First, the ritual circumcision performed solely by Jews is "bris" or "brism," not "briss."  A circumcision performed by anyone other than a Jewish mohel on any one other than a Jew and as anything other than part of a religious ceremony is not a bris, brism or briss. It is simply a circumcision.

Now on to the issue at hand.  Mr Hall jumped the gun by publishing his article before the AIDS 2006 meeting in Toronto.  If he had waited, he would have had the other side of the story.  A study presented at the conference compared the HIV/AIDS infection rate in African countries that practice circumcision and those that don't and found no statistically significant difference.

If circumcision has the 60% efficacy rate the authors of this research contend, there would be some evidence somewhere in Africa and there is none.  Further evidence is apparent in the United States.  With almost all of the adult male population circumcised, the US HIV/AIDS infection rate is the highest of all industrialized countries.Conversely, the infection rates in industrialized countries that do not practice male circumcision are remarkably and statistically lower.

There appears to be a deception in the Orange Farm study that is the subject  of these claims.  Two of the authors, Bailey and Halperin, have been touting circumcision as a panacea for more than a decade and a half with no evidence to support it.  If this study had found otherwise, it would have been career suicide for them.  They both had a great investment in the results of this study.

This study also perpetuates myths in the United States that uncircumcised men are dirty and dangerous, just waiting to infect their partners with some horrible disease.  This insults all men regardless of whether they are circumcised or not.  It clearly implies that if a man has not been rendered surgically safe, he is a danger to society.  This is a horribly misandrist view.  Men are less susceptible to infections than women regardless of whether they are circumcised or not.

The authors of the Orange Farm study are hedging their bets.  Along with circumcision, they are advocating and teaching abstinence, monogamy and condoms.  In fact, circumcision will protect no one.  Only knowing the history of sexual partners, abstinance, fidelity and condom use will provide a measure of safety.

Frank O'Hara
Atlanta, GA
USA