Maybe this will get us off the bush/kerry war going on.
a good old religion thread
The Roman Catholic Church would have the gullible believe that condoms expose those who use them to greater risk of Aids transmission. Its evidence to back up such an assertion is based on misconstrued data.
KOBSAK CHUTIKUL
The Vatican says holes in condoms make them unreliable in the fight against Aids. It is the position of the Vatican that the HIV virus can pass through the condom.
There is no safe sex, said Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family. He claimed the use of condoms may even be fueling the pandemic by encouraging promiscuity and a false sense of security.
Cardinal Trujillo recently released a 20-page document with 87 footnotes which alludes to scientific evidence that condoms are unsafe. The Aids virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the sperm and, since condoms have a 10-15% inefficiency rate because minute Aids viruses are much more able to pass through condoms than the sperm, there could be millions of leaking condoms, the cardinal said.
According to the Vatican document, ``so-called safe sex using condoms is Russian roulette, and leading people to think they are fully protected is to lead many to their death''. Trusting in condoms can kill you is the main conclusion of the document.
The position of the Catholic Church that sexual relations between a man and a woman have to be natural and contraceptives should not be used to prevent birth has been a long-standing one. But the ruling that condoms should not be used even for the purpose of preventing infection from Aids is a significant extension.
The condom is the main instrument in the fight to prevent the spread of Aids. The stand taken by the Catholic Church has therefore created a worldwide furore. ``It's shocking and serious stuff, and if it is true we are going to have to rethink our whole approach to preventing Aids'', a commentator remarked on a recent BBC documentary.
The European Union condemns the Catholic Church for bigotry in its stand on condoms. ``The harshness, the aggressivity and the insensitivity, the lack of love for human beings and the unwillingness to take their situation seriously, I find that extreme,'' said Poul Nielsen, European commissioner for development and humanitarian aid. `They are hurting and bringing into great danger the lives of millions.''
The World Health Organisation and major Aids control agencies maintain there is no health risk from holes in condoms. Brazil is a Catholic country and has the highest rate of Aids infection in South America. The Brazilian Aids Commission said scientific studies show that it is impossible for HIV virus to pass through condoms. The Brazilian government is going ahead with the free distribution of condoms.
``It's not easy to persuade people to use condoms,'' said Gabriela Leita, executive director of DAVIDA, ``so when the Church says there's no point using condoms, it's very serious. Aids activists charge that the stand taken by the Church could become a crime against humanity.''
But given the influence of the Church, it is an issue we have to address before moving on to access to treatment and possible cures.
The BBC's Panorama programme two weeks ago aired an investigative report on the controversy.
The BBC interviewed David Lytle, a former US government bio-physicist, whose laboratory tests on condoms were quoted in the Vatican document. ``It's misleading,'' he said. He maintained that the Vatican ``took a number'' out of his paper ``and basically misused it''.
Dr Lytle's team had tested 470 condoms and found 12 of them allowed ``some virus penetration''. This has been used by those who argue that a high percentage of condoms are unsafe.
But in the BBC interview, Dr Lytle pointed to important differences between his laboratory test and real life. The viruses he used were a fifth of the size of HIV. Dr Lytle used water, not less fluid semen. The pressures were higher, and he tested whole condom service; any hole might have been in a different place to the semen. Dr Lytle concluded that only one condom out of all those he tested might conceivably leak any infectious HIV.
Another interviewee, Dr Pietro Vernazza of St Galen Hospital in Switzerland, said ``we're talking about such minuscule risk that in general in our regular life, it's a zero risk''.
``It would have to be a combination of several unlikely events, the unlikely event that the condom will have a tiny hole, the very unlikely event that a virus will pass through that hole, and then, even after that, it's very unlikely that a virus that has passed actually causes transmission,'' Dr Vernazza said.
The BBC also interviewed Penny Hitchcock, chairperson of the US Condom Effectiveness Task Force. The report of the task force compiled four years ago from laboratory data and clinical studies is regarded as the most authoritative to date.
``The data are consistent, there are no holes in condoms that present a risk of infection,'' Ms Hitchcock said. ``Theoretically of course, but not in actual practice.''
Professor Steve Pinkerton of Wisconsin's Medical College, concluded: ``Over the long term, condoms help reduce the size of the epidemic year after year after year, and it's one of the best hopes we have of controlling the epidemic in the absence of a vaccine or a cure.''
But there is another controversial point made by Cardinal Trujillo of the Vatican that the BBC also investigated. Cardinal Trujillo said safe sex campaigns which promote condom use have increased sexual promiscuity and may have increased the number of Aids cases as well.
On this point, there is no academic consensus on whether condoms do or do not lead people to have more sex.
In many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the number of condoms distributed has gone up, but so have the rates of HIV infection. Many Aids activists and Cardinal Trujillo agree that condoms are not the only answer, but changing people's sexual behaviour is also important.
In Uganda, the HIV infection rate has actually fallen, and there is evidence that Church campaigns to cut back casual sex have helped.
``The Church is not preaching the message don't use a condom, don't use a condom,'' said Father Anthony Masaala. ``The Church is saying there's something better and that you don't want to hand over your life to a piece of latex.''
Young people are urged by the Church to delay sex until marriage. Formal pledges of abstinence are obtained from worshippers at sermons throughout the country.
``The spread of Aids can be combated and it is being reversed in some places by promoting family values, the virtue of fidelity and by encouraging young people to have a mature attitude towards sex,'' Cardinal Trujillo said.
In the African context, some of the limitations of condoms are apparent. They are handed out free, but at last count there were only nine a year available for every Ugandan male. Critics say they do not always work so well in Africa. For example, they may be poorly stored, the wrong size, or do not suit some sexual practices.
``The condom is designed for one single use. You cannot use it several times in one night,'' Lillian Likicho of Uganda's Teenage Information and Health Centre is shown on the BBC documentary telling a class of young slum-dwellers.
Certainly, Uganda's ABC policy serves as a model: abstinence, be faithful, and condoms. ``It has to be a combination of everything,'' said Dr Sam Okware, commissioner of health services.
As for the condom itself, in whatever colour or shape it comes, the overwhelming consensus among those leading the fight against Aids is that it is not condoms that kill, it is the failure to use them properly and the lack of access to them in sufficient quantity.
- Kobsak Chutikul is a member of parliament.
Article is from the Bangkok Post
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/13Jul2004_opin33.php
