[posted by Justin Levine]

Although studies last year confirmed that circumcision helps prevent the spread of HIV among heterosexuals, new studies suggest that it doesn’t help in terms of gay men.

My reaction to this is: They actually needed a study to figure this out??  If circumcision helped gay men in preventing them from spreading the disease through anal sex, then we would have never have seen the pattern of infection that developed in the U.S. since the majority of gay men in this country are most likely circumcised. [*]

[* I admit that to the best of my knowledge, there has been no study done reporting on the actual rate of circumcision among gay men. But I have seen nothing to indicate that the circumcision rates among gays are any different than that of the general population in the U.S. and no cause to suspect otherwise. This makes inherent sense because most people who are circumcised have the procedure performed on them as infants – well before their sexual orientation has become apparent.]

In the U.S., among the two biggest risk demographics are gay men and blacks. Blacks are among the least likely to be circumcised in the U.S., so that also fits in logically with the statistics [though the higher incidence of intravenous drug use also surely plays a role]. The circumcision evidence also helps to explain why there was such a high rate of HIV among heterosexuals in Africa (where they don’t routinely practice the measure, and where it is highly doubtful that they have a significantly higher percentage of gay men than in the U.S.).

But now, some lazy headline writers are using the new study to throw doubt on the entire HIV-circumcision connection.

U.S. News uses the ridiculous headline:  Role of Circumcision in Reducing HIV Risk Still Unclear.

The BBC has the equally misleading:   Circumcision HIV Impact Doubted.

Contrary to these assertions, the impact is quite clear:  Current evidence strongly suggests that circumcision helps reduce the rate of transmission among heterosexuals, but not among those who engage in receptive gay-male sex. How hard is that to convey in a headline? I’ll just chalk it up to another instance of irrationality among some people when discussing this topic [both HIV and circumcision, that is.]

[I’m not going to get into the religious ramifications here among those who proscribe to the teachings of the Torah that was published some thousands of years ago. I’ll leave that for others to debate – with the caveat that tonight will be one of the few times out of the year that I will be going to shul and reading parts of that book. ]

– Justin Levine