CIRCUMCISION REDUCES RISK OF AIDS BY HALF

Circumcision Reduces Risk of AIDS, Study Finds (NYT)
Circumcising African men may cut their risk of catching AIDS in half, the National Institutes of Health said today as it stopped two clinical trials in Africa, when preliminary results suggested that circumcision worked so well that it would be unethical not to offer it to uncircumcised men in the trials.

AIDS experts immediately hailed the result, saying it gave the world a new way to fight the spread of AIDS, and the directors of the two largest funds for fighting the disease said they would now consider paying for circumcisions.

“This is very exciting news,” said Daniel Halperin, an H.I.V. specialist at Harvard’s Center for Population and Development, who has argued in scientific journals for years that circumcision slows the spread of AIDS in the parts of Africa where it is practiced.

In an interview from Zimbabwe, Mr. Halperin added: “I have no doubt that, as word of this gets around, millions of African men will want to get circumcised and that will save many lives.”

But experts also cautioned that circumcision is no cure-all. It only lessens the chances that a man will catch the virus, it is expensive compared to condoms, abstinence or other methods, and the surgery has serious risks if performed by folk healers using dirty blades, as often happens in rural Africa.