PrintMarch 29, 2007
Circumcision touted as AIDS preventative
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that circumcision has been shown to reduce to probability of AIDS infection by as much as 60% in males.
U.N. health authorities officially endorsed circumcision Wednesday as an effective means of curbing the spread of AIDS among heterosexual men, laying the groundwork for a widespread expansion of the procedure in Africa, where studies suggest it could eventually save millions of lives....The formal pronouncement Wednesday follows the release in the last year of three major African studies showing that circumcision reduces the risk of infection in adult males by 60 percent.By comparison, researchers would consider an HIV vaccine conferring only 30 percent protection a success -- but prospects for achieving even that modest goal are dim.
I reproduce the following paragraph verbatim. AIDS is no joke, and it is almost but not quite April 1st. Still, it does seem a but unreal:
"The evidence is now quite conclusive,'' said Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of the Department of HIV/AIDS for the World Health Organization, during a telephone news conference from Geneva.
One does wonder how this news will be regarded by anti-Semites. Bookworm is put in mind of an old joke from the USSR:
Rumor in Moscow has it that the grocery store has cans of meat. Despite the fact that it's a very cold day, a long, long line instantly forms outside the store. After a couple of hours, a Communist official comes out of the store and announces, "Supplies are not as large as we first believed. All Jews must leave the line." With empty bags and empty stomachs, the Jews quietly depart. Another couple of hours go by, and the same official emerges from the store, this time stating, "Supplies are even smaller than we thought. All non-Party members must leave the line." The chilled, hungry non-party members wander off. Another two cold hours go by, and the official comes out for the last time: "Sorry, we have no supplies. Everyone must go home." And as the Communist Party members wander off into the frigid afternoon, one can be heard murmuring to the other, "Those damn Jews! They get all the luck."
