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Bill Gates Helps Fund Mass Circumcision Program
Relying on recent studies, and not Bullshit! season 3, episode 1, Bill Gates has injected $50 million into a program to circumcise up to 650,000 men in Swaziland and Zambia. The project hopes to curb the spread of HIV in the region. "It's great news, and this is exactly what's needed," says Catherine Hankins, chief scientific adviser at UNAIDS. "We've been working on development of guidance and technical support, and these development partners are now being funded to take it forward."
Let's just assume, in order to sidestep one major argument, that this program is going to be exclusively for consenting adults and not for infants. That way, hopefully, we can avoid having the moral debate with regards to circumcision.
Given that assumption, I see several major flaws:
1) Getting circumcised to prevent aids is a bit like a man wearing heated underwear to prevent pregnancy. Sure it does seem to statistically reduce your odds of becoming infected, but it's nowhere near as a safe and effective as a simple condom.
2) It's a lot more expensive than a condom. I suppose you might argue that the lifetime cost is less than with a lifetime supply of condoms -- that may be the case, I have no idea what a lifetime supply of condoms would be. However, I'm guessing that, since condom usage should only be needed outside of a monogamous relationship (assuming testing is available and you can convince people to get tested), that probably is less to to supply someone with condoms for life. After all, this is effectively a "surgery" that's being performed. Equipment needs to be steralized, there would need to be some sort of local anesthetic, latex gloves, antiseptic, etc, etc. All that adds up, even if you've got a doctor giving his time for free.
3) It's probably a tougher sell. I heard a story that one of the studies that established the existence of a reduction in HIV infections among circumcised men apparently had many, many eager volunteers for the procedure once word got around that it was somewhat effective. Still, I imagine that speaks more to the desperation of the situation and not necessarily to the desire of most men to have someone take a knife to their genitals. I'd imagine if there was a OPTION given of circumcision OR free condoms, and people understood condoms to be 99.999% effective -- that most people would take the condoms. Again, I could be wrong. I'm by no means an expert on African culture -- but I just gotta believe that guys are guys everywhere.
So ultimately, you have a drastic, less effective and more expensive alternative to the condom. Why on earth would this be an effective use of money? And again, I'm not even touching upon the serious, and often unconsidered, moral arguments with regards to any circumcision program targeted also at children/infants. That's a whole can of worms unto itself.