vaginapagina | x-posted in my own journal

x-posted in my own journal

Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids

Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids
Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids
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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 the HIV virus 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 the HIV virus.

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 the HIV virus - 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.

· Steve Bradshaw is a correspondent with Panorama. Sex and the Holy City will be broadcast on BBC1 at 10.15pm on Sunday

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oh. my. god.

This is what really bothers me about the catholic religion, specifically the vatican. They're spreading blantant lies to millions of people. Whether or not people take them seriously is another thing, the fact of the matter is, it isn't OKAY to do that. Obviously i trust the WHO over the vatican anyday, facts are facts, but apparently they don't believe that. I can only hope people don't take their message seriously, and do some research of their own.

Wow, that really pisses me off.

looks like Satan's invaded the vatican.

I found this earlier, and I am still completely infuriated.

I think it's a complete joke that they insist that they believe in the sanctity of all life while thousands of people die because of this misinformation. And it's simply because they don't believe in contraception.

My mother wonders why I don't go to church since I moved out. If she would ever ask me, I would have a lot to tell her. I could never give money to these people, or in any way support an organization that does things like this. I am absolutely horrified.

It's a shame that the people like, apparently, Vatican's curent regime, pevert a beautiful religion... I'm starting to understand why people lapse for more serious reasons than mine (can't be bothered to go to church)... This is just appaling. How can such evilness be spread by God's representative?

I think it's a complete joke that they insist that they believe in the sanctity of all life while thousands of people die because of this misinformation.

Remember, though, that by spreading such lies Trillions of viruses and bacteria are able to reproduce and live... so they *are* maintaining the sanctity of life, just not *human* life.

my family is catholic. they're a bit simpleminded like those spoken of in this entry.

and as for the condom bit. that'd explain why my mother popped out nine kids. i guess the idea that they wouldnt work scared her away from using them. haaa.

I think this is akin to a war crime. Catholic missionaries go to third world countries who are soooo stricken with aides and tell them Oh don't bother to use condoms they don't work besides god wantes you to pop out a million babies in a row who die either right off from malnutrition or some other equally horrible death or slowly from hiv infection, so don't use birthcontrol either mmkay? The people in some countries are completely uneducated about the disease and contraception and missionaried may be the only link to medical care and food ect, This is so appaling. Even if the permeable condom business was partly true and they only worked 50% of the time.. wouldn't that be worth it? Blood on their hands , this rots.

that is most unfortunate but it's not even confined to the Catholic Church. Some of the more conservative Protestant sects tend to believe the same thing. a very devout Pentacoastal friend of mine teaches a program (developed by her church group) called Worth Waiting For in high schools. When i asked her what she told the kids she gave me the expected response of abstinence and all that stuff, but also how condoms are completely unreliable. that pretty much ended the conversation there because i don't talk about religion with my friends for just such a reason. it's really sad though.

This has already been said in a roundabout way, but please remember that not *all* Catholics believe this stuff.

It isn't fair to generalize about this, just as it isn't okay with any other topic.

*steps off soapbox* :)

OK people. This will sound like a blatant rant, but this has to be said.

The Vatican, the Pope, the Catholic Church under the Pope, are full of shit. They're spreading lies to people who can see for themselves with scientific research that what they say is bullshit. RUBBER IS NONPOROUS, THEREFORE IMPERMEABLE BY THE AIDS VIRUS, and that is scientific fact that we all know. If you wish to procreate, don't use condoms. If you wish to have sex for pleasure and not worry about the risk, then protect yourself. So far, no cure for AIDS exists, so the best way is to either use the rubber or abstain.

It just sickens me how something as positive as religion can become so fucked up over something that's common sense. The same religion that encourages the bets of morale also manages to brainwash the populace. Who cares if John Paul II doesn't like condoms? Do you want to have AIDS or not?!

I just want to state for the record that not all Catholics are like this.

I went to Catholic school for 14 years. We were taught proper condom use, how to put them on (in an all girl Catholic school!) and their effectivity. We were also given reasons why waiting for marriage for sex was a good choice, but it wasn't anything like "You will go to HEEEELLL!" In fact, many of their reasons are reasons I've seen expressed on Vagina Pagina and other woman communities. (No worries about risks of disease and pregnancy, no regrets about having done it with the wrong person, etc etc) And while I made a different choice in the matter, I still understand and respect their reasoning.

There are ignorant people in every religion, it's unfortunate that only the ignorant ones seem to get any press in Catholicism.

I completely understand, and I'm sorry if I sounded like I was talking about all Catholics everywhere in my comment up there (I was raised Catholic, so I'd be talking about myself if I believed that. Heh. :)). I'm just frustrated that the ignorant people in this situation (and others like it that get press) are the ones in charge - as this is coming from the Vatican and all.

(deleted comment)

That was almost exactly what I was going to say. :)

I'm not entirely sure about this article-- it doesn't specifically say "the Catholic Church says that using latex condoms don't prevent spread of the AIDS virus". Because (as I'm sure all you lovely VP ladies know) not all condoms are created equal-- some AREN'T effective against transmitting AIDS. So I think we need more information than what is provided in this particular article before we jump to conclusions.

Too bad I don't get the BBC here in North Carolina and can't see the show.

I did some poking about after I read this article, and I don’t believe that this is the official Catholic church stance. If it is, I’d be very surprised.

They do list a disjointed quote from a Cardinal, but there’s nothing in his statement to say exactly what he’s referring to. They mention the Pope’s continual stance against birth control, and by doing so, they imply but do NOT state that the pope is behind the misinformation that is being distributed about AIDS and condom use.

So I did a google search and didn’t find any other evidence to back this one article up. I did find that some Africans do believe that condoms are laced with AIDS:

http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AIDS/Fatigue/Archive/Infected/Q139006.html

And this is the only information to corroborate the first article listed in this email was this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/3147672.stm

It has one sentence that says that the Nairobian archbishop blames condoms for the spread of AIDS.

None of this leads me to believe that it is a stance of the Catholic church. Instead, it sounds like the officials within some countries may hold this stance. I'm not sure what the Catholic's church stance is. I know that it believes that condoms and birth control are wrong, but I doubt that it's gone so far as to say condoms are laced with aids or are ineffective against AIDS.

Someone else already pointed out that the article doesn’t specify what kinds of condoms are considered unreliable. I do believe that certain people within the Catholic church may have this stance (lets face it certain people in all groups are stupid), and it sounds to me like the journalist decided to spin an article that is very anti-catholic since that’s a very trendy belief these days. If this were an official stance of the Catholic church, ALL the news sources would have picked it up, and there’d be reports from the church defending itself, etc

However, just because it’s not the official stance of the Catholic church doesn’t mean that there aren’t lower level officials spreading this blatant lie. Now here’s the thing – are they purposely spreading misinformation or are they spreading something that they’ve heard to be true and believe? If you heard that something could seriously harm someone, wouldn’t you tell them it was unsafe? Not everybody checks their facts (obviously, or I wouldn’t still get warnings about the unsafe spider that bites your ass and kills you when you sit on the public toilets in Burger King and Grand Central Station).

It’s very well possible that various priests or other church officials have heard that condoms are not safe and are telling it to their parishners, and that this misinformation has spread like wildfire through various communities and even countries.

I can't find a whole lot more on the subject either, except for several articles on some African bishops' position on it (which matches that of this article) and the general stances of the Catholic church. I do find that many sites say things that imply that, even if the church itself isn't saying condoms are laced with HIV or anything like that, they are saying that they're much less useful than we believe they are. I found several articles on this from a liberal point of view, but I went looking for a conservative one and found this:

http://family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0019415.cfm

Now, Focus on the Family is about as right-wing as you can get. And they say basically that all the church is saying is that condoms don't really work as well as you think they do - which is pretty much the same thing as this article claims. The Vatican website just says they oppose condom use, even in cases where HIV is involved, because if a person is infected they just shouldn't have sex, basically.

Not that I'm arguing, I too was frustrated with the lack of other information on this. But I suspect that though the article may be biased, it's not at all far from wrong.

: I did some searching, too, hoping that it was just a skewed, biased account.. I couldn't get very far with the vatican website, but here's a page from Scotland's RC site: http://www.rcpolitics.org.uk/teachings/contraception.htm

They *specifically* mention latex, to boot :-(

Although, in 1988, the Vatican newpaper apparently said they'd be tolerent...
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/9/15/84931
nope, those were "twisted words": http://www.cathtelecom.com/news/009/90.html

Ooof. Thanks for finding that though, it certainly does help verify this. Not that I wanted it to be true, but I wanted to know whether I was getting all furious over nothing.

hey, yeah... I went on a googling-rampage hoping it was just the media skewing things... wanna form a herectical something devoted to Mary Magdeline with me?

I wanna call it a cult, but in the old-school defintion of the word, none of this cool-aide-drinking, brain-washing & money-taking bs stuff for me! (the proper RC church seems to do enough of all that as it is :( )

I was thinking about some of that, and I wondered if perhaps the church doesn't have a point. I don't know what the stats are as far as condom use and STD prevention, but with perfect use, condoms are in the high 90s for use to prevent pregnancy. They're in the mid 80s (percentage-wise) generally, though.

I would think that this "not perfect use" which has reduced the percentage rate of effectiveness to prevent pregnancy would also reduce the percentage rate to prevent STDs (and AIDs) as well.

I'm not backing the stance of not using condoms that the article quoted, but I do think that perhaps the RC church might have a point about condoms being not as effective as people think. Granted, this is speculation with no numbers, but if spermies can get in so can viruses.

However, to say don't use anything at all is worse b/c an 85% (guessing) effective rate is still better than nothing.

I just realized that when I'm saying maybe they have a point that AIDs doesn't prevent HIV/AIDS transmission as well as we'd like. I didn't mean to imply that maybe HIV/AIDs can "get through" the latex or anything like that. I just wanted to clarify!

Assuming this is the British Guardian...that isn't the most reputable newspaper at the best of times.

(bit off topic, but...)
It isn't just the catholic church and it isn't just condoms. I remeber that little book from my religious studies class that called condoms "russian roulette"..

Myths about AIDS are common in Africa, as they are in high transmission communities in North America. It is well placed fear that spawns them. In many developing countries people have little other access to information than what is handed to them. Unfortunately, without access to medical literature or the internet, people can't check other sources.

I live in one of the highest concentrations of HIV carriers in North America (lower East Vancouver). The transmission is mainly through drug use. Despite the many great social workers and Nurses around there are still dangerous untruths going around...

Just out of curiosity, what sorts of dangerous untruths go around about HIV/AIDS transmission? The common ones that I've heard were all things that people had heard but knew were untrue (but I also haven't ever lived in an area with a higher than average risk, and I'm currently living with a couple of ph.d students so I spend my time with highly educated people even if I'm not one of them!).

(sorry for the delay)

A common one that goes around is the no symptoms=no virus. now, not very many people believe this. If you really need to use a needle/have sex, however,and someone has told you this you may convince yourself.

I am not an IV drug user, or someone who has sex without protection, but I still hear this from people who I would least suspect to be so ignorent...

As far as African myths, I actually don't feel comfortable asserting any specific, although a number of young Kenyans I talked to repeated the above mth...I will let you read the material and draw your own conclusions. I was there a year ago, and some countries are better than others. Read some of the NGO reports: they will curl your toes.

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x-posted in my own journal

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wow.

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heh. yep.

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You beat me to it

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sorry :-(

Re: sorry :-(

Re: sorry :-(

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