Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, Hugo Chavez, Martin Luther King and Harry Truman all have a rarely spoken of common trait, intact penises. While all of America’s Founding Father’s had uncircumcised penises, the practice became popular in America in the 20th century and led to it becoming the norm in many parts of the country irregardless of a person’s religious beliefs.
American doctors from John Hopkins are now encouraging circumcision as part of an effort to reduce sexually transmitted diseases. Some Western states have bucked the trend with uncircumcised boys now out numbering their cosmetically altered comrades; in comparison America’s Northeast leads the nation in the number of circumcisions. Many parents choose, outside of religious reasons, to have their sons follow in the path of their fathers when it comes to the decision to be circumcised. Those who do so now have medical research to back up their decision.
Uganda was the site of study conducted by the American doctors, but not every health provider is buying into the conclusive nature being promoted. The BBC is quoting Dr Colm O’Mahony, a sexual health expert, as saying the United States had an “obsession” with circumcision being the answer to controlling sexually transmitted infections. The researchers from Johns Hopkins University found circumcision reduced the risk of herpes by 25%, and human papillomavirus (HPV) by a third, but Keith Alcorn, from the HIV information service NAM, suggests,”We have to be careful not to take evidence from one part of the world and apply it uncritically to others.”
Uganda is dramatically different from many other more developed countries in that it suffers from massive, crippling poverty. But Uganda is also often held has a model for reducing HIV infection, having more than cut in half the number of infections from almost 15% of the population in the 1990s to around 5% in 2001. Circumcision in Uganda carries a cultural stigma, and the practice is still uncommon; the decrease of HIV from 15% to 5% is attributed to education and safe sex practices.
Conducting research in Uganda and applying it’s results, as mentioned by Dr. O’Mahony, is a known problem. Studies on AIDS/HIV have required additional studies to judge whether the original research was tainted by the stress brought on by the lack of food and money. This problem was reported as a first hand narrative by a researcher, David Tuller, who was troubled by having to study the effect of hunger on HIV treatment in lieu of actually feeding people. The John Hopkins study was conducted between 2003 and 2008, and appears to confirm results of a study done in 1994 and observational studies conducted in the late 1980s. The most recent study does not indicate if researchers incorporated genital hygiene as a variable in their conclusions. This was the one significant area that previous studies determined needed further research.