2007-12-01 Time - Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs: #1. Circumcision Can Prevent HIV

[Joseph]

IS THIS FOR REAL???

http://www.time.com/time/specials/20...690372,00.html

#1. Circumcision Can Prevent HIV

In December 2006, the National Institutes of Health halted two clinical trials of male circumcision after an early review of the data showed that the procedure dramatically reduced transmission of HIV. Early this year, the details of those studies were published in the Lancet: In the two randomized trials, which included 7,780 HIV-negative men in Rakai, Uganda, and Kisumu, Kenya, researchers found that medically circumcised men were at least 51% less likely than uncircumcised men to acquire HIV during sex with women. The editors of the Lancet called the discovery "a new era for HIV prevention." Scientists don't know yet whether male circumcision can also provide protection for female partners — a new study on the hypothesis is forthcoming next year.

[cloud7]

It's a shame that TIME magazine has done so little checking of the facts. just that the study was ended early should raise big red flags but instead they treat it as a good thing.

[Joseph]

It seems you can talk back on the Time Magazine page...

http://time-blog.com/talkback/fiftytoptens.php

I already posted what I thought:

Posted by Joe in CA in Salinas, CA
I must say TIME has really jumped the gun this time, posting circumcision to prevent HIV as a "Top Ten Medical Breakthrough." But that's only what can be expected from the biased American media. One can only guess that Ms. Guthrie is Jewish, married to a circumcised man, and/or a mother of circumcised children.

The studies she quotes have a great flaw in them, in that they do not correlate with reality. If circumcision "prevents HIV," how is it that the US suffers the highest HIV rate in the industrialized world, despite being the only country that routinely circumcizes its males? America has been routinely circumcising newborn children for nearly a century now. How is it that America has managed to have a higher rate of HIV than Japan, the UK, Denmark, Germany, or any other country in Europe that does not circumcise?

Shame on Time, for promoting a "medical break-through" that has yet to work in America. It seems fact-checking is not something respectable magazines do nowadays...

[z726]

Ironically this is the same magazine that two weeks ago published an article critical of circumcision in the US, in addition to an online article about foreskin restoration. They must like sending mixed messages to their readers.

[Joseph]

No, perhaps someone up in Time SAW all that anti-circumcision information, and thought they'd "settle the score" by publishing such an attrocity.