CATIE-News: Bite-sized HIV/AIDS news bulletins published by Canadian AIDS Treatement Information Exchange. The page addresses many of the current studies and meta-analysis for HIV and the gay man. The results of the various studies and meta-analysis are consistent and show that there is little to no benefit in circumcising gay men to reduce HIV.

Researchers studying the increase and spread of HIV have concluded in several studies that increases in high-risk sex have overwhelmed any decrease in infectivity due to HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy). This does not mean that current HIV prevention efforts have failedwithout these efforts, rates of new cases of HIV and STIs might be much higher. This environment of high-risk sex and STIs must be taken into account when considering the potential impact and rollout of new prevention interventions--such as male circumcision, microbicides or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)--in gay and bisexual men in high-income countries.

The emergence of HIV

High rates of circumcision in North America in the early 1980s did not prevent the appearance or expansion of the HIV epidemic in this continent.

 

Taking all of these points into consideration, circumcision, over the long term, is unlikely to have any significant impact on the spread of HIV among gay and bisexual men in high-income countries.