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Bill Gates Talks AIDS Vaccine Potential, Research Funding


    • Why does Bill Gates have a hard on for circumcision?

      IS it that he actually cares for humanity, or is he more interested in letting everyone know he's spending millions of dollars?

      Whatever your reservations about circumcision, it needs to be made clear that circumcision does not, nor cannot prevent HIV. People like to tout the latest "studies", but a few realities need to be taken into account.

      In America, for example, 80% of men are already circumcised from birth. The rates of infant circumcision are dropping that's for sure, but at large, the population remains circumcised. These rates are at their highest in the east coast, and cities such as Philadelphia and Washington DC rival HIV hotspots in South Africa. In the 1980s, when circumcision first hit, the rate of circumcised men was at 90%. One needs to question how something that never worked here in our own country is suddenly working wonders in Africa.

      In other countries, the "protection" remains to be seen as well; google "Haaretz" and "sharp rise in AIDS" and "failing the AIDS test" and you will see that AIDS is a rising problem in Israel, where the majority of the male population is already circumcised.

      On Wednesday, July 7th, just last week, Malaysian AIDS Council vice-president Datuk Zaman Khan annourced that than 70% of the 87,710 HIV/AIDS sufferers in the country are Muslims (in other words CIRCUMCISED).

      Whatever your views on circumcision, don't buy into the lie that it prevents HIV. Only condoms can do that. We need to make sure that our tax dollars aren't going to be wasted promoting a "prevention method" that has been conclusively shown to FAIL. Promoting circumcision is a waste of money, when condoms and education have been proven to be far more effective. It's also proving to be dangerous; in Africa, men are already using their circumcisions as excuses to forgo condoms, putting themselves as well as their partners in danger.

      You can be against circumcision, or support it because it's your "culture" or whatever, but don't let our president, organizations like the CDC or the AAP waste our money on quackery.

      How people get HIV depends on BEHAVIOR, not on whether they have been circumcised or not.

      When all is said and done, it is condoms and education that protect. We need to concentrate our efforts on THAT.

    • The Africa studies purported to show almost 60% relative change in HIV risk (this is actually about a 1.4% risk change) but this has not been observed in the industrialized world (probably because the study did not take into account the down time of the cut men). In the US, no change in risk has been found between natural (intact) men and men that have had parts cut off including about 20000 fine touch and stretch sensing nerve endings. These groups both have about a 1% risk. So the risk change is only found in Africa when circumcision pushers like Gates are involved.

      In another study, they the same circumcision pushers that did the Africa study (Gates and co.) halted it because it was indicating that circumcised men pass HIV to women at a much higher rate than natural men.

      Stop the mutilation madness and promote condom use.

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