All religions to accept  circumcision to combat AIDS 

Courtesy:TNN  ( Lot of other material married into it.)

NEW DELHI: International study suggests that circumcised men are less prone to HIV infection. That apart they are less likely to get penal cancer too. So there is no reason why Christians should restart circumcision again. 

King James Vesion of the Bible (Genesis 17: 9-14) says: ⁹ And God said to Abraham, "As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. ¹⁰ This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. ¹¹ You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. ¹² He that is eight days old among you shall be circumcised; every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house, or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, ¹³ both he that is born in your house and he that is bought with your money, shall be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. ¹⁴ Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."

Peter, Paul and other disciples have no right to alter that covenant. In the Bible"Act 15: 1-29 in the King James Version explain that very well:

¹ But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." ² And when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. ³ So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoeni'cia and Sama'ria, reporting the conversion of the Gentiles, and they gave great joy to all the brethren. ⁴ When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. ⁵ But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up, and said, "It is necessary to circumcise them, and to charge them to keep the law of Moses." ⁶ The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. ⁷ And after there had been much debate, Peter rose and said to them, "Brethren, you know that in the early days God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. ⁸ And God who knows the heart bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us; ⁹ and he made no distinction between us and them, but cleansed their hearts by faith. ¹⁰ Now therefore why do you make trial of God by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? ¹¹ But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will." ¹² And all the assembly kept silence; and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. ¹³ After they finished speaking, James replied, "Brethren, listen to me. ¹⁴ Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. ¹⁵ And with this the words of the prophets agree, as it is written, ¹⁶ 'After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up, ¹⁷ that the rest of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, ¹⁸ says the Lord, who has made these things known from of old.' ¹⁹ Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, ²⁰ but should write to them to abstain from the pollutions of idols and from unchastity and from what is strangled and from blood. ²¹ For from early generations Moses has had in every city those who preach him, for he is read every sabbath in the synagogues." ²² Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsab'bas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren, ²³ with the following letter: "The brethren, both the apostles and the elders, to the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cili'cia, greeting. ²⁴ Since we have heard that some persons from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, ²⁵ it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, ²⁶ men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁷ We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. ²⁸ For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: ²⁹ that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell."

However Paul agree that circumcision is must for proper Christians when he said  in Bible  (Romans:2:25) thus:                                                                                                  

"²⁵ Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision."

Because Christians have given up circumcision they were slapped with AIDS penal cancer and so on and it is high time  that they should restart it and begin to talk about it officially.

Now returning to the study  - which says HIV rates among those not circumcised are two to eight times higher than in those groups which practice circumcision - may have a significant bearing on the country's AIDS-prevention programme. But the Indian  government seems to be keeping a distance from it 

Conducted by France's National AIDS Research Agency in South Africa between 2002 and 2005, findings of the study were made public on July 26 at the 3rd International AIDS conference on HIV treatment in Rio de Janeiro.

Indian officials, who were present at the conference, agree that circumcision is a hygienic practice but they are loath to be seen as endorsing it because of its strong association with Muslims. However it is more associated with Jews and early Christians were circumcised including Jesus Christ as well as his disciples. The practice was knocked off to give Christianity to maximum number of people. Even Jesus who appeared after crucifixion never talked of lifting circumcision requirment.

Senior official conceded told TOI that : "Over 25% of people in Europe go for circumcision for protection against AIDS. But in India, we cannot encourage it because of its association with Muslims. Leave alone implementing it, even agreeing with the study would mean being attacked by Hindus. Then, we also don't want to make the bulk of the Muslim population feel that they can be safe with unprotected sex."

Ministry officials refer to the experience of Richard Feachem, executive director of Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS.

Recently, Feachem received thousands of hate mails when he made a statement in Paris, backed by a study, that he expected the epidemic to grow faster among Hindus because they didn't practise circumcision. One sharp reaction had come from BP Singhal of the BJP. However Buddhist can practice without any problem.

"This is obnoxious. We are not going to tolerate such remarks made against Hindus," Singhal had said in protest against Feachem's remark.

Even health minister A Ramadoss received .a letter from VHP leader Giriraj Kishore seeking to know whether India had commissioned a similar study.

"We did receive a letter from (him). We have also replied to him. No such tests are taking place in India," a ministry official said.

On condition of anonymity, officials also cited figures to show how Muslim countries, where circumcision is prevalent, have very low number of AIDS patients.

"We strongly believe that the AIDS figures in Muslim countries are extraordinarily low because of circumcision. While 0.92% of the adult population in India is HIV+, the number is 0.1% in Iran, Indonesia and Pakistan, 0.2% in Bangladesh and 0.4% in Malaysia. Circumcision can prevent six to seven out of 10 potential HIV infections," another official added.

Using caution, officials also pointed out that circumcision of men will not stop women from getting the disease. "At present, 40% of all AIDS patients are women. So Muslim men are still vulnerable. If Muslim women sleep only with Muslim chances of their getting also less. Muslim women getting womb cancer also less and it could be somewhat attributed to Muslim men getting less penal cancer.

The French agency circumcised about half of 3,000 subjects for the study, while the rest remained uncircumcised. After 21 months, 51 members of the uncircumcised group had contracted HIV while only 18 members of the circumcised group had the disease.

"There had always been theories that male circumcision prevented AIDS, but this was the first study using control trials. Though the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS took considerable interest in the results of the trial, UNAIDS has said it is too early to encourage widespread circumcision as a way to prevent the spread of AIDS. Lately, there has been heightened interest in male circumcision from governments in a number of African countries," an official said.

Researchers believe circumcision helps cut the risk of infection because the foreskin is covered in HIV 1 cells that the virus easily infects. At present, at least three more studies are underway to confirm the effectiveness of circumcision.

WHO is also working on guidelines for qualified medical personnel to conduct safe circumcision as demand for the operation has started to increase in the West.