Malawi News Agency has put out a fatuous ‘article’ about a journalist who has been duped into being circumcised in an effort to persuade others to follow his ‘example’. This reminds me that about 6 months ago I blogged about a misinformation service called Internews, connected with the rather smug Gates Foundation and the BBC. Internews boasts about being able to ensure that only ‘positive’ coverage of the US Government’s mass male circumcision program in African countries with medium to high HIV prevalence appears on African news sources.
This Malawian journalist was, apparently, persuaded also by the fact that circumcision is said to protect against human papilloma virus (HPV), although the evidence for this is even slimmer than that relating to HIV. More importantly, many African countries are already receiving assistance to vaccinate millions of Africans against HPV (currently being piloted), so why promote mass male circumcision as well? Are they afraid the HPV vaccination will not give as much protection as their promotional literature claims?
However this journalist was either too innocent, or too well paid off, to check available figures for HIV prevalence among circumcised and uncircumcised men in Malawi. In 2010 HIV prevalence was 14% among circumcised men and only 10% among uncircumcised men. This makes it look as if not being circumcised is protective. But things get a lot worse if you look at the three regions of Malawi, where HIV prevalence and circumcision are very clearly correlated:
How much clearer could this be? It is even possible to view these figures for Malawi another way. A 2013 article entitled ‘Mapping HIV clustering: a strategy for identifying populations at high risk of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa‘, using the same data (from the 2010 Demographic and Health Survey) identified three major HIV ‘clusters’ in Malawi. The cluster in the North and the one in the center of the country were of relatively low HIV prevalence, where circumcision rates are low. The cluster in the South of the country was of high HIV prevalence, where circumcision rates are high.
Internews and their collaborators would not wish anyone to mention this in a national newspaper, as their express aim is to ensure that only positive coverage about mass male circumcision and HIV transmission sees the light of day; or at least that those who are being told these lies and deceptions don’t know that there are things about circumcision they would be well advised to research. Reading a newspaper that has been bought off by some misinformation service is not research.
The article is full of the usual anecdotal rubbish about mass male circumcision, including some deluded victim of Internews and Co. (also a journalist) who had a problem with penetrative intercourse before being circumcised, the old chestnut about circumcision making people “clean and free of bad odours” (despite making it clear that some of these people suffering from bad odors ‘wear the same underwear for several days), sex being better, etc.
Several times the official claim about mass male circumcision is repeated, that it only ‘gives 60% protection, that people still need to use condoms’ and the usual claptrap. The article even points out that circumcision rates are high in the South and low in the other two regions. But, and this is the clever Internews bit, they don’t bother mentioning that HIV prevalence in the country is highest where circumcision is more widely practiced and lowest where circumcision is less widely practiced.
One of the biggest worries about mass male circumcision is that being circumcised only sometimes appears to be correlated with lower HIV prevalence; just as frequently it appears to be correlated with higher HIV prevalence. Given that there is no known mechanism by which circumcision could protect against HIV infection (only a handful of vague protohypotheses), these differences make it clear that there is a lot more to HIV transmission than circumcision status.
The clear message about mass male circumcision and HIV being payrolled by Internews, Gates Foundation, UNAIDS, PEPFAR and the likes is that Africans are promiscuous, reckless, ignorant and unhygienic; this kind of neo-imperialist institutionalized racism is par for the course in the HIV industry (yes, it is an industry, just like development) and would be condemned as such in most western countries (aside from the US, and perhaps the UK, apparently). So why do we find it acceptable to allow people in high HIV prevalence countries to be systematically deceived?
Bloodborne HIV: Don't Get Stuck! 