Defense Mechanism: Circumcision averts some HIV infections
By Nathan Seppa
Men who get circumcised reduce their risk of acquiring HIV, the AIDS virus, by more than half, a clinical trial in South Africa shows.
Many previous studies have suggested such a benefit from male circumcision (SN: 4/3/04, p. 212: Available to subscribers at Better-Off Circumcised? Foreskin may permit HIV entry, infection). But this trial and two ongoing trials in Uganda and Kenya are the first ones to investigate the procedure’s effect on HIV risk to men. It did so by randomly assigning some men and not others to be circumcised, says physician Bertran Auvert of INSERM, the French national research agency, in Saint-Maurice.