General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Studies showing "benefits of circumcision" highly flawed [View all]JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)and I recommend reading his text, and better yet the Boyle et al. study on which it is based.
The numbers claimed in the Auvert and other studies are themselves the result of many flaws and biases. I cover this for the Auvert study at length in my own piece, linked at the end of the OP.
Earp's point is also that a 1.3% absolute difference may be statistically significant, but clinically irrelevant. Even if the numbers are accepted despite the fixed nature of the studies that arrived at them, genital cutting is effectively useless compared to condoms. No one who is cut can simply have unprotected sex with an infected person and expect not to be infected. Cut or uncut, they still need to use the only effective protection is a condom. The pro-cutting propaganda is creating the impression that cutting is an effective protection, however, and according to news reports ends up discouraging condom use. Where should limited resources go? To a pro-cutting campaign that, according to the fixed studies, may make a small difference in the chances of getting HIV in the course of unprotected sex with an infected person? Or toward promoting and providing condoms, which provide highly effective protection, close to 95%. The emphasis on cutting as some kind of miracle preventative is thus exposed as a cultural bias. Those studies get all this attention here because they justify the widespread and highly dubious practice of male genital cutting here.