Circumcision and condom idiocies

When children are taught to use calculators, the importance is well recognized of teaching them to THINK about what the result should be, by doing a rough mental or manual calculation, so that they don’t accept a silly order of magnitude through mistaking an exponential or use a stupid number of decimal places as “significant figures”. So too, people who use statistical analyses of possible correlations should THINK about the implied meaning of suspected associations. That could hardly have been the case with those who wrote

“The protective effect of MC [male circumcision] on HIV infection was unchanged when controlling for sexual behaviour, including condom use” [Auvert et al., “Randomized, controlled intervention trial of male circumcision for reduction of HIV infection risk: The ANRS 1265 trial”, PLoS Medicine 2(11) (2005) e298].

THINK about it, please. Circumcision supposedly protects against “HIV” whether or not the male is wearing a condom?!  How could that possibly be?
The claimed protective effect of circumcision can only have something to do with the foreskin. Indeed, it is hypothesized to result from the high density of “HIV”-susceptible cells in the foreskin or from the foreskin’s greater tendency to tear during intercourse. But condoms prevent contact of the foreskin with anything except the condom. How could the foreskin be relevant when condoms are used?

*********************

Those 3 flawed clinical trials of circumcision against “HIV”, with results at best inconclusive and at worst unbelievable, have nevertheless formed the basis for projections, under the auspices of UNAIDS, of how many “HIV infections” could be prevented, and at what minimal cost. Those projections are based, as usual, on elaborate models incorporating innumerable assumptions as well as unwarranted reliance on the clinical studies whose faults are legion.

*********************

Everyone knows, of course, that condom use decreases the risk of contracting “HIV”. But, as so often with HIV/AIDS shibboleths, the facts don’t bear that out [for example, Condoms and HIV: What everyone knows is once again wrong, 10 February 2008; HIV and sexually transmitted disease: it just isn’t so, 28 November 2007].

For instance, during a clinical trial of the influence of pregnancy in which the actual incidence of “HIV” was being observed in real time, the rate of becoming “HIV-positive” was greater among those using condoms than among those not using them, in all 3 studied cohorts [as I noted already in Spontaneous generation of “HIV”, 25 October 2009]:

At what straws might the investigators grasp to explain this away?
“HIV incidence rates were lower in non-condom users than condom users, but interpretation was constrained by small sample sizes in the pregnant and breastfeeding groups, and by the fact that female condom use in this population is strongly correlated with multiple sexual partners.”

So condoms don’t protect you if you have multiple partners, and not using them protects you if you don’t have multiple partners. By all means, sign me up for the next time a Brooklyn Bridge goes on sale.

As to sample sizes:
Those never using condoms irregularly or always totaled 2763, of whom 49 became “HIV-positive”, a rate of 1.77%. Those not using condoms totaled 25,440, of whom only 289 became “HIV-positive”, a rate of 1.14%.
It’s not immediately obvious why the samples 49/2473 and 289/25,440 are too small to permit significance whereas 23/997 (pregnant women becoming “HIV-positive”), 40/3,043 (lactating women becoming “HIV-positive”), and 275/24,161 (women neither pregnant nor lactating becoming “HIV-positive”) were sufficiently large to establish that pregnancy is significantly associated with becoming “HIV-positive”, as the study concluded.

I suppose it’s really that when the facts don’t jibe with HIV/AIDS theory, the facts must be wrong, and if the only conceivable reasons are small sample sizes and an association between condom use and multiple partners, so be it, that’s the best explanations there are, and there’s no need to worry about their plausibility because the theory is right and the facts are therefore wrong.

The conclusion that pregnancy is significantly associated with becoming “HIV-positive” is in itself mind-boggling. The researchers “explain” it by postulating hormonal and other physiological changes in pregnancy that enhance the virus’s infective powers! Because, of course, they must not admit that “HIV+” might be a direct consequence of pregnancy, the so-called “HIV” test actually reacting directly to precisely something associated with those physiological changes. That’s why pregnant women everywhere, always, test “HIV+” more often than non-pregnant women.

Laugh, cry, or summon up pity for those caught in this “research” mess, who have to swallow absurdities in ever-increasing amounts in order to maintain their belief in HIV/AIDS theory.