Researchers have found one more good reason for male circumcision, and this one is for the ladies. Authors of a study published Thursday in the Lancet medical journal said that the wives and girlfriends of circumcised men were found to have a 28 percent lower rate of infection with the human papilloma virus. HPV is known to cause warts and cervical cancer in women, and the Center for Disease Control finds that almost 50 percent of sexually active people will contract the virus at some point in their lives.
Dr. Maria Wawer lead a team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University who said they ''studied HIV-negative men and their female partners in Rakai, Uganda'' between 2003 and 2004.
''Our findings indicate that male circumcision should now be accepted as an efficacious intervention for reducing the prevalence and incidence of HPV infections in female partners,'' Wawer’s team wrote.
The researchers studied almost 1,000 women and after years found that 27.8 percent of the partners of circumcised men contracted HPV infections compared to 38.7 percent of the partners of uncircumcised men.
''Male circumcision has now been shown to decrease HIV, herpes simplex virus-2, and HPV infections and genital ulcer disease in men, and also HPV infection, trichomoniasis, and bacterial vaginosis and genital ulcer disease in their female partners,'' the researchers wrote.
Circumcision removes the penis’ foreskin reducing microbes, especially since the foreskin is rich in immune system cells targeted by viruses.
''However, protection is only partial; the promotion of safe sex practices is also important,'' the report reminds us.
Sean Jobst
Just another psuedo-scientific study meant to justify circumcision, using skewered results and ignoring all evidence to the contrary. How easy it is to have preconceived notions that one thing is the absolute truth, and then skewer any evidence to back up the said bias? I'am disappointed, as an intact man who has never had any problems, that such Illume would take such pseudo-science for granted.
January 9, 2011
Joseph4GI
This research is anything but new. The claim that HPV could be reduced by circumcision has been made before. In fact, this is the second time that researchers have re-hashed the exact same numbers from Uganda trials that happened like 4 or 5 years ago. I remember it well; two or three years ago, the same institute, Johns Hopkins, touted that circumcision reduces the risk of HPV by 35%, and herpes by 28%. (That just means circumcised men are still at 65% risk for HPV, and 72% for herpes. Are these numbers really all that compelling, esp. when condoms prevent ALL of these by over 95%?) Actually, Maria Wawer was involved in a study that showed that women were 50% more likely to get HIV from a circumcised man. HERE'S a question; why aren't there any studies to see what STDs female circumcision could reduce? If studies showed that female circumcision reduced the transmission of STDs to men, would we then be calling for medical organizations to endorse it? This is absolute madness. When are circumcision researchers going to look into something else? There has GOT to be a better way to prevent disease than by mutilating boys and men. Studies that place primacy in legitimizing the destruction of the human body, instead of preserving it, have got to be the most illogical studies I've ever heard of in my life. Let's study skull trephination. I'm sure there are plenty of health benefits in that.
January 8, 2011
Hugh7
It's no coincidence that "this one is for the ladies". Women weren't buying circumcision when it was only claimed to protect men from HIV, and a study by this same team started to show that circumcision could INcrease the risk of HIV to women, but (so?) they cut it short before that could be established. This is just part of the same marketting campaign. (In Swaziland they're using blackmail, with football and pool teams that only circumcised youths can join.)
No good study has shown that circumcision has any effect on cervical cancer itself, only HPV, a very common virus that the body is good at getting rid of.
It is not enough that circumcision "decreases the risk" of this or that disease. How many circumcisions are needed to prevent one transmission, and what are the alternatives? Some of the frightening sounding diseases they list are very rare, and hundreds or even thousands of circumcisions would be wasted to prevent one case.
January 8, 2011
Frederick Rhodes
My mom, her younger sister, and my older sister married circumcised men and needed total hystorectomies by their early 50's. One of my mom's other 2 sisters(81 YO now) and my younger sister (52 YO now)married intact men and still have all their parts. If the study/test providers were intactivists, or not already proponents of infant circumcision, the results would not have been presented so biased as to reccommend excision to all. Out of about 60 gay and bisexual men in my life, aproximately 50/50 cut/intact, I have only met 2 men with HPV warts on the shaft skin of their circumcised penises, and never any intact men with HPV warts anywhere. I have met men with ugly infant circumcision scars and men who developed suicidal depression from being sexually terrorized as infants, and men who practice foreskin restoration as theropy. Saying excision of an infants prepuce may or may not prevent a deadly disease as an adult is like saying an infant double mastectomy may or may not prevent a deadly breast cancer. This type of superstitious fanatisism has obvious links to religious prejudice.
January 8, 2011
stdslove
I have HPV and I am an engineer who works for the largest STD dating and support site STDslove. com. I have to tell you a secret, you can choose not to believe me. But the truth is that this site has more than 1,880,000 members and about 80% members are good looking in my estimation.
Unfortunately, STD rates soar worldwide and most people with STDs don't even know that they have them. The government should grant more money for STD education to lower the rates of STD transmission.
January 8, 2011
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