Circumcision's Anti-AIDS Effect

Donald G. McNeil, Jr., writes in today's New York Times:

Circumcision may provide even more protection against AIDS than was realized when two clinical trials in Africa were stopped two months ago because the results were so clear, according to studies being published today.

The trials, in Kenya and Uganda, were stopped early by the National Institutes of Health, which was paying for them, because it was apparent that circumcision reduced a mans risk of contracting AIDS from heterosexual sex by about half. It would have been unethical to continue without offering circumcision to all 8,000 men in the trials, federal health officials said.

That decision, announced on Dec. 13, made headlines around the world and led the two largest funds for fighting AIDS to say they would consider paying for circumcisions in high-risk countries. But the final data from the trials, to be published today in the British medical journal The Lancet, suggest that circumcision reduces a mans risk by as much as 65 percent.

Read Circumcision's Anti-AIDS Effect Found Greater Than First Thought.