A new study recently conducted in America and Peru of gay and bisexual men has shown that circumcision offers them ” no overall protective benefit,”write the researchers, led by Dr. Jorge Sanchez of the research organization Impacta Peru.
This study confirms other U.S. studies in which researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) looked at HIV infection rates among nearly 4,900 men in the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands who took part in a clinical trial of an HIV vaccine.
They found that circumcised and uncircumcised men showed no difference in the risk of HIV infection over three years.
There are a number of reasons why circumcision may not make much difference in transmission among men in Western countries, according to Deborah A. Gust and her colleagues at the CDC. Some are demographics, HIV risk factors like drug use and having unprotected sex in which circumcision showed no effect on the odds of HIV transmission.
They say that future studies, with larger samples of uncircumcised men, should continue to look at the question of circumcision and HIV transmission among men who have sex with men.
The researchers also note, however, that other CDC scientists have concluded, based on their own studies, that circumcision would likely have only a “limited” impact on HIV transmission in the U.S.
(Reuters Health) – A new study indicates that the value of circumcision for gay and bisexual men remains questionable.
Leave a Comment