasive when it fits the known facts, such as the exact mechanism by which HIV is transmitted via foreskins -- see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4192839/

But because correlation isn't sufficient proof the scientific community resorted to THREE random controled trials -- the "Gold Standard" for proof through experiments. These were conducted in three different countries. All three found, independently, that circumcision provides approx 60 percent risk reduction.

AS far as the scientific community and World Health Organization is concerned, that is CASE PROVED. END OF STORY. The dogs may bark Michael.... but the caravan moves on.

[jackpin...@gmail.com]

Uckister777

On Saturday, August 13, 2016 at 8:33:47 AM UTC+1, michael...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, 12 August 2016 10:33:58 UTC+3, parke...@yahoo.co.uk wrote:


> > There's a LOT more evidence than that, old sport. Dozens of studies all showing the same thing. Here's a summary I found from the US Centre for Disease Control -

> > International Observational Studies

> > Multiple cross-sectional, prospective, and ecologic
> > (population-level) studies have identified lack
> > of male circumcision as a risk factor for HIV
> > infection.

> > A systematic review and meta-analysis that
> > focused on heterosexual transmission of HIV in
> > Africa was published in 2000 [6]. It included 19
> > cross-sectional studies, five case-control studies,
> > three cohort studies, and one partner study. A
> > substantial protective effect of male circumcision
> > on risk for HIV infection was noted, along
> > with a reduced risk for genital ulcer disease.
> > After adjusting for confounding factors in the
> > population-based studies, the relative risk for HIV
> > infection was 44% lower in circumcised men. The
> > strongest association was seen in high-risk men,
> > such as patients at sexually transmitted disease
> > (STD) clinics, for whom the adjusted relative risk
> > was 71% lower for circumcised men.

- show quoted text -

................

As long as the data isn't used to justify forcible genital cutting of anyone, I don't see why anti-cutting folks should fight the numbers.

[parke...@yahoo.co.uk]

Uckister wrote a detailed point by point rebuttal of Michael's nonsense in another alt.circ thread where Michael had dumped the same post. I hoped Uckisgter would post his rebuttal here too but he hasn't so I've copied and pasted it below.

It's devasting! See how he shows up Michael's total ignorance of science!


C+1, michael...@gmail.com wrote:
> Here you go.



Here we go indeed. Michael has posted this identical statement several times now under two different topics in alt.circ. Although practically everything in it is misinformation copied from amateurish foreskin lover websites, he is very proud of it. He seems to think it's his finest hour in this debate -- that he has hereby "torn apart" the scientific evidence for the protective effect of circumcision on HIV. So let's take a look.

>
> "You seem fixated on the role of foreskin in HIV transmission. I'm wondering what this is based on.

I'm sure you are wondering, as you have obviously not read a single original research report.

> Is it the studies that were done in Africa,

Dozens of international studies have shown a link between foreskins and HIV.
[For a list see for example Wamai et al, J Law Med. 2012 Sep;20(1):93-123.]


> the same ones that WHO bangs on about? If so, then I can reassure you that your concerns are unfounded.


Ah, the WHO, the world's leading epidemiological organization. The one that is humanity's guardian against epidemic disease. The one whose expertise eliminated smallpox and has almost eliminated polio. The one that stopped SARS and Ebola in their tracks. The one we rely on now to stop typhoid in Haiti and Yellow fever in Central Africa. The one that is coordinating the research and international response to Zika. That one. The organization you have called "an idiot" because it recognizes and acts on the overwhelming scientific evidence about foreskins and HIV.


Read on, we will see who is an idiot.



> I'm sure we've all heard the 60% figures, which I'll admit sound impressive when taken at face value. 'Circumcision can reduce the risk of HIV transmission by 60%? Wow!'


Yes it is impressive.


> Unfortunately, this is completely misleading. The study in question, that being the one in Kenya and Uganda (and South Africa, unless I've misremembered) was poor for many reasons. I'll list a few:


Here we go!



> - the men in the study were not representative of the larger population.


Aha! Right here we have the crux of Michael's naive misunderstanding of the science. He doesn't know the difference between a SURVEY, which draws on a representative sample of the population at large, and an EXPERIMENT, which draws on volunteers who are then randomly divided into two groups, one of which is subjected to the experimental procedure while the other serves as the control for comparison.


If you THINK about it you can see how ludicrous the demand for a study "representative of the larger population" would be. Among the larger representative population would be:


-- men who couldn't be included because they were not sexually active (sick, dying, too old, etc);
-- men who couldn't be included because they were already circumcised.
-- men who couldn't be included because they were already HIV positive.
-- men who couldn't be included because they were not remotely interested in undergoing a surgical procedure just because some researchers call them up and ask them to join their project (whether its for circumcision or a hip replacement or a nose job or a hearing implant or artificial lenses or anything else).


So, by the time you have thrown out all the people you can't use who are "representative of the larger population" what do you have left? An UNREPRESENTATIVE sample of course -- DUH!!! What a stupid objection.


> They were men from nearby


OF COURSE they were from nearby (in one case, a city, in the second, a suburban area, and in the third, a rural community). The experiments were conducted at local hospitals or clinics which the men were expected to attend regularly for counseling, free condoms, HIV testing etc. Why on earth would the clinics want all the inconvenience (travel time, cost, poor attendance) of having them from somewhere else??? What a stupid objection.


> who, due to the fact that they chose to participate freely, were more concerned with sexual health that people generally are.


OF COURSE they were concerned with sexual health. Who do you expect to show up for a circumcision study -- men concerned with poor eyesight or rheumatism? If you run an experiment on a kidney or heart procedure, you expect and WANT people who are motivated about hearts or kidneys to show up don't you? What a stupid objection.


> - the group of men who were circumcised were told to refrain from sex for six weeks to allow their penis to heal. In addition, they were also encouraged to use condoms and were given sex ed lessons.


OF COURSE they were. They had just had surgery and might have open wounds that would make them highly susceptible to HIV infection, thereby ruining the experiment! What a stupid objection.


> The men who were left intact received no condoms or sex ed


False. Both groups were advised right from the start that they should practice safe sex, both were given the same sex counseling, and both got free condoms, right through the end of the experiment. Try reading the originals?


> and had no six-week restriction on sexual activity.


Newsflash: when you run an experiment, the experimental group gets the variable (circumcision in this case) and the control group doesn't. The two groups can never be the same in that respect. In this case it means the control group had a potential, unavoidable, six week lead to get infected. If that had actually happened, it would show up in the regular HIV testing results, with the circumcised group showing the same infection rate six weeks later throughout the study. But that didn't happen so the six week lead obviously wasn't long enough to make a difference. Why bring it up then? Ignorance?



> -the final results did not take personal differences into account; there was no information on individual hygiene or sexual practises, i.e. no information on whether participants were having regular sex with one or two people, or whether they were much more promiscuous than that, or even whether they visited sex workers. Who was encouraged by their church to be faithful to their wives? In other words, there was no context to the results.


Utter nonsense, and this where your scientific illiteracy really shows! These studies were RCTs. Let me explain. RCT stands for Randomized Controled Trial. It means the subjects are RANDOMLY divided into two groups so that whatever characteristics they have are RANDOMLY distributed between the two groups and so cancel each other out. There were approx 15000 subjects in these trials. Whatever their characteristics -- promiscuity, big dicks, religious belief etc -- it's practically a statistical certainty that half ended up in one group and half in the other. So the "personal differences" DON'T MATTER. DUH. What an ignorant, inane objection.


Now Michael before you write some tirade against RCTs, you should know that they are the experimental basis for just about every medical procedure or drug you use. If you use statins or blood pressure pills or viagra or heartburn meds or HIV antivirals or asthma meds -- they were ALL tested in RCTs just like these which "did not take personal differences into account". In each case researchers in hospitals or clinics got local volunteers, randomly divided them to even out their differences, and got the results you and the rest of us rely on in our daily lives.



> - there was significant attrition, i.e. lots of people dropped out of the study.


No there wasn't significant attrition. You have no idea at all what "significant" attrition is, so let me tell you. In all RCTs some people drop out for various reasons (they get sick, get bored, move away, lose interest, etc). In an RCT like these an attrition rate of 5 percent would be meaningless, while an attrition rate of 20 percent might warrant investigation if some unusual reason was suspected. In these RCTS the attrition rate was below 10 percent (8 percent in the SA study that you focus on). That's not significant, in fact it's quite normal and can be ignored.


(By contrast, the RCTs for the HIV antivirals that you keep touting had much higher attrition rates, from 13 percent to over 40 percent... but I don't see complaining about THAT!)


Also, researchers anticipate attrition and so enroll more subjects than they need to compensate. You didn't know that, did you? What a stupid objection.


> How many of the circumcised men contracted HIV and became disillusioned with the study?


This is a stunningly dishonest argument. One might as well ask, "how many of the uncircumcised men contracted HIV and became disillusioned with the study?" The number in both groups who dropped out was almost exactly the same. You are getting really desperate now! What a stupid objection.



> - there is little correlation between circumcision and HIV rates in Africa.


Nonsense. Clear and consistent correlations have been demonstrated repeatedly and already pointed out to you as in this list from the US Centers for Disease Control:

Also if you look at this 1996 article by Caldwell in Scientific American. 1996 Mar;274(3):62-3, 66-8. you will see a map of Africa showing the geographical distribution of HIV and lack of circumcision. THEY OVERLAP ALMOST PERFECTLY.


Jump forward to 2016 and look at this article with an additional 20 years of data: https://pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12963-016-0073-5 You will find two maps, one showing distribution of HIV and one showing lack of circumcision. THEY OVERLAP ALMOST PERFECTLY.


Here is more information in tabular form:

CIRCUMCISION RATES IN AFRICAN COUNTRIES WITH LOWEST HIV RATES

COUNTRY........CIRC %............HIV RATE

Algeria..............98.0.............. 0.1
Benin................98.0...............1.1
Burkina Faso.....89.0...............1.0
Congo DR..........97.0...............1.0
Djibouti..............99.0...............1.3
Egypt................94.6...............0.1
Eritrea...............99.0.............. 0.7
Ethiopia.............92.0...............1.3
Gambia..............98.0...............1.3
Ghana...............96.0...............1.4
Guinea...............99.0 ..............1.7
Liberia...............94.0...............0.9
Libya.................96.6...............0.3
Mali...................99.0...............0.9
Mauritania..........99.1 ..............0.4
Morocco............99.0...............0.1
Niger.................99.0...............0.5
Senegal.............98.0...............0.5
Sierra Leone......94.0...............1.5
Somalia.............99.0...............0.5.
Tunisia..............99.5...............0.1

CIRCUMCISION RATES IN AFRICAN COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST HIV RATES

COUNTRY........CIRC %...........HIV RATE

CAR................55.0................4.7
Lesotho............48.0 ..............23.1
Mozambique......60.0...............11.1
Tanzania...........69.0................5.1
Uganda.............25.0................7.0
Botswana..........14.0...............23.0
Malawi.............21.0...............10.8
Namibia............21.0...............13.3
South Africa......35.0...............17.9
Swaziland..........8.0...............26.5
Zambia........;...13.0...............12.7
Zimbabwe...;.....10.0...............14.7



I can see a correlation Michael. Are you SURE you can't?


In fact if you examine the sources below, you will find that:

ALL countries with very high rates of HIV -- over 6 percent -- have low circumcision rates -- below 35 percent.


ALL countries with high circumcision rates -- over 95 percent -- have very low rates of HIV -- below 2 percent.


[The sources are: http://www.photius.com/rankings/2015/population/hiv_aids_adult_prevalence_rate_2015_0.html; http://www.photius.com/rankings/circumcised_men_country_ranks.html; http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2007/9789241596169_eng.pdf; circs.org estimate reproduced https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/alt.circumcision/H_mYGEYXYPs.
I can't be bothered to look up newer data for you but you can find a more recent estimate of circumcision rates at https://pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12963-016-0073-5, although the numbers will hardly change. You might get a newer HIV rates at the UNAIDS website, which would no doubt show some decline in newly circumcising African countries.]

> Anyway, the final results showed that 2.49% of men left intact had contracted HIV by the end of the study, whereas 1.19% of the circumcised men had contracted it. So yes, there's a difference of around 55%, but it's not at all impressive when seen in this light. When all of the points I've made are taken into account, the effect of foreskin can be seen as, at best, negligible and likely non-existent.



Right now the WHO is sponsoring circumcision campaigns in 15 African countries. Ten million men there have been circumcised as a result, and ten million more are likely to have the procedure. The WHO estimates that this campaign will save several million lives. The WHO gets financial and other support for this campaign from:


The World Bank
The US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
The US Centers for Disease Control
The United Nations Joint Program on AIDS
The Clinton Foundation
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation


It's possible I suppose that the WHO and all of these organizations don't know what they are doing, and that all their statisticians have got their sums wrong. But isn't it much more likely that you just don't know what you're talking about?


Now Michael, who is the idiot? The WHO, or you?

[jackpinef...@gmail.com]

> who, due to the fact that they chose to participate freely, were more concerned with sexual health that people generally are.


OF COURSE they were concerned with sexual health. Who do you expect to show up for a circumcision study -- men concerned with poor eyesight or rheumatism? If you run an experiment on a kidney or heart procedure, you expect and WANT people who are motivated about hearts or kidneys to show up don't you? What a stupid objection

..............

Could it be that individuals in the treatment group modified their sexual behavior as a result of the genital surgery? Is this addressed with pre and post interviews?

[Quentin]

On Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 1:02:26 PM UTC-4, michael...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Sunday, 4 September 2016 15:43:43 UTC+3, Uckister777 wrote:


> > But because correlation isn't sufficient proof the scientific community resorted to THREE random controled trials -- the "Gold Standard" for proof through experiments. These were conducted in three different countries. All three found, independently, that circumcision provides approx 60 percent risk reduction.
>

> I've discussed this is the other thread. But really, the 60% meme is a huge misunderstanding; 1.19% vs 2.49% of intact/circumcised respondants respectively. Not impressive.
> >

You keep bringing this up and I have trouble understanding what you are getting at. Perhaps you do not either, as you copied it from a notoriously ignorant anti-circumcision website. Am I correct that you are complaining that not enough of the subjects got HIV?

Michael, the percentage who became infected is irrelevant to the experiments which were NOT about how many of the participants got HIV -- but about whether those who DID get infected were more likely to be circumcised or uncircumcised. I do not know why you consistently find this so hard to understand.

The number who got infected was low and was expected to be very low right from the start, for two reasons. First, the volunteers were presumably concerned enough about HIV infection that they were willing to be cirumcised to see if this would reduce their risk. Second, it was ethically obligatory that the volunteers be discouraged from having unsafe sex. The volunteers were all given safe sex education and free condoms, with regular visits to the clinics where they received more counseling and condoms. However, human nature being what it is, some of them took risks, and some of those who took risks became infected.

In all three experiments it was found that circumcision offered approx 60 percent risk reduction. The statistics were so striking and convincing that the WHO has launched circumcision programs in 15 countries with the object of circumcising 20 million of the most vulnerable men. It is clear Michael that you do not understand statistics but it is highly probable, is it not, that the epidemiologists and statsticians of the WHO and 15 countries do?

[Pat Lastingham]

On Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 1:02:26 PM UTC-4, michael...@gmail.com wrote:

>

> I also wonder why, in my years as a volunteer in HIV and sexual health charities in Britain and Finland, I've heard nothing of circumcision preventing HIV. And before you suggest it, they're well informed charities; The Terrence Higgins Trust, the oldest and biggest HIV/sexual health charity for MSMs in Britain and HIV-tukikeskus (formerly AIDS-tukikeskus).


I am wondering too, if what you say is correct. The link between foreskins and HIV has been the subject of dozens of research papers published in journals that HIV organizations should be aware of it. It has been the subject of three separate Random Controlled Trials that gave dramatic and widely publicized results. It has been a significant topic at every International Aids Conference for many years and was the main subject at the 4th International Aids Conference in 2007. Time Magazine called it the top medical breakthrough of that year. The World Health Organization and UNAIDS issued a widely publicized endorsement of circumcision as a way to reduce HIV transmission. The United Nations General Assembly noted the importance of circumcision against AIDS in 2008. The US Centers for Disease Control endorsed the procedure for the same reason. Editorial commentaries in most of the leading English language medical journals endorsed it. Articles about it appeared in the gay wherever there is a gay press. The biological basis for HIV infection via cells in the foreskin has been established, published, and is widely known in the medical and epidemiological community. The WHO is working with the World Bank and other bodies (including the famous Clinton foundation) to circumcise 20 million vulnerable men in fifteen African countries, with the full support and collaboration of those governments. Updates on all these activities are published continuously.

So you tell me. How could it be that you, an HIV volunteer, and the TH Trust, the UK's leading HIV charity, were completely unaware of all this?

[Pat Lastingham]

On Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 1:02:26 PM UTC-4, michael...@gmail.com wrote:

>

> . But really, the 60% meme is a huge misunderstanding; 1.19% vs 2.49% of intact/circumcised respondants respectively. Not impressive.
> >

The" huge misunderstanding" is on your part, I'm afraid. It doesn't matter in the least what percentage of the total got infected -- only what the ratio of circumcised to uncircumcised was among those who got infected. That is what the three studies were trying to find out.


>
> Europe has very low levels of circumcision and there is no correlation between foreskin and HIV.

So you say but you give no comparative European data to back up that claim.

>Finland has very low circumcision rates (around 1 in 16,000, according to some estimates, 2% according to a report published last year) and only around 3,000 known cases of HIV out of 5,500,000 people.

Correct. Now compare with the most circumcised country in Europe, Albania. According to the WHO Albania has a total of 487 of HIV out of 3,200,00 people -- dramatically lower than Finland.

>If your hypothesis of HIV rates and circumcision being intrinsically linked were true, we would expect Finland, Sweden and Norway to have high rates of HIV. They don't.

No, we would not expect rates to be high in the Scandinavian countries (although we would expect circumcised Finns to have lower rates than uncircumcised Finns). Almost all the modern industrialized societies of the world have rates below the world average. The reason is that they all have highly developed systems of communication, education, testing, and health care, with substantial availability of condoms and retroviral drugs. And crucially, by the time AIDS gained much of a foothold in these countries, the culprit had already been identified and means of suppressing it were available. So all these countries have relatively low rates compared to Africa.

The USA had a different history because the disease reached epidemic proportions there early on -- in the face of the indifference of the Reagan administration and without any understanding, for several years, of what the cause was. Fortunately the high rate of circumcision protected the USA from a much worse epidemic and the US rate is well below the world average and below some European countries. In fact the rate among white American heterosexual men, who are mostly circumcised, is so low that is is barely measurable.

In the African case circumstances were quite different. AIDS first appeared in central Africa in the late 1940s or early 1950s and thus began a vast, tragic experiment that lasted for decades, on the effect of circumcision on HIV transmission. It was only AFTER the disease was recognized in the USA that it occurred to researchers that a mysterious, untreatable killer "slim disease" in Africa might be the same thing. By then millions had been infected -- in different countries with different tribes and different religions and different cultures. But when researchers looked more closely they found ONE and one factor ONLY that correlated with huge differences in infection rates, namely circumcision.

>
> As I have commented elsewhere, cultural and behavioral factors must be factored in. It's true, according to your statistics at least, that there seems to be a correlation between foreskin and HIV in Africa,

Correct.

>but 1) correlation does not equal causation

Correct, but when it is so striking it deserves extensive research, which proved causation

>and 2) the same trend is not evident elsewhere

Other countries have lower OVERALL rates for the reasons just given, but you can be sure that WITHIN each country the rate for circumcised men is lower, as elsewhere in the world.

> so the hypothesis does not look a good one

It's no longer a hypothesis, it's scientific fact. Think evolution, continental drift -- that sort of thing.

> and we have to look elsewhere for an explanation.

Best of luck with that. The anti-circumcision fanatics have been torturing the data for years to find an alternative explanation but they haven't come up with one.

So we have:
A rich collection of studies of specific groups showing the link
Three separate RCT experiments proving it
Research describing the exact mechanism by which HIV infects via the foreskin.

See Morriis and Wamai "Biological basis for the protective effect conferred by male circumcision against HIV infection." Int J STD AIDS. 2012 Mar;23(3):153-9.

[K Williams]

On Tuesday, October 4, 2016 at 6:46:28 PM UTC-6, Pat Lastingham wrote:


> The USA had a different history because the disease reached epidemic proportions there early on -- in the face of the indifference of the Reagan administration and without any understanding, for several years, of what the cause was. Fortunately the high rate of circumcision protected the USA from a much worse epidemic and the US rate is well below the world average and below some European countries. In fact the rate among white American heterosexual men, who are mostly circumcised, is so low that is is barely measurable.

New genetic research shows that the virus arrived in the US around 1971. It had come from Zaire via Haiti. Doctors noticed early cases of AIDS ten years later in 1981. The cause was identified in 1983 but effective antiviral drugs were not available until 1996. This is an interesting recent article about early HIV in the US: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/27/health/hiv-patient-zero-genetic-analysis.html

[Pat Lastingham]

,,,,And not just the zika virus, unfortunately.

Another dangerous, sometimes lethal infection is HTLV-1: the Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1. This disease is transmitted in much the same manner as HIV, primarily though blood products and sexual contacts. It can also be passed from mother to child. HTLV-1 infection can cause an aggressive, fatal leukemia, as well as variety of other afflictions including incurable bronchitis and paralysis. Currently the disease is mostly confined to some locations,mostly in undeveloped countries. Epidemiologists fear that this disease could break out of its local concentrations and become a global pandemic, in much the same way as HIV broke out from Africa to spread around the world. Here is a summary, just published, of the current situation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5795414/

Given that transmission of HTLV-1 is similar to that of HIV, researchers already hypothesize that male circumcision will have a similar beneficial effect in reducing susceptibility to HTLV-1 infection. It is interesting to note that of the 40 million or so people believed to be infected at present, the great majority are in countries in South America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa that do not practice male circumcision.

[Oliver]

Personally I think it's almost certain that zika and HTLV-1 are spread via foreskins (among other routes). Just about every STD is more common among uncut than cut men. The foreskin is pathogenic. It provides the perfect environment for the survival of viruses and bacteria.

But we can't be sure of a link between foreskins and these two diseases until the scientific research is done and the evidence is available.

I guarantee this however, the foreskin crazies will refuse the accept the scientific evidence if it does implicate their beloved fetish item. Guaranteed. 100 per cent. Just watch.

[Agnus O'Flock]

On Tuesday, 8 May 2018 23:08:13 UTC+12, Oliver wrote:


> Just about every STD is more common among uncut than cut men. The foreskin is pathogenic. It provides the perfect environment for the survival of viruses and bacteria.

This didnt matter so much when uncircumcised humans lived in small bands and isolated villages. If they got an STD at all it couldnt spread far. These days an STD like HIV can spread all over the world in days. It can become an epidemic in no time.

[ttrut...@gmail.com]

You only have to LOOK at an uncircumcised cock to see it's the perfect home for disease agents. It's a warm enclosed space, always moist always with cell debris and piss drops for nutrients. In fact different regions prob harbor different viruses and bacteria because some near the snout are wetter with more oxygen, at the back behind the head that crevice is more gunky and low in oxygen. Yeah OF COURSE it spreads zika!!

[craigle...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, February 25, 2020 at 4:45:55 PM UTC-6, ttrut...@gmail.com wrote:

> You only have to LOOK at an uncircumcised cock to see it's the perfect home for disease agents. It's a warm enclosed space, always moist always with cell debris and piss drops for nutrients. In fact different regions prob harbor different viruses and bacteria because some near the snout are wetter with more oxygen, at the back behind the head that crevice is more gunky and low in oxygen. Yeah OF COURSE it spreads zika!!

....and just about every other STD.

[Oliver]

And now traces of covid9 coronavirus have been found in semen!!

As we all know seman and urine leave traces in the foreskin when they pass out of the penis.

It's almost impossible to wash away the microscopic virus from an uncircumcised penis. The characteristic smell of uncircumcised penis even after careful washing is proof of how hard it is to get rid of bacterial and other debris from the foreskin.

The coronavirus no doubt will thrive in the warm moist embrace of the foreskin.

One more reason for uncircumcised men to get circumcised. And for their potential partners to stay away from them until they get it done.

Foreskins are pathogenic. It's been proved over and over, in disease after disease.

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200507/virus-found-in-semen-of-covid-19-survivors#1

[Parker]

Actually the zika epidemic seems to have burnt itself out. There are very few cases reported now.