Former Special Envoy for AIDS/HIV in Africa calls for mass infant circumcision

I am passing this along for anyone who feels this is cultural opportunism at its worst (as I do) who may also wish to make their voices heard. As an aside, I am convinced the most effective advocacy of any point of view is to join the organizations and work to steer them in an ethical direction. Protesting outside is fine and necessary. But this problem needs insiders more badly than ever.

From Ron Low:

Hi David,

Ambassador Stephen Lewis said on the radio today that UNAIDS is now
calling for mass infant circumcision.  This is wrong, no?
-Ron

[As far as I know, UNAIDS has only endorsed adult male circumcision in high prevalence, low circumcision countries with a generalized epidemic. This would rule out all, but the sub-Saharan African countries.]

- - - - -

Stephen Lewis was on NPR's Worldview today [July 9]:

http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Program_WV.aspx

... and he devoted considerable time to advocating mass infant circumcision as a way to fight AIDS.

He will speak at a fund-raiser Thursday evening near Children's Memorial [in Chicago].

My friends and I will be outside the event Thursday with signs reading "Condom: 3 cents, Foreskin: priceless" and "450,000 US men who died of AIDS were circumcised at birth" and "Infants don't have sex, HIS body HIS decision" and "ABSTAIN from cutting helpless infants" etc. AIDS-Free World fundraiser Thursday.

Ambassador Stephen Lewis, the former UN Special Envoy for AIDS/HIV in Africa will speak at a fundraiser for his new organization, AIDS-Free World, July 12th from 6pm to 8pm at Suzanne Cummings Flowers, 630 W. Webster St. Jerome McDonnell, host of WBEZ's "Worldview," hosts. Tickets are $100 and parking is available at Lincoln Park Hospital. Email july12thevent@gmail.com for more info. - - - - -

Regards,

-Ron Low

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Comments

[partly]

Here's a transcript of what he said, from

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2007/07/02/why-can%e2%80%99t-the-united-states-stop-circumcising-boys/#comment-298841

"Stephen:
If I may draw a parallel, suddenly everybody is clamoring for circumcision for men, because that seems, a circumcised male, that seems to cut down the transmission from a woman to a man by something like 60% or better, so it’s very beneficial to the men to be circumcised, and we’ve known for years that male circumcision was an important preventative intervention, and everybody speculated and spent endless time ruminating on whether or not it should be done, and then there were three studies in Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa showing unequivocally and categorically that it cut transmission to men by more than 60% in some cases, and I notice in the last 24 hours UNAIDS has now called for mass circumcision starting with young children. You know, 7 or 8 years ago there were people calling for that, and for whatever reason it has taken all this time to get around to it.

Jerome:
You mention, the whole circumcision issue is a bit related to gender inequality, people think, well, we’re going to circumcise males, I don’t know if we should do that, there’s all this debate over the male organ, we’re not going to touch that. What kinds of things really enrage you about gender inequality?

Stephen:
Well, the way you put it was momentarily provocative. I remember, I have a very close collegue as a matter of fact, she’s the co-director of AIDS-Free World who was working with UNICEF in East Africa back at the turn of the century, and she suggested, I thought with enormous inspiration, that all infants should be circumcised when we were doing immunization. I mean, it’s perfect. You’re doing measles immunization, you’re doing polio immunization, you’re doing it with infants, it would be a perfect way to combine circumcision, providing you were able to set up the procedure in safe circumstances. That’s what UNAIDS is calling for today, exactly that, and at the time she suggested it 7 years ago, all the men in the office, you know, clutched their crotches and recoiled with horror.."

[turkey_neck]

Good for Stephen Lewis! About time someone spoke up about the inertia to act on the evidence of the protective effect of male circumcision to HIV and other infections.

[David]

Do you have something serious to say about the issue? Or are you merely baiting the skeptics?