By Christopher Cappiello

Study Shows Circumcision Halves Risk of HIV Transmission

Routine male circumcision could reduce a man’s risk of HIV infection from heterosexual sex by about 50 percent according to the results of two studies conducted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The NIH announced the results Dec. 13, after halting clinical trials in Kenya and Uganda based on the overwhelming results to offer circumcision to all the men taking part.

“This is very exciting news,” David Halperin, an HIV/AIDS specialist at the Harvard Center for Population and Development, told the New York Times. “I have no doubt that as word of this gets around, millions of African men will want to get circumcised, and that will save many lives.”

Cells on the underside of the foreskin, which is removed in circumcision, are particularly susceptible to attaching to the human immunodeficiency virus. A circumcised penis develops thicker skin that is more resistant to HIV. In addition, the foreskin can suffer small tears during sexual intercourse, creating possible paths of transmission.

“This does not mean you have absolute protection,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a longtime HIV/AIDS researcher, told the Times. He emphasized that circumcision must be used with other prevention methods, and stressed that it does not reduce the risk of transmission through anal sex or drug injection. The studies included only men who had sex with women.

The Kenyan study showed that 23 of the 1,393 circumcised men caught the virus, while 47 of the 1,391 uncircumcised men became HIV-positive, a difference of 53 percent. The Ugandan study had similar results, with a 48 percent difference. Researchers have known that HIV infection rates are significantly lower in parts of Africa where circumcision is common, but other variables such as religious practices, incidence of rape or polygamy made it difficult to attribute the difference to circumcision.

On Dec. 19, UNAIDS announced that countries in southern Africa, where HIV rates are highest, should develop urgent policies of mass male circumcision based on the studies’ results. “The countries should now prepare to introduce circumcision on a large scale,” said UNAIDS head Dr. Peter Piot, according to Reuters. “The science is clear.” UNAIDS advised targeting infant boys first, but urged that adolescent and adult males should be circumcised as well.

In a Dec. 14 editorial, the Times called the findings “the most important development in AIDS research since the debut of antiretroviral drugs,” concluding, “International donors and governments should join together to spread the good news about circumcision and make the procedure available everywhere.”

Draconian Anti-Gay Law Proposed in Nigeria

In a country where gay sex is already illegal, the Nigerian House of Representatives is debating new legislation that would outlaw any interaction seen to be promoting homosexuality.

“Under this bill, anyone watching Brokeback Mountain or even Will & Grace could be prosecuted,” Nigerian human rights attorney Akin Marinho told The Associated Press. Friends gathered in a café could be prosecuted. Even two people in a private home could be subject to the five-year jail term the new law would allow.

“It’s not really such a big problem in Nigeria,” says legislator Haruna Yerima, about open expressions of homosexuality. “We just want to prevent such occurrences [like same-sex marriage] from happening here,” he told AP. With more than 130 million people, Nigeria is the most populous country on the African continent. It is roughly divided between a Muslim north, where gay sex is punishable by death according to Sharia law, and a Christian south, where the sentence is three years in prison.

Because of Nigeria’s anti-gay laws, the country’s LGBT community is deeply closeted and many are afraid to voice opposition to the proposed bill. “We could be arrested for talking about this,” said Bisi Alimi, one of the country’s few gay activists, to an AP writer. “You could be arrested for writing about us.”

Oludare Odumuye, the head of Alliance Rights, one of Nigeria’s only LGBT rights groups, told AP that the new bill is an attempt to pander to the ruling party’s powerful religious base in advance of elections scheduled for April 2007.

Irish Court Rejects Lesbian Couple’s Canadian Marriage

An Irish High Court judge has ruled that a lesbian couple’s Canadian marriage cannot be recognized in Ireland because the country’s constitution defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, Dublin’s Gay Community News reports.

Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan sued the government and its Revenue Department, claiming they were discriminated against because they could not file taxes as a married couple in spite of their 2003 marriage in Canada. The current law “negates and diminishes who we are and it negates and diminishes our love,” Zappone told the Boston Globe last year.

In her 138-page ruling, High Court Judge Elizabeth Dunne rejected the couple’s argument that there is a “consensus worldwide” that the definition of marriage should be expanded, and said that the Irish Constitution’s definition of marriage was not incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. She also, however, encouraged the Irish Parliament to pass legislation granting civil and financial rights to same-sex couples, the Boston Globe reports.

Zappone, an American from Seattle, met Gilligan, an Irish native and former nun, when they were doctoral students in education and theology at Boston College in 1981. In 1986 they moved to Ireland where they have lived as a couple since. Gilligan is one of Ireland’s leading experts on educating the underprivileged, and Zappone is a member of Ireland’s Human Rights Commission.

“It’s simple. Ann Louise and I love one another,” Zappone told GCN. “We believe that Ireland will be a land of justice and equality for all human beings. We believe that the Irish Constitution does protect and promote our rights—as it does all others.” The couple said they would examine the ruling with their legal team to consider an appeal to the European Court.

Ireland decriminalized homosexuality in 1993.