Look at the bright side - the companies that made the one-time use circumcision devices made a great deal of money.

The fact that there was no benefit to the men who underwent a completely unless surgery is apparently unimportant as there are no plans to stop the "Voluntary" Male Mutilation Con-job (VMMC)

Here is the article from News Week Magazine: https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/08/circu ... d-a-dummy/

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Circumcision, HIV: Africa sold a dummy?

By Newsday - August 8, 2018

TWO lone figures stand a few metres from Entrance K of the RAI Convention Centre, Netherlands where the biggest Aids conference is being held. They are holding up banners denouncing circumcision. Their banners are boldly inscribed: ‘Condoms prevent HIV, not circumcision’.

BY PHYLLIS MBANJE

The pair is part of the VMMC Experience Project which has been in the trenches for years, trying to argue and provide evidence that circumcision campaigns might have been an empty and futile process which was shoved down the throat of many African states and other resource-starved nations. They claim the efficacy was overrated and exaggerated.

But no one takes notice of the two and strangely, the biggest Aids conference with over 10 000 delegates did not have a single session or discussion on circumcision or even did it to celebrate the ‘success’ stories or discuss challenges posed by the procedure.

This is at loggerheads with the time when the ‘faze’ was introduced in Africa a few years ago. It was celebrated as the wonder prevention strategy that would guarantee 60% protection. This figure has been disputed and challenged repeatedly.

The “voluntary medical male circumcision” (VMMC) public health programme is the first mass surgical campaign in human history. Because it mainly targets Africans, organisations like the VMMC Experience Project have questioned whether there are underlying racial motives.

They contend that for centuries, western stereotypes have held that African men were lascivious or hyper sexed, unable to control their sexual urges.

Prince Hillary Maloba, a native Kenyan, director of the VMMC Experience Project, and the driving force behind the investigation, said: “Male circumcision, as a project that has been applied to us Africans, has failed to reduce HIV the way we were told. Two, we view it as a violation of human rights. Why target only one race in the entire world?”

The mass circumcision campaign was introduced to reduce the incidence of HIV in 14 sub-Saharan African countries that did not initially practise genital cutting, including Zimbabwe.

However, data indicated that the African HIV epidemic only worsened since 2010 — shortly after VMMC was implemented. For the first time since the war on Aids began, HIV was back on the rise.

Despite the rigorous campaigns for the prevention strategy which was famed for reducing HIV transmission, there has not been conclusive research to validate the claims which have been disputed by various studies.

In most European states, the practice is not even one of their priority areas in the prevention of HIV.

But despite these concerns, the proponents of the strategy insist it protects against HIV and is worth every penny that has been spent in cascading it down to the poor nations.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) agrees that medical male circumcision reduces the risk of female-to-male sexual transmission of HIV by approximately 60%. Since 2007, WHO and UNAids have recommended it as an additional important strategy for HIV prevention.

WHO says medical male circumcision offers excellent value for money, saving costs by averting new HIV infections and reducing the number of people needing HIV treatment and care.

As a one-time intervention, medical male circumcision provides men with life-long partial protection against HIV as well as other sexually transmitted infections.

WHO recommends that VMMC should always be considered as part of a comprehensive HIV prevention package of services and be used in conjunction with other methods of prevention, such as female and male condoms.

Scientifically, the removal of the foreskin of the male sexual organ reduces significantly the chances of contracting HIV. This is because the inner aspect of the foreskin is highly susceptible to HIV infections.

Microscopic examination of the foreskin has shown that while the skin provides a thick protective barrier, the inner surface of the foreskin is much thinner, resembling the inner lining of the mouth or eyelid.

“In uncircumcised men, Langerhans cells (immune cells that are primary targets for HIV transmission) are more richly concentrated near the surface of the foreskin,” says Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda.

Following infection, Langerhans cells not only serve as reservoirs for replicating virus, but also transport the virus to nearby lymph nodes where HIV spreads to other immune cells.

In fact, the foreskin’s anatomical function actually amplifies the risks. In uncircumcised men, the foreskin covers and protects the tip of the male sexual organ, paradoxically making the skin more delicate and prone to microscopic abrasions.

These tiny injuries promote inflammation, Fauci says, allowing the virus to come into closer contact with target immune cells. The moisty environment that forms under the foreskin also enhances the growth of microbes on the organ’s tip, Fauci adds, further stimulating immune responses near the skin’s surface.

At the very least, the foreskin increases contact time with the virus following unprotected sexual intercourse when infectious fluid becomes trapped.

The Zimbabwe experience

VMMC is listed in the country’s National Combination Prevention Strategy, but the uptake among Zimbabwean men aged between 14 and 49 remains low.

Zimbabwe, which recently celebrated circumcising one million men, missed its target of circumcising 1,3 million men in 2015.

The director for the Aids and TB unit in the health ministry Owen Mugurungi said Zimbabwe had missed the 2015 target simply because of challenges with resource mobilisation.

“We had delays in rolling out the project due to resources, but once we started we covered a lot of ground. We have done remarkably well, given the time frame,” he said.

Another issue, according to Mugurungi, was that the country traditionally did not subscribe to circumcision and some people had reservations about the process.

Speaking on the assertions by the anti-circumcision lobbyists, Mugurungi maintained that the strategy was a proven prevention strategy.

“Circumcision is a worthy strategy for preventing the spread of HIV and is for the public good. The concerns being raised are superseded by the fact that the method has been working well.”

Mugurungi added that research had been conducted involving men who have gone under the knife and those who had not. Both groups were part of a risky population.

“Results showed that there was a 60% reduction of HIV among those who had been circumcised and that was the proof which validated that percentage,” he said.

In terms of effective methods for mitigating against HIV, Mugurungi said the condom was still in first place followed by other methods like treatment, Pre Exposure Prophylaxis and Post Exposure Prophylaxis.

He, however, conceded that in countries like the United States there were issues of circumcision of infants, with reports that men were complaining of lack of sensitivity after removal of the foreskin.

“On that subject, maybe we need to talk about this, but it should not obliterate the common good,” he said.

Zimbabwe has had its fair share of concerns regarding circumcision. In 2013 a man from Chiredzi claimed to have become impotent after being circumcised in the Pinda Musmart HIV and Aids Campaign and made headlines when he then demanded his foreskin back.

Other communities felt it was “unZimbawean” to go for circumcision while there were rampant claims of penile foreskin harvesting.

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Unprotected sex causes HIV not foreskins that's a fact

Unprotected sex causes HIV, not foreskins that's a fact

Exactly.

-- Circumcision combined with a condom reduces the chance of contracting HIV to virtually zero.

Then again...

-- If you sleep lying down combined with a condom reduces the chance of contracting HIV to virtually zero.

-- If you eat cereal for breakfast combined with a condom reduces the chance of contracting HIV to virtually zero.

-- If your mother was a woman combined with a condom reduces the chance of contracting HIV to virtually zero.

-- If you've ever put jam on toast combined with a condom reduces the chance of contracting HIV to virtually zero.

Any one surprised by this finding clearly hasn't been paying attention. Honestly though no mater how much evidence arises that circumcision is not only unhelpful when it comes to improving overall male health and in many cases actually reduces quality of life for those circumcised, I very much doubt there will ever be any large scale public outcry to stop mutilating men's and boy's penises. Most people just don't give a shit about the well-being of men as a class, they usually care about the well-being of the individual men in their own lives but only if those men don't inconvenience them too much with their problems.

This topic has rumbled on in other chat rooms and all come up with the same conclusion.

The choice to get cut or not should be left until the individual is old enough to make an informed decision.

I think it's barbaric to mutilate an infant boy. As an Englishman living in the USA none of my boys were circumcised, even though there was pressure to have it done, and my grandson is also uncut, despite huge pressure on my daughter-in-law to have him circumcised when she was alone! There are two Dr s on my wife's side of the family ( Americans) who think we are insane and endangering our boys from all sorts of penile disease because we didn't have them cut. I heard the statistics about hiv prevention at so many family gatherings. I would always point out the chances of my boys living in an African nation and having lots of unprotected sex was pretty slim. The article does seem to support the fact that it does indeed reduce the incidents of HIV infection though.

This entire topic begs the question: Knowing full and well that left to nature itself the human species would be well defined as is every other species on the planet of male and female. There would be no in-between and it would be pure sex and dominance between the sexes of the species. The male would be the dominant group of the species and there would be no male of the species filling the role of the female of the species and each of the two would die the sex they were born as. There are a few exceptions in nature where one sex of a species can morph into the other sex of its species. But overall no confusion to be found. Then as the human species begins tinkering with the very nature of things that define the male sex organ and system of reproduction changes begin to occur. Once those changes begin the male of the species begins to lose the dominance. There begins to be confusion of sex within the species and those changes begin to be different from what nature created. Now we begin to see the species call those with these differences unnatural. Funny thing how every time the human species begins to tinker with modifying what nature produced things become unnatural. That is to say the particular member of the species is different from what nature produced. Hence, society often calls (me) unnatural and pushes the unnatural element (me) away from itself.

Oh, I'm just having fun being the devils advocate throwing out some thoughts to be tasted. About as much sense as thinking that cutting a mans skin off his dick can prevent AIDS. Let's get real shall we.

Circumcision has always been a cultural fetish, mainly advocated by women in recent years, that has been searching for any justification to be forced on males. No such search for a justification for female circumcision or encouraging female circumcision has been pushed by those advocating male circumcision.

Cseriess (imported) wrote: Tue Jul 09, 2019 5:23 am The article does seem to support the fact that it does indeed reduce the incidents of HIV infection though.

Hey @Cseriess

That is a great point about the article. All the studies (paid for by the companies that make the one time use disposable circumcision devices) do, in fact, show that circumcision reduces HIV transmission from female to male by 60% during unprotected sex.

However - and here is where it gets tricky - it doesn't work. Despite what the studies show, even after massive efforts to circumcise men, the HIV infection rates don't go down.

Even faced with the fact that it isn't working, the story quotes health officials quoting the studies.

I've said this for years, "circumcision is a cure" - the problem is that it's a cure looking for a problem.

I'm glad you pointed out the part of the article that uses the studies as justification.

My biggest problem with the circumcision effort is that it's taking huge amounts of money from a solution that really would work. To circumcision one adult male in Africa is costing about $100.00 US (the quoted amount varies).

A condom costs 2cents (including making the condom and delivering it to the man). So, the wasted $100.00 US could have purchased 5,000 condoms.

Remember, men undergoing circumcision as a preventative for HIV are told the still must use a condom. So far over 10,000,000 men have undergone circumcision in Africa. Ten Million times $100.00 each is ONE HUNDRED MILLION US DOLLARS. Which would have purchased FIVE HUNDRED BILLION CONDOMS.

Oddly, the American charities that are donating to the programs to circumcise men would face blowback if they decided to purchase condoms instead. Something about condoms are pure 'Murican logic that just doesn't work.

Makes you wonder if the real goal was to get those ten million foreskins available and free for the other profitable uses that circumcised foreskins are used to produce I imagine with circumcision rates falling in newborn American boys and likely increasing demand for the uses of foreskins, that new supplies of circumcised foreskins, especially the much larger adult foreskins, were sought for more profits.