quote:A study found that circumcision cuts the risk of getting HIV by 70 percent in men who have sex with infected women. Researchers stopped the study "on the grounds that it would be immoral to proceed without offering the uncircumcised control group the opportunity to undergo the procedure."
I know the reason for most circumsicions is either religion or tradition, but we've debated whether or not it has healthful benefits. Looks like there definitely is. That's interesting.
posted
I don't understand how such a study could be done. They couldn't have actually had men have sex intentionally with infected women.
Also... maybe someone can enlighten me why AIDS is such a problem in Africa. I don't understand it at all. They can't be unaware of the problem and yet they continue to have unprotected sex? Is there a shortage of condoms? You see, I thought that maybe most of the people in Africa were contracting the disease in non-sexual ways, but if circumcision would help slow the spread of the disease, then a heck of a lot of people over there are having way too much unprotected sex.
I don't understand it. An outbreak of an airborne disease I can have sympathy for--there's not much you can do about it. But when people know the risks and have unprotected sex anyway, creating an epidemic size outbreak--I have difficulty having sympathy. I want to, though--and I believe that I MUST have some of the facts wrong. Maybe someone can enlighten me what circumstances make it so bad over there. (Like maybe people aren't being educated about the risks.) Please don't think that I have no sympathy for individual AIDS patients--I'm talking about when it reaches such large proportions and the society as a whole.
So, I'm not trying to be mean--on the contrary--I'm just trying to understand...
posted
Most likely, they have false knowledge of risks and ways of getting it and what the disease is.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Yes, AIDS is a huge problem in Africa for, I think, the same reasons that everything else is huge problem in Africa. Not much education, and few resources in place to provide. There's a myth that having a sex with a virgin cures AIDS. Can you imagine how that makes things worse?
I would link to the WSJ article that reports using a draft copy of the study, but it requires a subscription. The other news sources will be out with this soon, I hope.
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posted
Such dangerous and frivolous attitudes toward sex and AIDS make me think it would be a good idea to force AIDS victims over there to get a tattoo on their hand or something. But that violates basic human rights--doesn't it? It just makes me so angry that SOME people who get infected think it's okay to bring others down with them. But it's not okay to assume they all do it, I know.
But at the same time, non-infected people have a responsibility to practice safe sex or none at all, too.
quote:Although the apparent protective effect of circumcision has been noted for more than 20 years, doubts linger as to whether circumcision itself is protective, or whether the lower risk may be the result of cultural practices among those who circumcise. HIV rates are low in Muslim communities, for example, which practice male circumcision but also engage in ritual washing before sex and frown on promiscuity.
posted
Using those stupid jerks' methodology, one could also state that circumcision prevents spending time in prison.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
The last figures I saw actually provided for hygene differences as a part of the study, and uncircumcised men with good hygene had the same risk as circumcised men regardless of hygene. Not to mention that an uncircumcised virgin would still have a much lower risk of getting that particular disease. I don't think the sstatisics gathered here really account for all variables.
Not that I have any personal stake in the issue. I'm just generally opposed to cosmetic surgery, especially when performed on infants without anesthesia. I mean, if you're religion requires it and causes no lasting harm (like FGM)then it's cool. *shrug*
Posts: 1664 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Yes, I'm Olivet. I was. I could be again, I guess, if I'd bother to get the pasword...
He's my big brother. He moved to Greensboro about this time last year, but only got moved into a house and settled by about Christmas. I have periodically pestered him to join the forum. After he met CT an heard me talk about other buddies I've met here, he seemed interested.
Plus, his name is Steven. Posts: 1664 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Seems sketchy, but I could buy that it's valid to offer to adult men engaged in rick taking behaviour.
But I worry this this will be quoted out of context to parents with no religious reason to circumsise to convince them to do it.
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posted
This is old news, but for some reason it's making headlines again as though it were a new study. After I saw an article on it today I looked to see if I could find the actual study anywhere online, and was delighted to see that it's available on PLOS.
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posted
Last year it made headlines because they halted the study, and this year because they published it? Somebody has good PR people. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Katarain: I don't understand how such a study could be done. They couldn't have actually had men have sex intentionally with infected women.
Also... maybe someone can enlighten me why AIDS is such a problem in Africa. I don't understand it at all. They can't be unaware of the problem and yet they continue to have unprotected sex?
The AIDS stats in Africa are done differently. It would be far too expensive to test so many people, so instead, anyone who is diagnosed with anything on a list of illnesses (including, if I'm not mistaken, pneumonia) is listed as having AIDS.
It'd be fascinating to see how many people in Africa would really test HIV+ and what that would do to AIDS stats, but I don't think it's ever going to happen.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
This study uses a statistical model they developed to predict the reduced incidence of AIDS if every African male were circumcised. They do this basically by projecting the AIDS infection rate among males in cultures where circumcision is common to the parts of Africa where male circumcision is not as common.
The researchers noted that not only were the men circumcised and had much lower incidence of AIDS, but their teeth are straighter too.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Katarain: Such dangerous and frivolous attitudes toward sex and AIDS make me think it would be a good idea to force AIDS victims over there to get a tattoo on their hand or something. But that violates basic human rights--doesn't it?
How? In many parts of Africa the governing body is little more than a joke. Who would force them to do so? Where would the money come from? Where would the accurate records of who has AIDS come from?
These are all problems in additions to the violation of human rights, of course.
In response to your earlier question. There are a multitude of myths that people believe about AIDS in the US where everyone is provided a decent education and the means to spread accurate information to the populace is available. Most countries in Africa don't have those advantages.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz: The researchers noted that not only were the men circumcised and had much lower incidence of AIDS, but their teeth are straighter too.
*choke*
*sputter*
Please don't say things like that while I'm DRINKING!
posted
To expand upon what blacwolve said--when I was in Mozambique there were billboards adovocating condom use and all kinds of info on AIDS all over the place. But the info was in Portuguese, the official national language of the country. I don't know the stats offhand, but most of the country does not speak Portuguese. The vast majority of those who are literate and who could actually read that info are men.
Not to mention my beefs with the info itself: one of the billboards I remember showed a truck driver and it said, "When you leave home, use a condom." (there is some purpose behind that: there is a so-called "AIDS Corridor" in Southeast Africa that corresponds with trucking routes.) But still--to me, the implication is that when men leave home, they are going to be promiscuous, and that when they return they can ditch the condom, thus infecting their wives (which I say because if they are promiscuous, the degree to which they've practiced safe sex is dubious). Polygamy is also widely practiced in outlying areas (and most of the country is "outlying.")
I also don't know how widely free condoms are actually available. Most of the people can't afford food, so if it's a matter of purchasing them, forget about it.
There are massive campaigns to educate the people, but the myths and misconceptions abound nonetheless. It is hard to get the info into all the tiny villages. The people don't talk about AIDS even though it's killing them right and left. --someone may be ill and dying of AIDS but that is never discussed as the cause. There's just a big taboo against discussing this feared killer.
Now, that just represents the little part of Africa that I experienced, and I was only there a few months. It's also one of the poorest countries on the continent; but I imagine some of the same obstacles prevail throughout.
quote:Originally posted by Katarain: Such dangerous and frivolous attitudes toward sex and AIDS make me think it would be a good idea to force AIDS victims over there to get a tattoo on their hand or something. But that violates basic human rights--doesn't it? It just makes me so angry that SOME people who get infected think it's okay to bring others down with them. But it's not okay to assume they all do it, I know.
But at the same time, non-infected people have a responsibility to practice safe sex or none at all, too.
-Katarain
I'm strongly in favor of massive tests and quarantines of all HIV-positive people in Africa -- starting with a single country, and building up to the continent.
There'd be comparisons to concentration camps, and shrilling about human rights, but I'm not sure the criticisms can overrule the benefits. With the level of ignorance and outright dangerous beliefs of the common African, they're a danger to themselves and everyone they come in contact with. If AIDS victims can be kept isolated until their deaths, untold millions of lives can be saved -- and I'm honestly okay with violating the rights of a relative few carriers to spare an entire continent from their disease.
This is, of course, utterly inconsistent with my stand on civil rights for everyone else. But Africa's been destroying itself for decades with AIDS, and for centuries with other tools -- democracy and civil rights can only work with an educated, informed populace. I'd much rather channel African aid money to education and assuring a future, rather than toward futile efforts to prolong the lives of those who might still kill others.
Also, I wish we'd dedicated the military to ending the murderers in northeastern Africa rather than setting up a Shiite crescent in the Middle East.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:Originally posted by starLisa: The AIDS stats in Africa are done differently. It would be far too expensive to test so many people, so instead, anyone who is diagnosed with anything on a list of illnesses (including, if I'm not mistaken, pneumonia) is listed as having AIDS.
It'd be fascinating to see how many people in Africa would really test HIV+ and what that would do to AIDS stats, but I don't think it's ever going to happen.
Lisa, is that specifically Pneumocystis carinii (now renamed Pneumocystis jiroveci) pneumonia, or just any pneumonia caused by any old bacteria? *curious
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quote:Although the apparent protective effect of circumcision has been noted for more than 20 years, doubts linger as to whether circumcision itself is protective, or whether the lower risk may be the result of cultural practices among those who circumcise. HIV rates are low in Muslim communities, for example, which practice male circumcision but also engage in ritual washing before sex and frown on promiscuity.
From the article.
This is actually incorrect. It's ritual washing after sex. </nitpick>
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posted
I believe that there are people who believe (for various reasons) that the aids epidemic in general, and in Africa specifically, is a hoax, and that some scientists are pumping up their numbers using unorthodox methodology such as counting pneumonia as AIDS. I'm not sure if this is what Lisa is edging towards. If not, then just forget I made this post.
10% against the other 90%? I'd say that's relatively few. I don't see much progress being made in Africa without some kind of isolation of the disease and an organized system of education. Implementing one without the other has solved nothing so far.
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posted
No, relatively few is less than 1%. That's a huge chunk of the population. 28.1 million people. Where are you going to put 28 million people? What are you going to do with the people who already were there? What are you going to do with the children who's parents are taken away? Ten percent of a continent is not a small amount.
Discovering a cheap, easily produced and distributed cure for AIDS would be easier and cheaper than trying to quarantine 10% of the continent.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
Even if circumcision does protect against HIV (and I don't understand how someone can say definitively that it does; how could you possibly have a control group for this?) what good does that do an infant? Because as far as I know, most infants do not engage in unprotected sex with either men or women who are or are infected with HIV. It will not protect infants from dirty needles or bad blood transfusions either.
In addition, the study says that it began in 2002, but is it taking into account the fact that HIV can hide in the bloodstream for as much as 10 years before someone will test positive or show any simptoms?
Edited to add: My problem with circumcision is that it is most often (at least in America) forced on infant males who (obviously) have no say in the matter. Adults who chose to have the surgery are welcome to do it. (I also don't see much difference between male circumcision, which is often medically promoted; and female circumcision which is denounced by all human rights associations as a horrific violation of human rights.)
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by blacwolve: Discovering a cheap, easily produced and distributed cure for AIDS would be easier and cheaper than trying to quarantine 10% of the continent.
A cure, okay. Going though great efforts to handout the modern drug cocktails to the millions, no. Extending their lives so that they can continue to infect people doesn't help, and wastes money that could put to better use on the continent. Besides anything that works to minimize the seriousness of the disease isn't what you want when you're already dealing with prevalent misinformation.
Posts: 1621 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by blacwolve: No, relatively few is less than 1%. That's a huge chunk of the population. 28.1 million people. Where are you going to put 28 million people? What are you going to do with the people who already were there? What are you going to do with the children who's parents are taken away? Ten percent of a continent is not a small amount.
Discovering a cheap, easily produced and distributed cure for AIDS would be easier and cheaper than trying to quarantine 10% of the continent.
Yes, and when you have that cure, let me know.
As it stands, though, those infected interact freely with those not yet infected, and the number of sub-Saharan Africans infected has leapt from 5 million in 1989 to 25 million in 2003. Also, your statistics don't quite reflect the reality -- true, as a whole, Sub-Saharan Africa has (only?) about 10% of its population infected. But in southern Africa, the numbers are as high as 30% of the population. (And the slowdown in infections may have roots in the fact that many former AIDS victims are now dead, their numbers replaced by new carriers.)
Isolating these cases would help immensely to slow the growth of the disease; and if drastic measures had been taken in 1989, 20 million people might still be uninfected today. Africa's losing a massive number of adults over 30 -- and with the incredible population spike (largely due to international aid, ironically), this means a huge percentage of Africa's population will soon be children raising themselves, with no education or useful skills, amid intense warfare and genocide. Intervention must be drastic, or Africa will be beyond help.
This is prohibitively expensive, and will never happen -- but the half-trillion dollars spent on the Iraq war so far could have been far more effective in wiser hands. Peace is impossible while the incredibly young (and quickly reproducing) population starves amidst disease. Africa will always suffer if the ignorant and uncaring aren't kept from infecting millions more people, almost none of whom have the resources to understand exactly what they're infected with nor how to prevent it. Yes, it's a matter of saving people from themselves, and as a rule I'm usually against such actions -- but after decades, centuries, histories of watching African people suffer for their neighbors' ignorance, I'm tired of standing by and hoping donating food will solve these problems, or do anything but exacerbate them.
I don't know where 28 million people might be kept, unless a small segment of a country is set aside for them to die in. It would be difficult -- and honestly, given that it's Africa, they'd probably be executed rather than quarantined -- but do you really think it's kinder to keep them among the general population? Do you really think it's less of a mass murder if the weapon is disease and not a firearm?
If not isolation of AIDS and immediate institution of decent education (with a powerful military presence), what do you think might help Africa contain its epidemic?
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
People...the study is crap with a capital K. Seriously. Their methodology is just math modeling, not real empirical data. They project from their own estimates of AIDS incidence in a selected population that happens to have low incidence of AIDS and high incidence of male circumcision to get modeling parameters.
They didn't study actual individuals. In fact, they probably couldn't tell you if the men who have AIDS in population A versus B were circumcised or not -- it's just probabilities from (dubious?) social preference information and (perhaps equally dubious) health stats.
There is no more reason in this article to start encouraging male circumcision than there is for promoting any other cultural difference between the subject groups. Heck, for all they know, the people with low AIDS rates might have some measure of natural immunity.
I repeat -- they don't actually collect or use ANY DATA.
They take AS GIVEN that circumcision protects from AIDS, and then calculate what the impact would be of universal circumcision.
This work is an interesting mental exercise, at best.
quote:I don't know where 28 million people might be kept, unless a small segment of a country is set aside for them to die in. It would be difficult -- and honestly, given that it's Africa, they'd probably be executed rather than quarantined -- but do you really think it's kinder to keep them among the general population? Do you really think it's less of a mass murder if the weapon is disease and not a firearm?
Ok, obviously you're not interested in reality. So I'll skip right over all of the logistics involved in quarantining or even killing 28 million people. Or even the fact that the minute people found out an AIDS diagnosis was an instant trip to hell, they'd stop getting diagnosed.
Yes, it is mass murder if the weapon is a firearm. No, it's not if people die of disease.
Everyone dies, they die of disease, of violence, of old age, but everyone dies. You might as well say life is a mass murderer, because it inevitably leads to death. Murder is something you do to someone else. Murder is horrific because it kills someone unnaturally, and because the murderer reveals his lack of all humanity in the action.
quote: If not isolation of AIDS and immediate institution of decent education (with a powerful military presence), what do you think might help Africa contain its epidemic?
I don't think either of these is possible. Even if the whole world decided that mass murder was the solution, which is never going to happen. Africa doesn't have the resources or the infrastructure to do it. Implementation of decent education is equally impossible at this time. How can you implement widespread education in a country that doesn't have widespread government? What powerful military presence are you going to use to enforce this. One doesn't exist in Africa.
Sure, if you could completely isolate the disease and implement comprehensive education there would not be an AIDS epidemic in Africa. That's obvious. It's also not possible. When you have the military presence, the comprehensive records of who has AIDS, the public support for genocide, and the financial resources to implement your plan, I'll have developed and distributed my scientific cure for AIDS a long time ago.
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posted
And for the record, what you're talking about is genocide. On a scale that Hitler could only dream about. And it terrifies me that someone today. Someone who knows the history of the Holocaust, could conceive such an idea and not recoil in horror that the thought ever crossed their mind. I realised that in all my talk about logistics, I'd never made clear the horror this plan inspires in me.
I'm going to be gone for the weekend, without internet access. If this thread is still on the front page on Sunday, I'd be happy to continue the debate then.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote: There'd be comparisons to concentration camps, and shrilling about human rights, but I'm not sure the criticisms can overrule the benefits. With the level of ignorance and outright dangerous beliefs of the common African, they're a danger to themselves and everyone they come in contact with. If AIDS victims can be kept isolated until their deaths, untold millions of lives can be saved -- and I'm honestly okay with violating the rights of a relative few carriers to spare an entire continent from their disease.
Is it genocide if the people are already dead? Because that seems to be the only prognosis when someone contracts AIDS.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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People live with HIV+ indefinitely now. If you're saying "once you get 'full blown AIDS' you have no chance" that's one thing, but I've been assuming that the discussion here is centered on corralling HIV+ people, not just those who have AIDS. Otherwise, the effort would be doomed to failure anyway because HIV carriers who are asymptomatic can infect other people with HIV.
If you haven't had a chance to get up to date knowledge on treatments and prognosis, there has been a lot of meaningful progress.
Of course, without access to the super-expensive meds, people do face a pretty bleak future.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:I don't know where 28 million people might be kept, unless a small segment of a country is set aside for them to die in. It would be difficult -- and honestly, given that it's Africa, they'd probably be executed rather than quarantined -- but do you really think it's kinder to keep them among the general population? Do you really think it's less of a mass murder if the weapon is disease and not a firearm?
Ok, obviously you're not interested in reality. So I'll skip right over all of the logistics involved in quarantining or even killing 28 million people. Or even the fact that the minute people found out an AIDS diagnosis was an instant trip to hell, they'd stop getting diagnosed.
Yes, it is mass murder if the weapon is a firearm. No, it's not if people die of disease.
Everyone dies, they die of disease, of violence, of old age, but everyone dies. You might as well say life is a mass murderer, because it inevitably leads to death. Murder is something you do to someone else. Murder is horrific because it kills someone unnaturally, and because the murderer reveals his lack of all humanity in the action.
quote: If not isolation of AIDS and immediate institution of decent education (with a powerful military presence), what do you think might help Africa contain its epidemic?
I don't think either of these is possible. Even if the whole world decided that mass murder was the solution, which is never going to happen. Africa doesn't have the resources or the infrastructure to do it. Implementation of decent education is equally impossible at this time. How can you implement widespread education in a country that doesn't have widespread government? What powerful military presence are you going to use to enforce this. One doesn't exist in Africa.
Sure, if you could completely isolate the disease and implement comprehensive education there would not be an AIDS epidemic in Africa. That's obvious. It's also not possible. When you have the military presence, the comprehensive records of who has AIDS, the public support for genocide, and the financial resources to implement your plan, I'll have developed and distributed my scientific cure for AIDS a long time ago.
Whoa, I should clarify. My reply was sloppy -- to be very clear, I'm not in favor of a mass execution. I am in favor of a mass quarantine. And no, neither is rooted in reality, since nobody will cause either to happen.
And I disagree that keeping a highly contagious and fatal disease among the general population isn't tantamount to mass murder. The disease infects more people every year on a nearly exponential level -- this is the global trend (tragic and increasing, but not all-consuming), and this is the sub-Saharan African rate of infection. Just think how many lives might have been saved if someone had done something a decade ago -- and think how the continent might have been saved, since now Africa will be inherited by a huge, starving, diseased population of children who will be under increasing international pressure to sell what few resources they have remaining. There will be bloodshed in Africa like never before -- and that's really saying something.
As far as the possibility of this plan goes, well, good luck with the cure (I mean that). But given how the HIV virus simply adapts out of the way of all attacks so far, I don't think a permanent cure is likely; or if one is made, that it'll be cheap; or that the virus won't simply shore up what few weaknesses someone manages to find in it, and becomes a supervirus. I don't think a cure is likely, and a far surer way of stopping the disease is to stop its infection -- and the only way I see to do that is to quarantine all those infected.
I really hope you're right, and I hope in a decade we won't see Africa in a (larger) massively bloody war with itself, and I hope it turns out a quarantine is entirely unnecessary. But I don't think it's likely that Africa will solve its epidemic any other way.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I don't mean to be the rude voice of reason or anything, but it seems to me like both of you (blacwolve and Lalo) have arguements which are not based on fact, but mere speculation.
Blacwolve, you have NO idea when an AIDS cure is coming, how much it will cost, or whether or not it's even possible to come up with a permanent cure.
Likewise, Lalo, the "I can't think of anything better so this must be best" is a very fallacious argument. Beyond this, you have no concept of how much it would cost to diagnose, capture, force quarentin, contiunually retest the remaining population, etc. This is beyond the ethical issues of tearing parents away from children, etc, which certainly needs to be dealt with.
The point is this: instead of having a debate about who's idea is better (when really, none of you have done enough research to have a clue which one is "better"), why not do some research? Find out what other people have been suggesting. Find out the pros and cons of each. Find out how close "treatment" is to "cure" (I was under the impression that we have infinitely more trouble with virii than bacteria). How long do scientist think it will be before we get a cure? Before we get a cheap cure? Work out some of the logistics for your plan, Lalo. How much would it cost to test THE ENTIRE continent of Africa. What if I want to quarentine them? Against their will? How much would it cost to inform THE ENTIRE continent of Africa about what AIDS really is, how to prevent it, etc? If we're throwing that much money at Africa anyway, would it be better just to spend the money on food and other medicinal supplies for the people?
Wow, that went on a long time. I apologize ;-)
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posted
And for the record, what you're talking about is genocide. On a scale that Hitler could only dream about. And it terrifies me that someone today. Someone who knows the history of the Holocaust, could conceive such an idea and not recoil in horror that the thought ever crossed their mind. I realised that in all my talk about logistics, I'd never made clear the horror this plan inspires in me.
I'm going to be gone for the weekend, without internet access. If this thread is still on the front page on Sunday, I'd be happy to continue the debate then.
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