Always Ignoring Voluntary and Adult

As always, when public health officials discuss voluntary, adult male circumcision, they never mean voluntary or adult. Never:

ZIMBABWE is planning to expand its circumcision campaign to include newly-born babies as part of the country’s fight against the spread of HIV and AIDS, a senior health ministry official has confirmed.

The ministry’s AIDS and TB unit co-ordinator, Getrude Ncube, said a pilot project targeting babies between one and 28 days old would be launched before year end with the full programme likely to be rolled out in 2014.

They dress it up in nonsense.

“Although circumcising neonates will not have an immediate an impact, results will show in 20 years’ time. Our sole aim is to try and reduce new HIV infections.”

No, the sole aim is to implement circumcision. They believe their intentions are noble, a fact I do not doubt. But if their sole aim is to try to reduce new infections, they’d focus limited medical resources on those currently at risk of sexual transmission. They’re not, unless we stupidly assume all males aged 15 to 49 in Zimbabwe have been circumcised. Instead, they’re shifting to males who can’t consent. They still have 500,000 males to circumcise before 2015 to reach their target. The target is what matters, not the individuals being targeted.

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