No, this isn’t about the Clintons, it’s about circumcision, another one of Sully‘s pet peeves. A new study from the CDC confirms the suspicions of the American HIV/AIDS and gay rights activists I reported on last year: Here in the U.S., being circumcised doesn’t appear to lower black and Hispanic gay men’s risk of contracting HIV.

Older studies of African men, mostly heterosexual, suggested that circumcision can cut that risk by 60 percent. On the strength of such evidence, the World Health Organization began to recommend the practice. But the American CDC researchers caution against writing circumcision off because of their findings. The greater prevalence of HIV among the black and Hispanic population could offset any benefits of circumcision, since black and Hispanic men are more likely to have sex with other black and Hispanic men.

All that said, this is an important reminder that the most important HIV prevention method in 2007 is exactly what it was when the virus was first discovered: condom use.

—Dana Goldstein

Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.