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Fri 14 Nov, 2003 01:42 am
Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids
Steve Bradshaw
Thursday October 9, 2003
The Guardian
The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.
The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to HIV.
A senior Vatican spokesman backs the claims about permeable condoms, despite assurances by the World Health Organisation that they are untrue.
The church's claims are revealed in a BBC1 Panorama programme, Sex and the Holy City, to be broadcast on Sunday. The president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, told the programme: "The Aids virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the 'net' that is formed by the condom.
"These margins of uncertainty... should represent an obligation on the part of the health ministries and all these campaigns to act in the same way as they do with regard to cigarettes, which they state to be a danger."
The WHO has condemned the Vatican's views, saying: "These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million."
The organisation says "consistent and correct" condom use reduces the risk of HIV infection by 90%. There may be breakage or slippage of condoms - but not, the WHO says, holes through which the virus can pass .
Scientific research by a group including the US National Institutes of Health and the WHO found "intact condoms... are essentially impermeable to particles the size of STD pathogens including the smallest sexually transmitted virus... condoms provide a highly effective barrier to transmission of particles of similar size to those of the smallest STD viruses".
The Vatican's Cardinal Trujillo said: "They are wrong about that... this is an easily recognisable fact."
The church opposes any kind of contraception because it claims it breaks the link between sex and procreation - a position Pope John Paul II has fought to defend.
In Kenya - where an estimated 20% of people have HIV - the church condemns condoms for promoting promiscuity and repeats the claim about permeability. The archbishop of Nairobi, Raphael Ndingi Nzeki, said: "Aids... has grown so fast because of the availability of condoms."
Sex and the Holy City includes a Catholic nun advising her HIV-infected choirmaster against using condoms with his wife because "the virus can pass through".
In Lwak, near Lake Victoria, the director of an Aids testing centre says he cannot distribute condoms because of church opposition. Gordon Wambi told the programme: "Some priests have even been saying that condoms are laced with HIV/Aids."
Panorama found the claims about permeable condoms repeated by Catholics as far apart as Asia and Latin America.
Condom Brochure
The surest way to avoid these diseases is to not have sex altogether (abstinence). Another way is to limit sex to one partner who also limits his or her sex in the same way (monogamy). Condoms are not 100% safe, but if used properly, will reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.
Protecting yourself against the AIDS virus is of special concern becuase this disease is fatal and has no cure.
About two-thirds of the people with AIDS in the United States got the disease during sexual intercourse with an infected partner. Experts believe that many of these people could have avoided the disease by using condoms.
Condoms are used for both birth control and reducing the risk of disease. That's why some people think that other forms of birth control -- such as the IUD, diaphragm, cervical cap or pill -- will protect them against diseases, too. But that's not true.
So if you use any other form of birth control, you still need a condom in addition to reduce the risk of getting sexually transmitted diseases.
A condom is especially important when an uninfected pregnant woman has sex, because it can also help protect her and her unborn child from a sexually transmitted disease.
Note well:
Condoms are not 100% safe, but if used properly, will reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.
The lies of this organisation have finally gone too far. They must be stopped.
There are 6 billion people on this planet, and most of them in abject poverty. The time for "be fruitful and multiply" is over; those people who are in high risk areas such as Africa or South Asia need intelligent, informed, and socially progressive advice - not any of this religious taboo **** that isn't even a part of these people's native cultures.
pssst,,,wilso....
they've been lyin to us for years. no secret in my neighbourhood.
i call myself a 'recovering' catholic
mikey wrote:pssst,,,wilso....
they've been lyin to us for years. no secret in my neighbourhood.
But rarely have the lies been this dangerous.
i'm still 'recovering'.
it could take years.....
I'm on parole, time served.
This is why scientists are scientists, and priests are usually not scientists.
Hilarity and disaster ensues when people embrace some scientific backing (no matter how silly) they think supports their beliefs. Hence movements like the "science" of creationism. The catholic church doesn't support science, unless the science concurs with their pre-established beliefs. This makes sense.
The church wants more members of its flock. It is logical for them to want reproduction of their members while everyone else is controlling their birth numbers - it worked great as a tactic for the mormon church.
Here's the deal : Yes, the aids particle is smaller than the condom opening. However, aids (in semen or vaginal fluid) is carrried, not free-floating, and the suspension it is in does not go through. Condoms are effective as long as they don't break. We know this. Unfortunately, people in 3rd world countries may not.
Interesting fact: Some women in Africa use perpectual lactation combined with nutritional deficiency as birth control.
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