If you need a single, pointed example of scientists lacking common sense and of failing to grasp the totality of the circumstances, all you need is to examine a recent study published in The Lancet and authored by Maria
Wawer et al. at the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
Wawer examined the rate at which the female partners of 922 men contracted HIV and then compared the circumcised men's rate of transmission with the intact men. Fully 18% of circumcised men's partners contracted HIV compared with 12% of intact men.
Despite this clear, unequivocal contraindication, the authors state that men should still be offered circumcision regardless of their HIV status in order to avoid the stigma associated with the perception (or reality) of having HIV. In other words, the authors suggest the stigma should be placed on men who choose the rational option to remain intact.
And then, just to be funny, the authors suggest all men be offered circumcision for the laughable, dangerous, and utterly counter-intuitive purpose of reducing the likelihood of circumcised HIV-infected men and men of unknown status from using their status to coerce women to have unprotected sex.
Download Wawer-study-circum-effect-on-women.pdf.
Link: Circumcising HIV-Infected Men Increases Transmission to Women
