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I think the parent post was inferring the opposite causation, ie, the families that tend to give their children circumcisions tend to be conservative and would

I think the parent post was inferring the opposite causation, ie, the families that tend to give their children circumcisions tend to be conservative and would probably have a lower hiv infection rate even if they would not have circumcised their children. Under this interpretation, being conservative is the cause of both circumcision and low hiv rates, and circumcision is negatively correlated with hiv rates.

mattzito 12y ago
Ahhh, but that's due to a lack of understanding of the studies, which weren't "let's start with people who are circumcised and compare their behavior vs. those who aren't". It was, "We're going to take a chunk of individuals in Africa who engage in risky sex, and circumcise half of them, and then track how many of them end up with HIV after a few years"
XorNot 12y ago
Actually no, my point was the nature of HIV means that the timeframe of whether or not someone gets infected is somewhat irrelevant. If someone is engaging in risky sexual behavior, and they will continue to do so, then the 10 year span of whether or not they get HIV may be irrelevant since the disease itself is incurable and ultimately fatal because they will continue to expose themselves to the risk factor until they join the infected population. It's also highly questionable if it would even control an epidemic in Africa effectively, seeing as how the spread is caused by misinformation in a huge part - a widespread campaign of male circumcision would likely increase the exact behavior which spreads it.