Dr. Paul D. Tinari Ph.D., M.Ed., P.Eng.
Director, Pacific Institute for Advanced Study, Research Epidemiologist

The Politics and Motivation behind the African “Research”
on Male Circumcision and HIV Infection

By Dr. Paul Tinari Ph.D.

For more than fifty years, the circumcision industry in North  America has reaped windfall profits by use of a clever combination of disinformation, lies and fear. By carefully targeted lobbying, selective funding of political campaigns and by playing the “religious freedom” card, the industry assured that laws were passed banning all forms of genital mutilation in females (even with consent), but shamefully and in blatant violation of both Charter and Constitutional guarantees of gender equality, permitted the genital mutilation of males (without consent). The sad fact is that while in Canada it is a Class D Felony to mutilate a corpse, circumcisors can mutilate living children (and even kill them) without fear of criminal prosecution.

In the last ten years, the pharmaceutical industry has discovered a universe of profitable products that can be manufactured from stolen foreskins. Even though the trade in human organs and tissues, especially those taken without consent, is universally banned as an  affront to human dignity (starting with the Nuremberg Laws passed in the 1940’s), the circumcision industry has once again exempted itself from any restrictions that would hinder the profit of its operations. As a result, each pilfered foreskin can be worth tens of thousands in commercial products – not bad for a product that they get paid to steal, despite the protestations of its rightful owner.

Gandhi once said that the truth can never be suppressed forever, and the carefully crafted façade constructed by the circumcision industry has begun to crumble in the face of successful assault by scientific and ethical facts. Parents are now, in a powerfully rising tide, rejecting the lies and  deceit of the baby mutilators, and increasingly embracing the axiom that if males were meant to have a foreskin, then they would be born with one. And as such, it makes sense to believe that his creator gave a foreskin to its male owner because the intent was for him to keep it.

As parents are now increasingly responding to scientific fact and reason instead of to hysterical claims and superstition, circumcision rates have plummeted to single digit percentages in many jurisdictions. This is most worrying to the circumcision industry, because their profits have begun to suffer. Seeing no hope of increasing supplies from North America or Europe, the industry has now targeted Africa as a brand new “virgin” source of foreskins to be harvested for luxury pharmaceutical products for well heeled consumers in the developed world. Let there be no mistake: The circumcision industry does not give a damn about the health of African children – they are only seen as a new - and more gullible – resource to exploit.

If the industry truly cared about the health of Africans, then it would be funding proper epidemiological studies, not the severely flawed, politically motivated “research” that has just been selectively made public. Why the obsession with ONLY studying male circumcision and HIV infection? Why is it that although female circumcision was also found to reduce HIV infection at the same conference where Auvert presented his alleged “evidence” that male circumcision can help lower HIV rates that absolutely no media attention was given to the study involving cutting female genitals? After all, the female labia have exactly the same cellular receptors as the male foreskin. Since it has now been established that circumcised females have a lower risk of HIV infection than intact ones, then why are researchers not demanding large scale circumcision of females in North America to give women the same alleged protection from HIV that men are getting?

Why has no study been conducted on the link between “dry” intercourse and HIV infection? Dry intercourse, popular with many African men, consists of drying out the vagina before intercourse by using harsh astringents. The dry, irritated and cracked vaginal tissues are far more prone to tearing, bleeding and hence, to HIV infection. Why have no studies been made on the link  between malaria infection and HIV susceptibility? Hundreds of millions of Africans are infected by the malaria parasite. Certainly it is of interest if this increases a person’s risk of HIV infection.

And what about the known links between the prevalence of other STDs and HIV infection? Antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea and syphilis are epidemic throughout Africa, and it is well known that their presence greatly facilitates HIV transmission to an infected individual. For that matter, any systemic infection that compromises the immune system including tuberculosis, sleeping sickness and many parasitical worms (all of which are endemic throughout Africa), will all greatly facilitate HIV infection. It is scientifically criminal that none of these factors was  controlled for in the recently announced but still unpublished “research.” Yet each of these  factors is potentially a far greater contributor to ease of HIV infection in males than the presence or absence of a foreskin. It is also criminally liable as well as scientific malpractice that the orchestrators of the study choose not to report that female circumcision was also discovered to  reduce the incidence of HIV infection. The fundamental purpose of science is to educate and enlighten – not to deceive and manipulate. Because of this, to be blunt, these research results are scientific garbage and should be treated as such.

In conclusion, the sad truth is that these were not professional, objective scientific researchers who were conducting an unbiased study whose goal was the improvement of human welfare. Rather, these are little more than amateur hacks, with at best a poor understanding of elementary epidemiological or statistical principles who were willing to do anything to prove their  presupposed dogma – that male circumcision prevents HIV infection. Why is the inconvenient fact ignored that the lowest rates of HIV infection in the world are found in the Scandinavian nations, countries where circumcision is virtually unknown? Why is it ignored that the Western nation with the highest circumcision rates, the United States, also has the highest rates of HIV infection?

The truth can be obtained by asking the innocent question: “Who sponsored this highly flawed research and for what political purpose?” The true intent of the study organizers can be deduced by their boastful claim that the results of this research would have all African men “lining up” to get circumcised. As usual, the African get conned while the Western multinational corporations laugh all the way to the bank.

A little digging will reveal that this research was paid for by the same sponsors who soon hope to richly profit from harvesting a huge new supply of African foreskins. After all, the same poverty stricken Africans were easily conned by Western multinationals into buying expensive formula (diluted with contaminated water) for their children, instead of using free, healthy and sterile breast milk.

-Dr. Paul Tinari, Ph.D.