The Daniel Halperin Project

Who is Daniel Halperin?

Daniel Halperin is a researcher and statistician who is pro-circumcision. He has spent considerable professional capital on promoting infant and adult circumcision. The origin of his interest is not certain, but he has worked tirelessly to present his bias in favor of circumcision as based on science. His one-line refrain to deflect a skeptical and detailed discussion of his position is that most of his writings have been on behavioral change in the fight against HIV/AIDS. However, this refrain cannot remain true for long as circumcision has been his primary interest for some time now.

As a general proposition, one shouldn't assume a person's Jewish background to be a motivating factor in the promotion of circumcision. However, Halperin has in fact stated that he is so motivated. "[Being Jewish]  didn't [factor into it] during the first couple years I was doing this research. ... But in recent years, the Judaism aspect has crept in now and then. ... [M]aybe finding out my granddad was an occasional mohel was a weird kind of confirmation that maybe in some small way I'm 'destined' to help pass along [circumcision] to people in [other] parts of the world ... ." (Cover Story: The Case for Circumcision. By Gordy Slack. The East Bay Express Online. May 19-24, 2000.)

More recently, it is rumored that Halperin has associations with groups that gather and advocate circumcision as a personal, sexual preference. He betrayed his personal interest, perhaps inadvertently, in a quote from a New York Times article, where he said, "the wealthy elite [of Africa] have already done it. ... [it's] cleaner, sex is better, women like it." (See H.I.V. Halved By Circumcision, US. Agency Finds. By Donald G. McNeil, Jr. New York Times. December 14, 2006.) Clearly, his research and strident advocacy must have at least some of its genesis in a pre-existing personal interest in circumcision.

Born and raised American, it is also likely that he simply doesn't see any value in the foreskin. Such an attitude is widespread in the United States and can be summarized as the "what's-good-enough-for-me-is-good-enough-for-you" doctrine, well known and applied in child-rearing in circumcising societies.

On the plus side, Halperin appears to recognize that AIDS funding is heavily skewed towards solutions that are more appropriate to the developed world where basic needs are not a barrier to ARV therapy and behavior change. However, he bizarrely includes circumcision in his proscriptions, ignoring the many intact societies throughout Europe and Asia that do not suffer from high HIV infection rates.

The obvious problems of sexual dysfunction that circumcision can cause are unlikely to have a remedy in African and other poor resource settings. Halperin has a hard time facing up to this and the clear cultural barriers to the spread of HIV in the circumcising societies that he holds up as examples of circumcision as prevention at work.

Halperin has never addressed the problem of disinhibition in condom use, the reduced negotiation power afforded women who are faced with a circumcised partner who believes he is immune, and the recent studies that have proven women do not experience a reduced risk of HIV infection with circumcised partners.

Why should you contact him?

First and foremost, Halperin exhibits a bias in favor of circumcision that does not factor in ethical considerations. Nor is his position wholly supported by the evidence.

Halperin is part of a larger group working to spread the ideology of circumcision.  As an example of his peer group at work in promoting circumcision, one need only look at a recent article that was published at PLoS ONE. This study found NOTHING significant, and presented conclusions at odds with its findings. The rule is you must find something where P<0.05 before you can publish. Yet published it was, exhibiting PLoS ONE's pro-circumcision bias. See Mor Z, Kent CK, Kohn RP, Klausner JD (2007) Declining Rates in Male Circumcision amidst Increasing Evidence of its Public Health Benefit. PLoS ONE 2(9): e861.

The above-referenced paper was written by Z. Mor, C. Kent, R. Kohn, and Jeffrey D. Klausner. Since the last three work in California public health in San Francisco, and Halperin also works in public health and used to work in San Francisco, I've checked them against Halperin.

Halperin wrote two articles with Jeffrey Klausner. Klausner was one of the many authors who attacked Gray et al.  for not going far enough in advocating widespread circumcision campaigns in Halperin DT, Weiss HA, Hayes R, Auvert B, Bailey RC, Caldwell J, Coates T, Padian N, Potts M, Ronald A, Short R, Williams B, Klausner J. Response to Ronald Gray, Male circumcision and HIV acquisition and transmission: cohort studies in Rakai, Uganda ( 2000, 14:2371-2381). AIDS. 2002 Mar 29;16(5):810-2. The other article is Drain PK, Halperin DT, Hughes JP, Klausner JD, Bailey RC. Male circumcision, religion, and infectious diseases: an ecologic analysis of 118 developing countries. BMC Infect Dis. 2006 Nov 30;6:172.

Halperin and Klausner are fellow travelers in their advocating of genital surgeries. Klausner merits his own Project page, which will be forthcoming soon.

Who to contact and how

Daniel Halperin
Office of HIV-AIDS
US Agency for International Development
Washington, DC 20523
Office (202) 712-4529
Cell (240) 535-3327
dhalperin@usaid.gov
dhalp@worldwidedialup.net

Halperin's superior at Harvard's Center for Population and Development Studies is Dr. Lisa Berkman. You should contact her as well about your concerns.

Dr. Lisa Berkman
Director
Center for Population and Development Studies
9 Bow Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Tel. 617.495.2021
Dept email: cpds@hsph.harvard.edu

Comments are open for providing better and more timely contact information. I will be monitoring it closely for trolls and spam.

vers. 0.2 [2/23/2008]