Anyone who knows me well knows that one topic that really incenses me is genital mutilation. Lately I’ve been hearing (and reading) a lot about the circumcision/HIV trials in Africa and it has irked me enough to blog about it.

A little background: over the past decade, several studies have taken place in African nations with high HIV rates to assess if male circumcision provides protection from HIV. Basically, the researchers recruit thousands of HIV-negative male participants, circumcising half of them and leaving the other half intact. After several months the men are tested for HIV. The studies reported that, depending on the specific trial, the circumcised men had 50%-60% fewer cases of HIV than their intact counterparts, and, although they were replete with shortcomings (i.e.: they were not double blinded, and the circumcised men were told to abstain from sex for six weeks following the procedure, giving them a shorter amount of time in which to become infected), many health and HIV organizations are now promoting circumcision as a means of preventing HIV, and it seems like every newspaper and magazine in the United States has reported the findings as “promising.”

What has been left out of the medical and media reports is the curious fact that, worldwide, some of the countries that have the lowest rates of circumcision are also those that boast the lowest rates of...

The Centers for Disease Control is considering promoting routine circumcision for baby boys in the US as a means of decreasing the spread of HIV, says the NYTimes.

Not only is this ignorant; it is dangerous. To women, and to people of color.

Public health policy makers have been talking up circumcision as a way to reduce HIV transmission ever since data first showed that it could reduce infection rates by up to 50-60% among African men. PEPFAR, UNAIDS and others jumped on the surgical bandwagon, ramping up efforts to promote circumcision in Africa. Family Health International even created a Male Circumcision Clearinghouse with the latest information on research and intervention.

And no wonder the joy. 50% reduction of transmission is fabulous. Unless of course, you knew that there was another way to reduce transmission by close to 100%, called... condoms. The fact is, promoting condom use in Africa has not been super-effective, and often because the public health officials...