http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Circumcision drastically alters the microbiome of the penis, changes that could explain why circumcision offers protection against HIV and other viral infections. In a study to be published on April 16 in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, researchers studied the effects of adult male circumcision on the types of bacteria that live under the foreskin before and after circumcision. By one year post-procedure, the total bacterial load in that area had dropped significantly and the prevalence of anaerobic bacteria, which thrive in locations with limited oxygen, declined while the numbers of some aerobic bacteria increased slightly. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-circumcision-penis-microbiome-hiv.html HIV & AIDS Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:04 EST news285246002 South Africa is home to the largest HIV epidemic in the world with a total of 5.6 million people living with HIV. Large-scale clinical trials evaluating combination methods of prevention and treatment are often prohibitively expensive and take years to complete. In the absence of such trials, mathematical models can help assess the effectiveness of different HIV intervention combinations, as demonstrated in a new study by Elisa Long and Robert Stavert from Yale University in the US. Their findings appear in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-shortcut-cost-effective-interventions-hiv.html HIV & AIDS Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:40:01 EST news285243996 Thrashing wildly, five-year-old Reta wails as she is hoisted onto a bed during a circumcision ceremony in a school-hall-turned-clinic on Indonesia's island of Java. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-indonesia-denies-mutilation-circumcision-traditions.html Other Sun, 24 Mar 2013 04:30:01 EST news283317162 (AP)—German lawmakers approved a bill Wednesday that explicitly permits male infant circumcision, ending months of legal uncertainty after a court ruling that the practice amounts to bodily harm led to an outcry from Jewish and Muslim groups. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-germany-bill-male-circumcision.html Health Wed, 12 Dec 2012 11:07:09 EST news274532822 (AP)—Left-wing lawmakers in Germany are threatening to oppose government efforts to keep male infant circumcision legal. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-german-lawmakers-circumcision.html Health Mon, 12 Nov 2012 09:22:02 EST news271934517 Many cases of female genital mutilation likely go unreported in Australia, a state minister said Friday after four people were charged over the alleged circumcision of two girls aged 6 and 7. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-genital-mutilation-girls-australia.html Health Fri, 14 Sep 2012 04:27:28 EST news266815639 (AP)—The United States' most influential pediatricians group says the health benefits of circumcision in newborn boys outweigh any risks and insurance companies should pay for it. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-circumcision-pluses-outweigh-pediatricians.html Health Mon, 27 Aug 2012 04:50:15 EST news265261809 A senior member of Germany's ethics committee Thursday called for a compromise in a heated debate over religious circumcision after a court ruled the practice was tantamount to grievous bodily harm. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-german-ethics-committee-tackles-circumcision.html Other Thu, 23 Aug 2012 10:00:01 EST news264933946 A team of disease experts and health economists at Johns Hopkins warns that steadily declining rates of U.S. infant male circumcision could add more than $4.4 billion in avoidable health care costs if rates over the next decade drop to levels now seen in Europe. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-declining-infant-male-circumcision-billions.html Health Mon, 20 Aug 2012 16:00:09 EST news264692231 Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe launched the national census Wednesday, saying he hoped the once-a-decade count would measure the extent to which AIDS was affecting the population. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-mugabe-census-reveal-aids-toll.html HIV & AIDS Wed, 15 Aug 2012 12:57:34 EST news264254244 A Swiss hospital announced Friday that it has lifted a moratorium on religiously-motivated circumcisions imposed in July in the wake of a court ruling in neighbouring Germany. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-zurich-children-hospital-circumcision.html Other Fri, 10 Aug 2012 07:45:34 EST news263803528 (Medical Xpress) -- The 3rd South African National HIV Communication Survey (NCS) results released today at the XIX International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., revealed new data that show substantial increases in behaviors that reduce the risk of HIV: condom use, HIV counseling and testing, and voluntary medical male circumcision. The data also confirm that exposure to HIV communication programs have a direct impact on people practicing these behaviors. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-south-africa-survey-great-million.html HIV & AIDS Tue, 24 Jul 2012 16:23:58 EST news262365831 German doctors are seeking an urgent clarification from the government over religious circumcision after a court ruling calling it a criminal act prompted an international outcry. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-german-doctors-urgent-action-circumcision.html Other Sun, 15 Jul 2012 12:45:05 EST news261575096 An investigation led by UCSF has found that the risk of female-to-male HIV transmission is increased three fold for women with bacterial vaginosis, a common disorder in which the normal balance of bacteria in the vagina is disrupted. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-bacterial-vaginosis-higher-female-to-male-transmission.html HIV & AIDS Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:00:07 EST news259944658 Circumcising young boys on religious grounds amounts to grievous bodily harm, a German court ruled Tuesday in a landmark decision that the Jewish community said trampled on parents' religious rights. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-german-court-outlaws-religious-circumcision.html Health Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:32:31 EST news259939945 "Should I, shouldn't I?" That's the question that 31-year-old Kabo Moeti ponders as he waits outside a clinic in a Botswana village, where he's considering getting circumcised. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-botswana-pitch-circumcision-aids.html HIV & AIDS Mon, 14 May 2012 03:46:47 EST news256185998 Male circumcision is the best way to prevent new HIV infections in the military, the head of US anti-AIDS efforts told a gathering of top army brass from Africa, Eastern Europe and central Asia. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-urges-circumcision-soldiers-hiv-africa.html HIV & AIDS Mon, 07 May 2012 16:30:01 EST news255626184 A new analysis led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has found that circumcision before a male's first sexual intercourse may help protect against prostate cancer. Published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study suggests that circumcision can hinder infection and inflammation that may lead to this malignancy. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-circumcision-prostate-cancer.html Cancer Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:00:01 EST news250691129 Penile cancer, HIV, HPV, syphilis and kidney inflammation are among a number of medical conditions whose risk can be lowered by the practice of infant male circumcision, says a study led by the University of Sydney. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-medical-male-circumcision.html Health Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:55:32 EST news249897318 The level of HIV-1 in the blood of an HIV-infected partner is the single most important factor influencing risk of sexual transmission to an uninfected partner, according to a multinational study of heterosexual couples in sub-Saharan Africa. The study, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, calculated the risk of HIV-1 transmission per act of sexual intercourse and found the average rate of infection to be about 1 per 900 coital acts. The findings also confirmed that condoms are highly protective and reduce HIV infectivity by 78 percent. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-viral-major-factor-affecting-sexually.html HIV & AIDS Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:58:39 EST news245559499 A collection of nine new articles to be published in PLoS Medicine and PLoS ONE, in conjunction with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), highlights how scaling up voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) for HIV prevention in eastern and southern Africa can help prevent HIV not only at individual but also at community and population level as well as lead to substantial cost savings for countries due to averted treatment and care costs. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-scale-up-voluntary-male-circumcision-cost-effective.html HIV & AIDS Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:14:41 EST news241852472 In sub-Saharan Africa, couples in long-term relationships where one partner is HIV-positive and the other is HIV-negative (HIV serodiscordant couples) could benefit from anti-AIDS drugs (antiretroviral therapy) given either as treatment or as a prevention measure (prophylaxis) to reduce the risk of HIV transmission. These findings, from a modelling study led by Timothy Hallett from Imperial College London and published in this week's PLoS Medicine, also show that this strategy could be cost-effective. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-options-couples-partner-hiv-positive.html HIV & AIDS Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:00:02 EST news240602393 According to Anna R. Giuliano, Ph.D., program leader in cancer epidemiology at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and colleagues in the Netherlands, earlier circumcision of males in South Africa may be a positive step in slowing the spread of both HIV and the human papillomavirus (HPV). Their commentary and data were published in a recent issue of the British medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases (Vol. 11) 581-582. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-earlier-male-circumcision-hiv-hpv.html HIV & AIDS Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:48:33 EST news237127686 Johns Hopkins infectious disease experts say the medical benefits for male circumcision are clear and that efforts in an increasing number of states (currently 18) to not provide Medicaid insurance coverage for male circumcision, as well as an attempted ballot initiative in San Francisco earlier this year to ban male circumcision in newborns and young boys, are unwarranted. Moreover, they say these actions ignore the last decade of medical evidence that the procedure can substantially protect men and their female partners from certain sexually transmitted infections. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-efforts-defund-infant-male-circumcision.html Health Tue, 04 Oct 2011 17:23:14 EST news236967775 California has banned local authorities from outlawing male circumcision, striking a final blow to a San Francisco group that had hoped to put the matter to a popular vote. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-california-circumcision.html Health Tue, 04 Oct 2011 04:23:15 EST news236920981 (AP) -- California's governor has signed a bill that that will prevent local governments from banning male circumcision. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-calif-gov-bill-circumcision.html Health Mon, 03 Oct 2011 03:12:13 EST news236830316 (AP) -- A judge on Thursday struck a measure from the city's November ballot that called for a ban on most circumcisions of male children, saying the proposed law violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom and a California law that makes regulating medical procedures a function of the state, not cities. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-circumcision-sf-ballot.html HIV & AIDS Fri, 29 Jul 2011 05:20:01 EST news231130990 A University of North Carolina-led international study shows that among Kenyan men, circumcision is associated with a lower prevalence of human papillomavirus-associated precancerous lesions of the penis. Human papillomavirus - HPV - is a sexually transmitted virus that plays an important role in genital cancers in men and women, including cancers of the penis and cervix. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-male-circumcision-lowers-prevalence-penile.html Cancer Thu, 28 Jul 2011 11:50:04 EST news231070408 A campaign to encourage African men to get circumcised to prevent infection by HIV gained a powerful boost Wednesday by three new studies unveiled at the world AIDS forum in Rome. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-aids-evidence-circumcision-campaign.html HIV & AIDS Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:05:01 EST news230396691 Scientists have now provided revolutionary tools to roll back HIV but only a major funding boost, supported especially by emerging giant economies, will determine the outcome, experts say. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-funding-gap-imperils-science-exploits.html HIV & AIDS Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:12:22 EST news230299930