That was South Africa (I'm here). That wasn't a study on circumcision, that was nothing more than a statistical correlation, and one without any established causal relationship to support the 'prevents HIV' claim. There are many other factors to explain the correlation - cultural, economic and demographic.
Circumcision is still practiced as a coming-of-age rite here by many.
That was South Africa (I'm here). That wasn't a study on circumcision, that was nothing more than a statistical correlation...
Look again. There have been multiple studies. The ones most often cited were in Uganda and Kenya, and they were real studies. (If only single-blind for obvious reasons.) See http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/qa/pages/amc12_qa.aspx for more details.
Your criticism is accurate for the South African studies. But we have better data today.
Circumcision is still practiced as a coming-of-age rite here by many.