Posted on 06/02/2007 11:07:57 AM PDT by wagglebee
Best reasons for condoms....not making babies
just saw Knocked Up...THe movie of the summer, hysterical
So what is that supposed to mean?
I mean the article nails it: The best solution is teen abstinence (i.e. not driving drunk), however some people are just stupid and if somebody acts on his or her stupidity, seat belts (i.e. condoms) turn a life-threatening accident into a relatively minor affair (i.e. you still have to live with the emotional scars).
The urban myth about porous condoms has been invented by some AIDS-denialist, but is not supported by fact. The right thing to do is for parents to teach their children to make smart choices (regardless of what the state says), instead of furthering the spread of unscientific BS like the porous condom fairy tale.
Do you mean I should expect my daughter to have the ability to control herself more than a dog in heat and if I assume she is no better than a dog in heat then she have already lost?
Does this apply to my sons too? Should I expect them to learn to master their hormones or should I tell them it isn't possible and they are doomed to fail?
there are places that make bumper stickers with anything you want on them. Check your yellow pages, local mall? Great idea.
I grew up during the late 60’s and early 70’s. Free love was the buzzword and the reality. There was at that time zero sex education classes yet every kid I knew understood where to purchase condoms, most boys carried them in their wallets and even the girls had them.
How did we know this without classes?
“I would go as far as to say that you can not be legitimately pro-life and anti-birth control. Even if you view the use of birth control and premarital sex as a moral evil, it is by any conceivable moral framework less bad than abortion. So yes, teach teens than the best and only 100% sure-proof way of avoiding unplanned pregnancies and contracting STDs is abstinence. But also teach them about birth control methods .”
Really... any conceivable framework? A major basis of my moral framework is that the ends do not justify the means. As a corollary, it is impermissable to commit a lesser evil merely to avoid a greater evil.
Incidentally, I don’t feel as though using birth control in extramarital affairs is inherantly wrong - it is the affair itself that is inherantly wrong. The evil (in my estimation, at least) of birth control is that it creates a barrier between husband and wife, diminishing the marital bond. As there is no such bond between two fornicators, the birth control is not the evil.
BTTT for a “know thine enemy” quote.
...and as young as possible. They push to start sex ed in kindergarten.
It's going to get a lot worse:
Kindergarten Children should Dance Naked and Masturbate in Pre-Schools; Norwegian Child Expert
Editor of Rubber Chemistry and Technology, Dr. C. Michael Roland of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C., spoke about his research on "intrinsic flaws" in latex rubber condoms and surgical gloves (published in Rubber World, June, 1993).
Roland said that what I am about to relate is "common knowledge among good scientists who have no political agenda."
Electron microscopy reveals the HIV virus to be about O.1 microns in size (a micron is a millionth of a metre). It is 60 times smaller than a syphilis bacterium, and 450 times smaller than a single human sperm.
The standard U.S. government leakage test (ASTM) will detect water leakage through holes only as small as 10 to 12 microns (most condoms sold in Canada are made in the U.S.A., but I'll mention the Canadian test below). Roland says in good tests based on these standards, 33% of all condoms tested allowed HIV-sized particles through, and that "spermicidal agents such as nonoxonol-9 may actually ease the passage."
Roland's paper shows electron microscopy photos of natural latex. You can see the natural holes, or intrinsic flaws. The "inherent defects in natural rubber range between 5 and 70 microns."
And it's not as if governments don't know. A study by Dr. R.F. Carey of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that "leakage of HIV-sized particles through latex condoms was detectable for as many as 29 of 89 condoms tested." These were brand new, pre-approved condoms.
But Roland says a closer reading of Carey's data actually yields a 78% HIV-leakage rate, and concludes: "That the CDC would promote condoms based on [this] study...suggests its agenda is concerned with something other than public health and welfare." The federal government's standard tests, he adds, "cannot detect flaws even 70 times larger than the AIDS virus." Such tests are "blind to leakage volumes less tha one microliter - yet this quantity of fluid from an AIDS-infected individual has been found to contain as many as 100,000 HIV particles."
As one U.S. surgeon memorably put it, "The HIV virus can go through a condom like a bullet through a tennis net."
It's the same story with latex gloves. Gloves from four different manufacturers revealed "pits as large as 15 microns wide and 30 microns deep." More relevant to HIV transmission, "5 micron-wide channels, penetrating the entire thickness were found in all the gloves." He said the presence of such defects in latex "is well established."
For Canada, the story is the same. A standard Health and Welfare Canada test of condoms manufactured between 1987 and 1990, based on stringent tests of pressure, leakage, and volume (as in the U.S., there is no effort to examine micron-level leakage), reported that an astonishing 40% of the condoms tested failed at least one of the tests. Tests in 1991 showed an "improved" 28% rate.
First, Roland bases his statement about a 5 micron latex pore size on a study of rubber gloves, not condoms. The U.S. Public Health Service says that condoms are manufactured to higher standards than gloves. Condoms are dipped in the latex twice, gloves only once. If just 4 out of 1,000 condoms fail the leak test, the whole batch is rejected; the standard for gloves is 40 out of 1,000. A study of latex condoms by the National Institutes of Health using an electron microscope found no holes at a magnification of 2000.
The second problem with Roland's letter is that it suggests, at least to the casual reader, that condoms offer no protection at all against HIV. That's not so. Roland himself estimates that condoms reduce HIV transmission risk by a factor of three. He cites a 1993 analysis by S. C. Weller suggesting that condoms are 69 percent effective in preventing HIV transmission.
Government spokesmen cite two European studies of "serodiscordant" heterosexual couples--that is, one partner had HIV, the other didn't. One study found that among couples using condoms consistently, there were zero cases of HIV transmission between the partners. Inconsistent users had a 10 percent infection rate. The other study found an infection rate of 1.1 percent between consistent users, 5.7 percent between nonusers. In other words, conservatively speaking, condoms reduced HIV transmission risk by a factor of 5.
Here's an NIH report. I love the thought of some NIH egghead designing and building a "dynamic model of simulated intercourse." Two out of fourteen latex condoms did leak HIV during the dynamic test, a TPE condom did not. Use this information in whatever way you will.
Thus proper use of latex condoms would result in exposure reduction from HIV of at least 4 orders of magnitude. [At least ten thousand times. --CS] These findings demonstrated that use of latex condoms can significantly reduce the risk of HIV transmission, but it does not eliminate that risk.
Sorry to be so detailed and explicit, but that's just the point: neither the manufacturers nor the purveyers nor the sex-ed teachers nor anybody else wants to get that detailed and explicit.
And that's why the latex condom has an in-use pregnancy rate of 15+%. Much higher for people who are somewhat young or somewhat drunk. I don't have the figures on in-use STD rate. But if high condom availability reduces the pregnancy risk per coitus by, say, 90%, but increases the numbers or frequency of middle-school, high school, and college-age uers having sex by 100%, tell me: how safe is that?
I suspect not getting in an accident would prove to be much more effective, but I would need a large government grant to fund such a study.
Slightly off topic:
If you drive, don’t park.
Accidents cause people...
One can always make their own bumper stickers.
Self adhesive shelf paper can be run through a laser printer, or you can buy bumper sticker stock from ant big stationary store.
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