BABYTALK MAG reports HIV/Circ study

[momnmidwife]

I am a CBE and Doula, I was looking through the latest issue of the trash mag "Baby talk" (I do this regularly to keep up with the latest lies and garbage that are being fed to expectant parents) And they had printed a study done in Africa that links intact penises to a higher risk of HIV.

I of coarse immediately researched it online and did find a few sites that say it is flawed...I was wandering if any of you circ experts had any other resources on this?

It is so disgusting how it is presented...
page 18 under "Baby Checkup..." Under bright green headlines "Circumcision News" The first sentence is "Still debating whether or not to circumcise?"

It sounds like your child will get AIDS if you don't...it is such a scare tactic. Does anyone know why "BABYTALK" magazine would care if parents choose circ or not? Do they have affiliations or reasons to not promote leaving a child intact?

[falcon]

I saw this too... I think Babytalk will be getting a complaint letter from us Hey Babytalk, know how you can really lower your sons chances for getting STDs??? to heck with circumcision, cut the whole thing off! (sorry for the angry sarcasm, of course that is not what I plan to write... just wanted to vent) I think that cutting off a body part/inflicting an unnecessary surgery on a newborn really takes preventive medicine to new horrible extremes.

I don't have an answer to your questions, but maybe someone else here does, so I'm bumping this up to the top. C'mon fellow intactivists... Babytalk needs to hear from us!

[Doodlebugsmom]

I think I just read on this forum that the US Military did a study that is similar to the one in Africa. It showed that intact men are no more likely to contract HIV than circed men.

[momnmidwife]

Originally Posted by Doodlebugsmom

I think I just read on this forum that the US Military did a study that is similar to the one in Africa. It showed that intact men are no more likely to contract HIV than circed men.

Really? I'll have to try to find that...Thanks!

[Erin11]

I read about this today too. Although I really don't know much about circumcision yet (I have two babygirls) I knew as soon as I read that it was going to be a scare tactic. Just the way they emphasize stuff in that mag. makes it so unrealistic.

[~Scapegoat~]

Originally Posted by momnmidwife

I am a CBE and Doula, I was looking through the latest issue of the trash mag "Baby talk" (I do this regularly to keep up with the latest lies and garbage that are being fed to expectant parents) And they had printed a study done in Africa that links intact penises to a higher risk of HIV.

I of coarse immediately researched it online and did find a few sites that say it is flawed...I was wandering if any of you circ experts had any other resources on this?

It is so disgusting how it is presented...
page 18 under "Baby Checkup..." Under bright green headlines "Circumcision News" The first sentence is "Still debating whether or not to circumcise?"

It sounds like your child will get AIDS if you don't...it is such a scare tactic. Does anyone know why "BABYTALK" magazine would care if parents choose circ or not? Do they have affiliations or reasons to not promote leaving a child intact?

Speaking of page 18, if you have the new Mothering (Jan/Feb) look on that page, they talk about the study a bit.

[Frankly Speaking]

I wrote a very long reply to this a day or so ago and it didn't show up. I'm sure it posted somewhere out there in cyberspace somewhere, I just don't have a clue where. But, never the less, let me try again.

Magazines take press releases like this and print them as "Filler." They are used to fill blank page space when articles and advertisements don't fill the space. They usually are not checked for accuracy. This is probably why Baby Talk printed this one.

I did extensive research on this study when it came out. There were warnings that it was coming. In Feb. last year, the first mention was made of it. It announced that the study had been stopped because the circumcised study participants were contracting AIDS at a higher rate than the intact control participants. (That is correct. There was no typo there!) However, they asserted that circumcision could have a positive effect on AIDS transmittal and could be an effective intervention.

Much to my surprise, the next press release was in late July and came to the opposite conclusion, ie. that the circumcised men contracted AIDS at a lower rate. It was not until October that the study was published. (more on that later) The devil was in the details. For the first 4 months, the intact participants did contract AIDS at a much higher rate. It appears that this was while the men who were circumcised for the study were in recovery from their surgery and thus out of action. But, in the period from 4 months to 12 months, the circumcised men were contracting AIDS at a rate 250% higher than the intact men. Only by ending the study at 12 months could they maintain that circumcision was a preventative in contracting AIDS. If they had continued the study for the full time period of the study, the circumcised men who had contracted AIDS would have exceeded the number of intact men who had contracted AIDS.

I also learned that the study had been rejected for publication by the prestigious medical journal The Lancet. That was followed by a press release that gave a very weak excuse that there was a "misunderstanding." It quickly became apparent that the authors were lurking on discussion boards such as this one and were issuing press releases for damage control. In all, there were 6 or 7 rounds of press releases about this study. That gives reason to question in itself. Publicity seekers are frowned upon in the research community and a single press release is unusual but 6 is over the top.

Apparently, the authors "shopped" the study around to all of the legitimate medical journals without finding a taker and ended up publishing it to a on-line only journal called The Public Library of Science. (PLoS) PLoS was only established a year before this study was published there. Normally, publications are hungry for "content" and will pay authors for their content but in the case of PLoS, the author has to pay them to publish the work. Also, if you check the PLoS website, you will be quite amazed. Their business model is to publish scientific research of dubious value. You will also find that the same foundation (The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) that funded the study also funded PLoS. Obviously, PLoS was the publisher of last resort.

I also did some research on the authors of this study. They had a history of advocating circumcision, especially to gay groups. They had been so public in their advocacy that if this study had come out differently, it would have destroyed or significantly damaged their reputations. They started this study off with a forseen target and a predetermined conclusion and they had to do significant manipulating of the data to come to the conclusion they did.

I could write lots and lots more but to sum it up, this study is not worth the paper to print it as the respectable medical journals seemed to realize.




Frank

[Frankly Speaking]

Originally Posted by ~Scapegoat~

Speaking of page 18, if you have the new Mothering (Jan/Feb) look on that page, they talk about the study a bit.

Interesting! What did they say?



Frank

[jmhammond]

I also saw this and was annoyed. My son is circumsized; it was a difficult decision for my DH and I, but based on some family history (3 of 4 grandpas had late-in-life circumcisions related to cancer managment), we made the choice.

What really bothered me about this article/blurb was the premise: If you don't want your kid to get an STD, you should circumsize him?!? Sounds like a BIG stretch to me. It's like saying, "I don't want my son to ever get fat, so I'll never feed him candy." there is a correlation there, but NOT causation.

[rootzdawta]

I saw this in BabyTalk just today. Made me want to :Puke. I'm glad that was my last issue of that magazine.

[Frankly Speaking]

Originally Posted by jmhammond

I also saw this and was annoyed. My son is circumsized; it was a difficult decision for my DH and I, but based on some family history (3 of 4 grandpas had late-in-life circumcisions related to cancer managment), we made the choice.

I know it's too late now but I feel a need to pass this information on to our lurkers.

Penile cancer is caused by the HPV virus. While this is a very common virus and most people are infected with it at some point in their life, 97% - 98% develop a natural immunity to it. Additionally, there is now a vaccination for it that is 100% effective even for those already infected. There is also a cheap, dependable and quick test for the presence of the HPV virus. All women should be tested for the presence of the virus because it also causes cervical cancer. If the woman tests positive for an active infection, both her and her partner should seriously consider the vaccination to prevent penile and cervical cancer. Penile cancer is not limited to intact men. Circumcised men get penile cancer too and their partners can be infected from them. The vaccination is the only way to be sure you are protected.



Frank

[Daisyuk]

Originally Posted by momnmidwife

Really? I'll have to try to find that...Thanks!

http://www.iasociety.org/abstract/sh...act_id=2176002
(The XV International AIDS Conference, 2004)

Abstract:
Prevalence of male circumcision and its association with HIV and sexually transmitted infections in a U.S. navy population
A G Thomas, L N Bakhireva, S K Brodine, R A Shaffer
Naval Health Research Center, DHAPP, San Diego, CA, United States

"Conclusions: Although there may be other medical or cultural reasons for male circumcision, it is not associated with HIV or STI prevention in this U.S. military population."

[Frankly Speaking]

Posting to add another thought about this study:

This study could be very dangerous. It has also been widely promoted on the African continent as an AIDS prevention. This would give the men a false sense of security and could exacerbate the already horrendous infection rate that is at 38% in some areas. Like the HPV virus that is out of control, it could eventually be assumed that if they have had 3 or more sexual partners, they are infected. This could easily lead to the depopulation of the African continent of blacks.

There have been some discussions on the internet that this is a racial action but if you look at the background of the authors, that is not likely. It is likely that they are so eager to promote male circumcision that they manipulated the results to fit their agenda.




Frank

[Quirky]

Originally Posted by jmhammond

I also saw this and was annoyed. My son is circumsized; it was a difficult decision for my DH and I, but based on some family history (3 of 4 grandpas had late-in-life circumcisions related to cancer managment), we made the choice.

Originally Posted by Frankly Speaking

I know it's too late now but I feel a need to pass this information on to our lurkers.

Penile cancer is caused by the HPV virus. While this is a very common virus and most people are infected with it at some point in their life, 97% - 98% develop a natural immunity to it. Additionally, there is now a vaccination for it that is 100% effective even for those already infected. There is also a cheap, dependable and quick test for the presence of the HPV virus. All women should be tested for the presence of the virus because it also causes cervical cancer. If the woman tests positive for an active infection, both her and her partner should seriously consider the vaccination to prevent penile and cervical cancer. Penile cancer is not limited to intact men. Circumcised men get penile cancer too and their partners can be infected from them. The vaccination is the only way to be sure you are protected.



Frank

As with Frank, this is not to bash jmhammond, because what's done is done for her son.

However, amputating a healthy body part in a newborn because of a family history of late-in-life foreskin problems with the grandparents is not appropriate medical care. Shame on the doctors who gave such bad advice!

Amputating a newborn's foreskin because of a family history of penile cancer is like amputating a baby girl's breasts because of a family history of breast cancer. Both are simply inappropriate. If we didn't live in a culture that treats the foreskin as disposable and unnecessary for normal sexual functioning, both would be laughed out of town by any reputable doctor.

First, there is nothing to indicate that the baby WILL get penile cancer (or breast cancer, as the case may be). Especially given that many of the risk factors for penile cancer (bad hygiene, smoking, etc.) are within a person's control, and that penile cancer is a disease of old age - and a slow-growing, easily detectable cancer - it is better to let the boy decide for himself when he is an adult whether he wants to amputate part of his penis based on his family history.

Second, adults get adequate pain relief and it is easy to tell how much of the foreskin to remove. Babies don't get that luxury - their penises are not fully developed, and 75% of circs are done without adequate anesthesia.

Finally, even if penile cancer does develop, the man has had a full lifetime's use of his foreskin. It is not fair to the baby to deprive him a lifetime of the full range of sexual sensations the foreskin offers.

Jmhammond, I hope you will stick around and that if you have any future sons you will leave them intact.

[cravenab00]

I got this ad in the mail yesterday, I opened it, and the first thing I saw was a ADD drug ad, so I threw it in the trash. Santa didnt bring me a mothering subscription like I asked him. Maybe for my birthday....

So glad I didnt read that article, would have sent me into an angry frenzy.

[momnmidwife]

Frankly,
Wow, Thank you for your expertise on this. What a great post.

Gosh, that is a terrifying thought, when will those poor people in Africa quite being used as guinea pigs ! It's just disgusting! Can we get some educated people over there to help these poor people!

[jmhammond]

Thanks for all the information; as I said this was a very difficult decision. I know it will be a difficult one in the future as well for us if/when we have other sons.

I really do feel like we made the best decision in our circumstances, which I know sounds really odd to many of you. Basically it boils down to my faith; after prayer and many discussions, we made the choice, and feel at peace about it although I know we'll have to make it for each of our sons (should there be more) and I'm not convinced we will or will not circumsize. For me important life decisions are based on prayer, counsel, and agreement b/t DH & me. Each decision is made this way for us.

I don't feel bashed by your comments, I try hard not to be easily offended and I really do appreicate your information, which conforms to much of the information we had before we decided to circ.

[Galatea]

Originally Posted by Frankly Speaking

Interesting! What did they say?



Frank

Crap, I gave this issue away to a pregnant friend, but in the letters to the editor, someone wrote in to say, "Why didn't you report that circumcision prevents aids?" and they had a doctor reply, and he debunked the study in many ways, but basically what you said. Maybe someone has the issue sitting around and can type his response here?

[eleven]

Originally Posted by Galatea

Crap, I gave this issue away to a pregnant friend, but in the letters to the editor, someone wrote in to say, "Why didn't you report that circumcision prevents aids?" and they had a doctor reply, and he debunked the study in many ways, but basically what you said. Maybe someone has the issue sitting around and can type his response here?

I don't think I can post the whole response due to copyright issues (I forget what the word # limit is). A professor of African history and member of South Africa's Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel replied to the letter sent in by asking why the study wasn't included:

...
The investigators had paid adult males $60 to be circumcised, then compared their rastes of HIV infection with men who were not circumcised. After 18 months, the circumcised group of 1300 had 20 cases of HIV infection while the noncircumcised group reported 49.
The researchers behind the ludicrous study seemed oblivious to the fact that the existing medical literature lists some 70 preexisting conditions, having nothing to do with sexual behavior, that are known to trigger an HIV-positive test result.
One study included transfusions, transplantation, pregnancy, autoimmune disorders...
In addition to the unreliability of the subjects' actual HIV status, this deceptive study showed absolutely no clinical differences in terms of which group ever developed an actual AIDS-defining disease.
The study ... contains numerous disclaimers and admits to many uncertainties.
... no evidence to indicate whether male circumcision reduced the ability of HIV-infected men to transmit HIV.
... Lancet rejected a paper describing the results of the study.

I probably went over the limit. I'd be happy to type up and pm the letter and response if anybody would like to read the entire thing.

Basically, the expert said everything Frank did.

[~Scapegoat~]

Originally Posted by Frankly Speaking

Interesting! What did they say?



Frank

Pretty much what you said, it was just a snip of info (like a pp said).

Scanned article-Circumcision and Aids You might have to click on it to enlarge