New York Health Officials Mull Making Circumcision Available to Adult Men

Apr 05, 07:50 PM

Current Headlines: NEW YORK _ City health officials hoping to curb transmission of the deadly AIDS-causing virus want to make circumcision available to men who never had the procedure.

Recent studies in Africa showed that circumcised men had a 60 percent lower risk of contracting HIV during sex with women than men who were not.

The World Health Organization endorsed making circumcision _ surgical removal of the foreskin _ part of HIV prevention in Africa, and federal officials will meet about the issue this month.

"It is certainly not a panacea, it is not going to replace the need for condom use, but we see this as a potential, additional strategy," said Dr. Adam Karpaki, head of the city's HIV prevention and control bureau.

Karpaki is talking with community groups and the Health and Hospitals Corp., the administration arm of the city's 11 public hospitals, about how to make circumcision accessible.

But whether the idea will come to fruition remains unclear. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday the recommendation deserves "serious consideration" but suggested government might want to educate rather than operate.

AIDS activists called the African studies "promising," but say they want more proof that they will translate in New York, where HIV is mostly transmitted between men and from men to women, said Noel Alicea, a spokesman for Gay Men's Health Crisis.

There are at least 1,000 new HIV infections a year in New York. The evidence "doesn't tell us the protective effect, if any, for women, and it tells us nothing about the protective benefit for anal intercourse," said Mitchell Warren of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, which promotes HIV prevention.

"It's hard enough to see the dentist. I cannot for the life of me imagine some 30-, 40-year-old man saying, `I want it chopped off.' It's just not going to happen," added Tokes Osubu, executive director of Gay Men of African Descent.

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(New York Daily News correspondent Michael Saul contributed to this report.)

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