Circumcision cuts risk of HIV infection in half?

I find this new report to be quite interesting. I hesitate to draw any conclusions from this study, but it makes one wonder if the old Jewish rite was more than just a sign of obedience.

Circumcising men cuts their risk of being infected with the AIDS virus in half, and could prevent hundreds of thousands or even millions of new infections, researchers said on Wednesday.

Circumcising men worked so well that the researchers stopped two large clinical trials in Kenya and Uganda to announce the results, although they cautioned that the procedure does not make men immune to the virus.

"It does have the potential to prevent many tens of thousands, many hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of infections over coming years," Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of the World Health Organization's Department of HIV/AIDS, told reporters.

Of course, nothing cuts the risk of AIDS like abstinence. Let us not forget that, either.