Stuart M. Rennie

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Stuart M. Rennie is member of the 2018 Guideline Development Group (GDG) of the WHO. The GDG's task is to develop updated recommendations on safe male circumcision for HIV prevention and related service delivery for adolescent boys and men in generalized HIV epidemics.[1]

Biography

The WHO published the following biography of Stuart M. Rennie:

RENNIE, Stuart M

Stuart Rennie is Faculty Associate at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Center for Bioethics and Associate Professor in the UNC Department of Social Medicine, Chapel Hill, USA.

His current interests focus on research ethics, public health ethics and medical ethics in developing countries, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. He is co-Principal Investigator of two NIH/Fogarty International Center bioethics capacity building projects in Central Francophone Africa and South Africa. At UNC, he teaches bioethics to medical students in the School of Medicine. He is also co-Principal Investigator of a research study on the ethical and social implications of HIV cure research, with study sites in the USA, China and South Africa. He is currently also co-investigator in a NIH study on responsible conduct of HIV research among adolescents in Kenya. He has published on many bioethics themes, including informed consent, HIV testing policies, medical rationing, implementation ethics, research involving children, health surveillance, health inequality and social justice. He was co-lead author of the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) Ethical Guidance for Research (2009). He has conducted qualitative research on community attitudes towards male circumcision as means of HIV prevention in Malawi, and has published about the ethical dimensions of this public health intervention.[2]

PubMed indicates that Rennie is a named author of seven papers. Only one touches on non-therapeutic male circumcision.[3] Rennie's position on non-therapeutic male circumcision is not clear. Based on this article, if Rennie were shown that male circumcision to prevent HIV infection is not cost-effective, he might be persuaded to take a position against non-therapeutic male circumcision.

Population-based studies

September 2021 saw the publication of two huge population studies on the relationship of circumcision and HIV infection:

  1. Mayan et al. (2021) carried out a massive empirical study of the male population of the province of Ontario, Canada (569,950 males), of whom 203,588 (35.7%) were circumcised between 1991 and 2017. The study concluded that circumcision status is not related to risk of HIV infection.[4]
  2. Morten Frisch & Jacob Simonsen (2021) carried out a large scale empirical population study in Denmark of 855,654 males regarding the alleged value of male circumcision in preventing HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in men. They found that circumcised men have a higher rate of STI and HIV infection overall than intact men.[5]

No association between lack of circumcision and risk of HIV infection was found by either study. There now is credible evidence that the massive, expensive African circumcision programs have not been effective in preventing HIV infection.

Abbreviations

  1. ↑ REFweb Doctor of Philosophy, Wikipedia. Retrieved 16 June 2021. (Also abbreviated as D.Phil.)

References

  1. ↑ REFweb (May 2018). WHO to develop new guidelines on male circumcision. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
  2. ↑ REFdocument Biographies of Guideline Development Group (GDG) members for WHO guidance PDF, WHO. (September 2018). Retrieved 26 March 2020.
  3. ↑ REFjournal Rutstein SE, Price JT, Rosenberg NE, Rennie SM, Biddle AK, Miller WC. Hidden Costs: the ethics of cost-effectiveness analyses for health interventions in resource-limited settings. Glob Public Health. October 2017; 12(10): 1269-81. PMID. PMC. DOI. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  4. ↑ REFjournal Mayan M, Hamilton RJ, Juurlink DN, Austin PC, Jarvi KA. Circumcision and Risk of HIV Among Males From Ontario, Canada. J Urol. 23 September 2021; PMID. DOI. Retrieved 21 August 2022.
    Quote: We found that circumcision was not independently associated with the risk of acquiring HIV among men from Ontario, Canada.
  5. ↑ REFjournal Frisch M, Simonsen J. Non-therapeutic male circumcision in infancy or childhood and risk of human immunodeficiency virus and other sexually transmitted infections: national cohort study in Denmark. Eur J Epidemiol. 26 September 2021; 37: 251–9. PMID. DOI. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
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