[NYCFarmboy]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...ype=printableL

French and South African AIDS researchers have called an early halt to a study of adult male circumcision to reduce HIV infection after initial results reportedly showed that men who had the procedure dramatically lowered their risk of contracting the virus.

The study's preliminary results, disclosed Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal, showed that circumcision reduced the risk of contracting HIV by 70 percent -- a level of protection far better than the 30 percent risk reduction set as a target for an AIDS vaccine.

According to the newspaper account, the study under way in Orange Farm township, South Africa, was stopped because the results were so favorable. It was deemed unethical to continue the trial after an early peek at data showed that the uncircumcised men were so much more likely to become infected.

All of the men in the study had been followed for a year, and half the men had been followed for the full 21 months called for in the original study design, according to the Wall Street Journal, which obtained a draft copy of the study.

Begun in August 2002, the experiment is one of three closely watched clinical trials in Africa to determine whether there is scientific merit to nearly three dozen less rigorously controlled studies showing that circumcised men were much less likely to become HIV-positive.

The hope is that, lacking a vaccine, the nearly 5 million new HIV infections occurring each year could be slowed by circumcision, the surgical removal of the foreskin -- a simple, low-cost and permanent medical intervention that is a common but controversial cultural practice in much of the world. In Africa, about 70 percent of men are circumcised at birth or during rite-of-passage ceremonies in early puberty.

Medical anthropologists began noticing as early as 1989 that the highest rates of HIV infection in Africa were occurring in regions of the continent where the predominant tribal or religious cultures did not practice circumcision. Adult HIV infection rates above 30 percent are found in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland and eastern South Africa, where circumcision is not practiced; yet HIV infection rates remain below 5 percent in West Africa and other parts of the continent where circumcision is commonplace.

Laboratory studies have found that the foreskin is rich in white blood cells, which are favored targets of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. So the theory is that men who are uncircumcised are much more likely to contract the virus during sex with an infected woman, and that the epidemic spreads when these newly infected men have sex with other women within their network of sexual partners.

The lead investigators of the study, Dr. Bertran Auvert of the University of Paris and Adrian Puren of South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases, are not talking. The results were expected to be discussed at an AIDS conference in Rio de Janeiro in three weeks. But word about the findings has been circulating among researchers searching for ways to slow the epidemic.

"I would be thrilled if it works, but we will also need the results of other trials,'' said Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist Ronald Gray, who is conducting, in Uganda, one of two other controlled clinical trials of male circumcision.

Gray's trial, which has completed enrollment of 5,000 men in the Rakai district of Uganda, is not scheduled to end until 2007.

A third trial, under way in Kisumu, Kenya, is still enrolling its quota of 2,700 volunteers and is also expected to be completed in 2007, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is sponsoring it.

All three trials were designed to compare the HIV infection rates of two groups of HIV-negative men, one-half of whom would agree to be circumcised, the other to be offered only counseling on AIDS prevention. The studies were designed to show whether or not circumcision provided a statistically significant protective effect of at least 50 percent.

The South African study -- if the results are confirmed -- suggests that the level of protection afforded is even higher.

Although the apparent protective effect of circumcision has been noted for more than 20 years, doubts linger as to whether circumcision itself is protective, or whether the lower risk may be the result of cultural practices among those who circumcise. HIV rates are low in Muslim communities, for example, which practice male circumcision but also engage in ritual washing before sex and frown on promiscuity.

[mitchell_pgh]

Interesting stuff... I wonder why?

[DeathMan]

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh

Interesting stuff... I wonder why?

...

Laboratory studies have found that the foreskin is rich in white blood cells, which are favored targets of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. So the theory is that men who are uncircumcised are much more likely to contract the virus during sex with an infected woman, and that the epidemic spreads when these newly infected men have sex with other women within their network of sexual partners.

[MacNStein]

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh

Interesting stuff... I wonder why?

Rhetorical question?

Because people who are religious are more likely to be circumcised (within most Western traditions). Thus, they usually have more conservative views regarding premarital sex and adultery. Less fooling around, less of a chance to get HIV. It's not the only reason, but I'm sure it's part of it.

Circumcising a group of nonreligious men is likely to not make much of a difference at all, IMO. Much better to educate and provide condoms.

[BRussell]

That's interesting. If it's true, it also could be an explanation for why American men, most of whom are circumcised, are not likely to get it through heterosexual contact.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by MacNStein

Rhetorical question?

Because people who are religious are more likely to be circumcised (within most Western traditions). Thus, they usually have more conservative views regarding premarital sex and adultery. Less fooling around, less of a chance to get HIV. It's not the only reason, but I'm sure it's part of it.

Circumcising a group of nonreligious men is likely to not make much of a difference at all, IMO. Much better to educate and provide condoms.

You're funny.

[SVass]

Originally Posted by BRussell

That's interesting. If it's true, it also could be an explanation for why American men, most of whom are circumcised, are not likely to get it through heterosexual contact.

Mary Claire King (a world class geneticist at the University of Washington) said that there is a mutation among Northern European Jews (100% circumsized) that prevents catching aids! This would skew statistical analyses unless they were excluded. Correlation is NOT proof of causation! (unless you are mathematically challenged). sam

[WPFreedom1]

Wow, what an enlightened attitude you have. Welcome to the 1930's

[Captain Obvious]

wait for it................

[Apple Pro Underwear]

how does the foreskin factor into this? if white blood cells are rich in that area, doesn't the foreskin have to be bleed? how often does foreskin bleed?!

[BRussell]

Originally Posted by SVass

Mary Claire King (a world class geneticist at the University of Washington) said that there is a mutation among Northern European Jews (100% circumsized) that prevents catching aids! This would skew statistical analyses unless they were excluded. Correlation is NOT proof of causation! (unless you are mathematically challenged). sam

I don't see how the Jewish thing, if true, would skew these data, which were from Africans.

Correlation is not proof of causation, but this wasn't just correlation, it was a field experiment in which some men were circumcised and others weren't. There still could be confounds, like maybe the men who were circumcised were less likely to have sex due to the circumcision. But this is pretty damn good evidence.

[AKcrab]

Originally Posted by WPFreedom1

I think that blacks will soon be extinct due to violent lifestyles and AIDS.

Sarcasm? Trolling?

[CreepingDeth]

Anal sex and dirty needles are bad, too.

WPFreedom1: I sure hope you were kidding.

[Ozmodiar]

Originally Posted by Apple Pro Underwear

how does the foreskin factor into this? if white blood cells are rich in that area, doesn't the foreskin have to be bleed? how often does foreskin bleed?!

During intercourse, there is more than just an exchange of fluids. Trauma to one body from another body results in an exchange of cells without breaking capillary beds. Two men engaging in coitus (rather than a man and woman or two women) are more likely to exchange cells because of closer skin contact and more trauma.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by SVass

Mary Claire King (a world class geneticist at the University of Washington) said that there is a mutation among Northern European Jews (100% circumsized) that prevents catching aids! This would skew statistical analyses unless they were excluded. Correlation is NOT proof of causation! (unless you are mathematically challenged).

I've never heard anything about a mutation like this. It's not impossible -many people do have genetic resistances to certain diseases- but I'd imagine that a genetic resistance to AIDS of all things would have been more widely publicized.

Anyway, how exactly would circumcision protect against AIDS? How would that even work? It's true that the foreskin is rich in white blood cells, but that wouldn't increase your risk in any significant way unless you had some kind of open wound there. Most men aren't terribly keen on the idea of having sex while they're bleeding.

It is thought that circumcision might offer some hygenic benefits -mostly just in terms of convenience- but actual protection against AIDS seems unlikely at best. As the end of this article suggests, the lower infection rates among circumcised groups is more easily explained by the moral standards which also tend to be held among such groups. Risky behavior is frowned upon, and while this does not completely stop high-risk behavior it does tend to reduce such behavior significantly.

[SVass]

To clarify, I append what I just found via google
"Genetic resistance to AIDS works in different ways and appears in different ethnic groups. The most powerful form of resistance, caused by a genetic defect, is limited to people with European or Central Asian heritage. An estimated 1 percent of people descended from Northern Europeans are virtually immune to AIDS infection, with Swedes the most likely to be protected. One theory suggests that the mutation developed in Scandinavia and moved southward with Viking raiders.
All those with the highest level of HIV immunity share a pair of mutated genes -- one in each chromosome -- that prevent their immune cells from developing a "receptor" that lets the AIDS virus break in. If the so-called CCR5 receptor -- which scientists say is akin to a lock -- isn't there, the virus can't break into the cell and take it over.
To be protected, people must inherit the genes from both parents; those who inherit a mutated gene from just one parent will end up with greater resistance against HIV than other people, but they won't be immune. An estimated 10 percent to 15 percent of those descended from Northern Europeans have the lesser protection.
Using formulas that estimate how long genetic mutations have been around, researchers have discovered that the mutation dates to the Middle AgesWhy would the mutation stick around so long instead of giving up the ghost? Researchers initially thought the mutation provided protection against the bubonic plague that caused the Black Death in Europe. Those with the mutation would have lived longer and had more children while many of their neighbors died off. The fact that the genetic mutation also provided protection against HIV centuries later would just be a coincidence.
The plague scenario has been largely discarded in favor of another deadly scourge. "A disease like smallpox that has been continuous since that time ... is more likely," said Yale University professor of epidemiology Alison Galvani, who co-wrote a study about the possible smallpox link in 2003.
...
Last February, Mosier co-wrote a report in the journal Nature that debunked the plague theory after researchers found that mice bred with the AIDS-protective gene mutation still got sick with the plague. Mosier's not quite sure smallpox deserves credit for extending the mutation's life either, however, and suspects that a less high-profile disease -- diarrhea-causing dysentery -- may be why the mutation has lived on.
Besides the Northern Europeans and Central Asians with the CCR5 receptor gene mutation, new research shows that members of several ethnic groups have another, less-powerful kind of AIDS resistance. In the Science study released this week, a large team of investigators report that people who have more copies of a specific gene end up with greater resistance to AIDS, in some cases significantly changing how they handle getting infected.
The researchers examined the number of copies of a gene known as CCL3L1 in 4,300 people -- some HIV-positive, some HIV-negative. Those with the most copies of the gene -- but only as compared with others in their ethnic group -- had the most immunity to HIV. The HIV-positive people with the fewest gene copies got sick as much as 2.6 times faster than others who were infected.
More copies of the CCL3L1 gene appear to translate into more proteins known as cytokines, which guide immune cells by latching onto receptors -- those cellular locks. The cytokines "tell inflammatory cells it's time to move and go somewhere," Mosier said. With more cytokines floating around gumming up the cellular keyholes, there are fewer locks for the AIDS virus to pick."

In the lecture, she said Jews and above they say Vikings-ok whatever.
By the way, the Lemba are Cohanim per y dna tests, so "Africans" can also be of Jewish descent.
Sam

[nonhuman]

Jews: God's chosen People™

Ah, time to go home.

[qnxde]

http://www.danamania.com/~hexley/aids.mov

I'm sorry, I had to.

[Superchicken]

Originally Posted by MacNStein

Rhetorical question?

Because people who are religious are more likely to be circumcised (within most Western traditions). Thus, they usually have more conservative views regarding premarital sex and adultery. Less fooling around, less of a chance to get HIV. It's not the only reason, but I'm sure it's part of it.

Circumcising a group of nonreligious men is likely to not make much of a difference at all, IMO. Much better to educate and provide condoms.

I thought the same thing. Likely these people are either Muslim or Christian. It makes sense that fewer would be contracting AIDS. But of course as we all know, sex should be had daily with the first person you see when you wake up or get horny. As well religions regardless of what they are or what/who they follow provide no benefit to the world, we should all be secular humanists.

[von Wrangell]

Ignore WPFreedom please and perhaps report him as well. What do you think the WP stands for?

And yes, Scandinavians have this mutation that causes resistance to HIV(not aids) infection. I'll dig up some of the stuff I have about it when i get home from work. It's quite interesting.

And I still don't understand how circumcising would help. Even if the theory about white cell count in the foreskin is correct(I don't know to be honest) it shouldn't be that of a big deal since the uncovered glans penis is much more likely to sustain "tears" than the foreskin.

I'll try to find the original article(a bit curious why it was published in the WSJ instead of a science magazine).

[Obi Wan's Ghost]

Chopping flesh from babies doesn't stop AIDS. Nigerians are most circumcized but have huge number of AIDS sufferers.

Call this bull.

[Obi Wan's Ghost]

Originally Posted by SVass

Mary Claire King (a world class geneticist at the University of Washington) said that there is a mutation among Northern European Jews (100% circumsized) that prevents catching aids!

She's an idiot and should be thrown out of her job.

[IceBreaker]

interesting article, who knew!

makes one wonder about the benefits of circ. which up until now where really neglible... this sheds a new light on why people should consider this.

[BRussell]

Originally Posted by von Wrangell

And I still don't understand how circumcising would help. Even if the theory about white cell count in the foreskin is correct(I don't know to be honest) it shouldn't be that of a big deal since the uncovered glans penis is much more likely to sustain "tears" than the foreskin.

But it's not always uncovered. It could be that uncircumcised penises are more susceptible to damage because they're generally covered. Circumcised penises may have tougher skin because they're exposed all the time.

My understanding is that HIV is so hard to get partially because the virus dies so quickly outside of a host. Maybe the foreskin keeps it alive. Perhaps after the virus gets into the foreskin, it has time to enter the body, maybe even through the urethra.

[wdlove]

An interesting finding.

[von Wrangell]

Originally Posted by BRussell

But it's not always uncovered. It could be that uncircumcised penises are more susceptible to damage because they're generally covered. Circumcised penises may have tougher skin because they're exposed all the time.

My understanding is that HIV is so hard to get partially because the virus dies so quickly outside of a host. Maybe the foreskin keeps it alive. Perhaps after the virus gets into the foreskin, it has time to enter the body, maybe even through the urethra.

True, good point. Like I said, I'm gonna try find the original article when I get home from work. This is interesting although a bit ducious IMO.

[Lord.Schwarzung]

This indeed is interesting and should not be just shrugged off. What I find funny is the fact that the French scientists decided to cancel the experiment because it was so favorable towards circumcision. Go figure, they have some agenda against circumcision (the French are mainly uncircumcised).

What do the anti-circ "mutilation" freaks have to say now?

I'm glad circumcision is still in wide-spread practice in the US.

[Macola]

Yeah, I'm sure a study published in the WSJ was scrutinized for scientific method, proper controls, and subject to peer review

[von Wrangell]

Originally Posted by Lord.Schwarzung

This indeed is interesting and should not be just shrugged off. What I find funny is the fact that the French scientists decided to cancel the experiment because it was so favorable towards circumcision. Go figure, they have some agenda against circumcision (the French are mainly uncircumcised).

What do the anti-circ "mutilation" freaks have to say now?

I'm glad circumcision is still in wide-spread practice in the US.

You obviously don't know how research works. They had already collected enough data(if this pans out to be correct) to stop the study. Then they move onto why this is to find a reason for it.

[CreepingDeth]

Originally Posted by von Wrangell

Ignore WPFreedom please and perhaps report him as well. What do you think the WP stands for?

Ahh, yes. I knew that name sounded familiar. I remember posting 'WTF are you talking about' or something of that nature in response to him some time ago.

WP=White Power.

What a twit.

[von Wrangell]

Originally Posted by CreepingDeth

Ahh, yes. I knew that name sounded familiar. I remember posting 'WTF are you talking about' or something of that nature in response to him some time ago.

WP=White Power.

What a twit.

I almost got a heart attack from reading this post. We agree!

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Lord.Schwarzung

This indeed is interesting and should not be just shrugged off. What I find funny is the fact that the French scientists decided to cancel the experiment because it was so favorable towards circumcision. Go figure, they have some agenda against circumcision (the French are mainly uncircumcised).

What do the anti-circ "mutilation" freaks have to say now?

I'm glad circumcision is still in wide-spread practice in the US.

They decided to cancel it because it was deemed unethical to continue considering how much more likely the uncircumcised men were to contract HIV. They couldn't justify encouraging men that were clearly at greater risk to continue. It was a pro-circumcision decision.

Which you would have known if you'd actually read the article fully.

[BRussell]

Originally Posted by Macola

Yeah, I'm sure a study published in the WSJ was scrutinized for scientific method, proper controls, and subject to peer review

Yeah it hasn't been published yet, but if it does pan out as it seems, it's a pretty important finding.

[BRussell]

Originally Posted by nonhuman

They decided to cancel it because it was deemed unethical to continue considering how much more likely the uncircumcised men were to contract HIV. They couldn't justify encouraging men that were clearly at greater risk to continue. It was a pro-circumcision decision.

Which you would have known if you'd actually read the article fully.

Yeah, it was definitely not an anti-circumcision decision. But it is a bit weird. Usually they stop a study if they're doing something harmful - one that comes to mind was (I think) the hormone replacement therapy study on women. They stopped that because they were actually giving some women a drug that was found early on to be harmful.

I'm not sure why they would stop this one. I guess they have to tell them to go and get circumcised. But it's not like they were doing something harmful to the subjects in the study.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by BRussell

Yeah, it was definitely not an anti-circumcision decision. But it is a bit weird. Usually they stop a study if they're doing something harmful - one that comes to mind was (I think) the hormone replacement therapy study on women. They stopped that because they were actually giving some women a drug that was found early on to be harmful.

I'm not sure why they would stop this one. I guess they have to tell them to go and get circumcised. But it's not like they were doing something harmful to the subjects in the study.

Other than intentionally exposing them to HIV?

[CreepingDeth]

Originally Posted by von Wrangell

I almost got a heart attack from reading this post. We agree!

Bookmark'ed.™

[SimpleLife]

Originally Posted by nonhuman

Jews: God's chosen People™

Ah, time to go home.

ROFL!

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by nonhuman

Other than intentionally exposing them to HIV?

If I recall correctly, studies like this usually don't intentionally expose people to HIV. They instead work with high-risk groups, to see if the infection rate is significantly lowered by the therapies they are testing. This method is not perfect, of course, since not everyone in a high-risk group for a disease will get the disease even with no treatment, but it still tends to detect good cures when they arise, and it avoids the ethical issues involved with intentionally exposing people to fatal diseases. This technique is also useful when testing treatments for conditions not brought on by any known pathogens, where you couldn't expose the patients to the condition because you don't have anything to expose them to.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by MacNStein

Because people who are religious are more likely to be circumcised (within most Western traditions).

not really

cheers

W-Y

[olePigeon]

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Millennium

If I recall correctly, studies like this usually don't intentionally expose people to HIV. They instead work with high-risk groups, to see if the infection rate is significantly lowered by the therapies they are testing. This method is not perfect, of course, since not everyone in a high-risk group for a disease will get the disease even with no treatment, but it still tends to detect good cures when they arise, and it avoids the ethical issues involved with intentionally exposing people to fatal diseases. This technique is also useful when testing treatments for conditions not brought on by any known pathogens, where you couldn't expose the patients to the condition because you don't have anything to expose them to.

Ah, that makes more sense.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by Millennium

I've never heard anything about a mutation like this. It's not impossible -many people do have genetic resistances to certain diseases- but I'd imagine that a genetic resistance to AIDS of all things would have been more widely publicized.

Anyway, how exactly would circumcision protect against AIDS? How would that even work? It's true that the foreskin is rich in white blood cells, but that wouldn't increase your risk in any significant way unless you had some kind of open wound there. Most men aren't terribly keen on the idea of having sex while they're bleeding.

It is thought that circumcision might offer some hygenic benefits -mostly just in terms of convenience- but actual protection against AIDS seems unlikely at best. As the end of this article suggests, the lower infection rates among circumcised groups is more easily explained by the moral standards which also tend to be held among such groups. Risky behavior is frowned upon, and while this does not completely stop high-risk behavior it does tend to reduce such behavior significantly.

The mutation has NOTHING to do with Jews. The mutation is the same mutation that allowed some people to not get sick from the black plague or to only get partly sick and not die. This is also why the mutation is only in Europeans and not Natives, Blacks, Asians. Because this mutation allowed people to survive the black death the remaining people where mostly ones with the mutation and it spread into the general European populous from that.

What has been found is that if a person has one mutated gene, they will get HIV but never die from it. Never develop full blown AIDS. A person who has 2 mutated genes wont ever get infected at all.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sc...025_ccr5.shtml

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case...interview.html

On the part of the circumcision, when a mans penis goes soft, a uncircumcised penis is harder to clean then a circumcised penis. Also you can get little tiny cuts in the skin that don’t bleed but is enough to allow virus in. Foreskin is very soft and stretchy and can get more micro breaks in it. Could also be that men that are circumcised use condoms more then uncircumcised men. But I doubt it.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by nonhuman

They decided to cancel it because it was deemed unethical to continue considering how much more likely the uncircumcised men were to contract HIV. They couldn't justify encouraging men that were clearly at greater risk to continue. It was a pro-circumcision decision.

Which you would have known if you'd actually read the article fully.

Read it again they decided to cancel it because it was deemed unethical not to put this study into general practice NOW over later when it was due to be completed.

[AKcrab]

Originally Posted by nonhuman

They decided to cancel it because it was deemed unethical to continue considering how much more likely the uncircumcised men were to contract HIV.

Originally Posted by Athens

Read it again they decided to cancel it because it was deemed unethical not to put this study into general practice NOW over later when it was due to be completed.

It was deemed unethical to continue the trial after an early peek at data showed that the uncircumcised men were so much more likely to become infected.

You two are saying the same thing (basically)... Why are you telling nonhuman to "read it again"?

[Athens]

Originally Posted by AKcrab

You two are saying the same thing (basically)... Why are you telling nonhuman to "read it again"?

I read his post wrong OPPS

[AKcrab]

Yay!
Happy Family!

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by Athens

The mutation has NOTHING to do with Jews. The mutation is the same mutation that allowed some people to not get sick from the black plague or to only get partly sick and not die. This is also why the mutation is only in Europeans and not Natives, Blacks, Asians. Because this mutation allowed people to survive the black death the remaining people where mostly ones with the mutation and it spread into the general European populous from that.

If I recall correctly, that theory was in favor for a time, but isn't anymore. There is a gene which confers resistance to the Black Plague, but it's no longer thought that this same gene confers HIV resistance. There may be a gene which does that too, but if so then it's a different gene.

On the part of the circumcision, when a mans penis goes soft, a uncircumcised penis is harder to clean then a circumcised penis.

This is what I was talking about when I said that there were hygenic benefits, but that they were mostly in the area of convenience.

Also you can get little tiny cuts in the skin that don’t bleed but is enough to allow virus in.

If they don't bleed, then the virus won't get very far. The HIV virus needs a liquid environment to stay alive for long.

Could also be that men that are circumcised use condoms more then uncircumcised men. But I doubt it.

It's a possibility, but I also have my doubts. In many regions of Africa condom use still carries a strong stigma among men, and this is having disastrous effects. I've heard it said that the number one cause of AIDS is ignorance, and it's things like this which gave rise to that saying.

[moonmonkey]

cutting mens noses off would work just as well.

[von Wrangell]

Originally Posted by CreepingDeth

Bookmark'ed.™

But don't do that again! I don't like getting heart attacks!

[MacNStein]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

not really

cheers

W-Y

Yes, they are. Doesn't mean everyone is, but those who are Christian, Jewish, or Muslim are more likely (as I mentioned, the Western traditions).