Circumcision and AIDS Ebony, Nov, 2005

Q I am a 35-year-old first-time mother-to-be, and I'm so excited about the motherhood. However, I know the child will be a boy, and I have a question concerning circumcision, especially as it relates to AIDS. Does the fact that a man has been circumcised lessen the possibility of him being infected by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS?

O.B., Charleston, S.C.

A For years there has been ongoing and heated discussion about the value, or non-value, of babies being circumcised. In one recent study, French and South African researchers apparently found evidence that male circumcision reduces by about 70 percent the possibility that men will become HIV-positive through intercourse with infected women.
The finding represents a potential major breakthrough in the fight against AIDS, a rampaging disease that's represented by an estimated 5 million new infections each year. Researchers are cautiously optimistic about the circumcision findings until they receive and interpret the data from the uncircumcised control group.

To this point, practically nothing--other than abstinence--has been proved to reduce the sexual spread of HIV.