x-posted in my own journal

[righteousbean.livejournal.com]

Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids

Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids
Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids
I found this in socialwork

socialwork


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

Comments

[mangofandango.livejournal.com]

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.

sorry :-(

[sismith42.livejournal.com]

: 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

Re: sorry :-(

[mangofandango.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: sorry :-(

[sismith42.livejournal.com]

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 :( )

[ourika.livejournal.com]

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.

[ourika.livejournal.com]

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!