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From:	ojok eric [ profile ]
Subject:	Uganda: Male Circumcision May Help Protect Sexual Partners AgainstCervical Cancer
Sent:	Jan 20th, 2011 - 07:42:36

	Please read the report attached: Male circumcision, which has been shown to decrease a mans risk of contracting the virus that causes AIDS, also appears to help protect his sexual partners against cervical cancer. In an offshoot of a landmark study of 1,200 heterosexual couples in Uganda involving circumcision and AIDS, researchers reported in The Lancet this month that having a circumcised partner reduced a womans risk of catching human papillomaviruses by about 25 percent. Such viruses lead to genital warts and cervical cancer. The study, led by researchers from Johns Hopkins University, did not last long enough to see how many women actually developed cancer; that can take years or decades. Cervical cancer was once a major killer in wealthy countries, but because of Pap smears it is now much rarer. In poor countries, it kills almost 250,000 women a year, according to the National Cancer Institute. Papilloma vaccines like Gardasil and Cervarix provide much greater protection than circumcision does, but they are too expensive for most poor countries. Doctors have long suspected that having circumcised husbands protected women against cervical cancer. A 1901 study in The Lancet noted that few British Jewish women died of it (although it erroneously concluded that they were protected by avoiding bacon). Later research in Israel found that stronger protection comes from a variant gene common in Jewish women all over the world. -- Ojok Eric National Focal Point-Uganda Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS Plot 12, Coronation Rd, P. O. Box 655 Gulu, Uganda \| Tel: +256 754 172595 ojokeric (at) gmail.com www.iAIDS.org \| www.youthaidscoalition.org

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