Circumcision Controversy Continues

Andrés over at Blabbeando and commenters over at Joe.My.God do a good job of following the "furor over foreskin" that Mad Professah has been blogging about for awhile now. Blabbeando links to a cool article at Vivir Latino which has a statement (via 20 Minutos) from Mariángela Simao, a technical advisor in the Health Ministry in Brazil (a country which probably has the world's largest supply of uncircumcized penises, and some would argue also the largest supply of world's largest uncircumcized penises) declaring that Brazil will not be considering circumcision as an HIV prevention tool anytime soon and lambasting the idea.

"I find the recommendations of the WHO and U.N. HIV/AIDS program a little surprising and even frightening," Simao told Agencia Brasil.

...This proposal gives a message of "false protection" because men might think that being circumcized means that they can have sex without condoms without any risk, which "is untrue", she said.

(English translation by Vivir Latino)

The always excellent Andrés has a copy of a Dear Community Member letter (and a link to the scanned-in full text by LifeLube) from often-controversial NYC Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden which was circulated to HIV/AIDS community leaders in New York City yesterday where he disputes statements attributed to him in the New York Times on April 5, 2007.

Dear Community Member:

Recent media reports misrepresent the Health Department’s response to recent studies showing that circumcision significantly reduces HIV transmission in some contexts. We do not yet know what impact circumcision could have on HIV transmission in New York City, and we have not suggested or planned any initiative or campaign. Quite to the contrary, I indicated in an interview with the New York Times (the source of the misrepresentation) that I very much doubted that even 1% of men at high risk in NYC would undergo the procedure.

As a result of rigorous studies, we now know that circumcision reduces risk of female-to-male spread of HIV by about 60%. There is some evidence, but no proof, that circumcision may reduce male-to-female transmission. There is also some evidence, but again no proof, that it may protect men who engage in insertive anal sex from male-to-male transmission.

[...]

The plot thickens!