NIH required Men to be circumcised to participate in now-cancelled HIV vaccine trials

Link here. Excerpt:

'The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, will stop administering injections in its HVTN 505 clinical trial of an investigational HIV vaccine regimen because an independent data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) found during a scheduled interim review that the vaccine regimen did not prevent HIV infection nor reduce viral load (the amount of HIV in the blood) among vaccine recipients who became infected with HIV.

The HVTN 505 study began in 2009 and was testing an investigational prime-boost vaccine regimen developed by NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center. The Phase IIb study, conducted by the NIAID-funded HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN)External Web Site Policy, was designed to determine whether the vaccine regimen could prevent HIV infection and/or reduce the amount of virus in the blood of vaccine recipients who became infected with HIV.
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As with all NIAID-sponsored HIV prevention trials, the HVTN 505 participants were offered extensive counseling on how to reduce their risk of becoming HIV-infected and provided free condoms. As an added precaution, study participants were required at time of enrollment to be circumcised and free of antibodies to Ad5. These precautions were taken in light of an HIV vaccine clinical trial, known as the Step Study, which found in 2007 an increased number of HIV infections among vaccine recipients, particularly those who were not circumcised and/or had Ad5 antibodies.'