The HIV and The Snip

This is ck’s nephew Eyal – the latest member of Jewlicious to get snipped, thus reducing his chances of getting HIV. Yes. He is indeed giving you the finger.

This story isn’t really Jewlicious at all as it merely correlates with something that is correlated with Judaism, but…

The suspected link between circumcision and less susceptibility to contracting HIV enjoyed a massive amount of confirming data recently as a recent study showed that circumcised males were 60% less likely to contract HIV then their uncircumcised counterparts. The long term projects garnered definitive evidence so quickly that the trials were called off early. But don’t take Muffti’s word for it, take Anne Buve’s words for it (she is an epidemiologist at Antwerp’s Institute of Tropical Medicine):

We did find that circumcision confers certain protection against HIV, in that it seems circumcised men do not get HIV as easily as uncircumcised men.

Well, that was less enthusiastic than one might like. Let’s try Dr. Kevin de Cock, director of the World Health Organization’s AIDS department:

Circumcision is the most potent intervention in HIV prevention that has been described.

The data has yet to receive a full explanation – one speculation is that the skin of the circumcised penis is tougher than that of the uncircumcised penis.

Also effective in preventing HIV transmission are condoms. And they don’t require what can strictly speaking be only called unnecessary surgery.

Source: The BBC.