Cutting Out Aids In New York With A Cicumcision
A PLAN to offer free male circumcision to New Yorkers most at risk of contracting HIV is not going down well in the city.
You can take away a man’s cigarettes. You can take away his trans fats. But you’ll never take his foreskin.
“For anyone to think there is going to be a long line of men in their 20s lining up to have part of their anatomy chopped off, it’s ludicrous,” Tokes Osubu, executive director of Gay Men of African Descent, told the New York Post.
Three recent studies in Africa showed that circumcision reduced men’s chances of contracting HIV by up to 60 percent. The World Health Organization and UNAIDS recently backed circumcision as a weapon in the fight against AIDS.
Now, the health obsessed New York City government, which recently banned trans fats from restaurants, is consulting community groups and gay rights organizations about offering free circumcision.
New York health commissioner Thomas Frieden called New York “the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic” in America. And mayor Michael Bloomberg said the rate of HIV infection and AIDS in the city was alarmingly high. Though the mayor cautiously added that he was doubtful the government should be involved in promoting or providing such a service.
Dr. Adam Karpaki, head of the city’s HIV prevention and control bureau, told the Daily News: “It is certainly not a panacea, it is not going to replace the need for condom use, but we see this as a potential, additional strategy.”
About 65 percent of baby boys in America are circumcised, with black and Hispanic boys less likely to be circumcised than white boys.
Michael Robertson, of HIV-prevention center People of Color in Crisis, said he couldn’t imagine encouraging adult men to have adult circumcision: “It’s just too painful.”
Posted: 7th, April 2007 | In: Reviews Comments (6) | TrackBack | Permalink
