Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids

The Guardian (UK) ^ | Thursday October 9, 2003 | Steve Bradshaw

[aculeus]

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.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Pan_Yans Wife]

The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to the HIV virus.

They never break.

[Support Free Republic]

"Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our
wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions,
they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
- John Adams -

Make your statement.

[donmeaker]

The condom may block the virus, but it is completely permeable to sin, and it is sin that causes Aids.

Death from AIDS prevents further sin. See? Its G-ds plan!

[Bogey78O]

oh typical catholic bashing garbage. Condoms aren't 100% against AIDS. they're not even 99% effective against much large spermatzoa.

What's their beef against the church for telling people that condoms are a false sense of security?

[donmeaker]

If the condoms block 90 percent of the virus, but the sinners screw 10 times as much, it is a wash, no difference.

Better would be to be celibate, and chaste. That has a 100 percent effectiveness.

[DLfromthedesert]

Right. Just like latex gloves never rip when I put them on at work. LOL!!

I believe this author is missing the point the Pope is making.

[Tall_Texan]

Back before the world had heard of AIDS, I took a "home pharmacy" course in college that was supposed to acquaint you with various common health topics and what medicines were on the market and how each worked and what a layperson should know about them.

One day, the topic was birth control. At that time, the posh birth control drug was "the pill" but other methods were discussed. While the "rhythm method" was considered the least reliable method of birth control, the instructor listed condoms as the second worst, claiming they had omly an 86% success rate. Flip that around and that means they had a 14% failure rate. Now, keep in mind that "failure" in this case meant pregnancy, not just leakage.

Now, I'm no micobiologist but I've always assumed that a human sperm is much larger than a tiny virus. So how could something with a 14% failure rate of stopping a pregnancy possibly be a magic bullet for preventing a smaller organism from infecting another person?

Ah, but the magic bullet was needed so both homosexual and heterosexual men could have indiscriminate sex. "Getting some" was at risk.

IMO, condoms are one of the biggest (and deadliest) medical farces ever perpetrated by our government and it was approved and supported by none other than C. Everett Koop, Surgeon General under President Reagan.

But the PC police will treat the Vatican's statements about condoms the same way they did Rush Limbaugh's comments about Donovan McNabb.

[jammer]

Never--each of my children are evidence of that.

[John Beresford Tipton]

"the sinners screw 10 times as much"

Could you tell us what miraculous potion can do this?
Viagra to Chapter XI !

Run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes, salutes, salutes, salutes,salutes, salutes,salutes, salutes,salutes, salutes,salutes, salutes,salutes, salutes!

[AD from SpringBay]

What's their beef against the church for telling people that condoms are a false sense of security?

Where's the beef? Is that what you're asking? The beef is that the secular and godless pigs in the international community at large are: a) convinced that everyone should be banging everyone and anything else whenever they so desire - wouldn't want anyone thinking about the possible results of all that free-will exercising, multi-cultural loving, sodomy accepting, diverity hallowing, screwing b) anything out of any Christian institution (agreement with doctrines among the same notwithstanding) needs to be questioned so as to maintain their status as the "authoritee'" (please excuse, I deleted anything that reminded me of a French font), and c) they hate anything that even remotely smells of Christianity (let alone the vatican).

[mickie]

What a shame that the blessed name of 'JOHN" was wasted on some people!

[Ronaldus Magnus]

It's been a few years since my last polymers class, but it is still a scientific fact that all latex is permeable (filled with tiny holes). Ain't no such thing as safe sex outside of an honest monogamous relationship between non-HIV carriers.

[xm177e2]

Great, the Vatican is telling people not to use condoms. I'm sure the priests will have no trouble at all following this latest edict: they never seem to use them.

[xm177e2]

Better would be to be celibate, and chaste. That has a 100 percent effectiveness.

Except that people tend to slip up at that, too. For all of recorded history.

[DeuceTraveler]

I'm a sinner, but he's wrong, I don't have that much time on my hands. I think I screw only about 2 or 3 times as much.

[exit82]

Condoms, under conditions of normal manufacturing, have holes in them. The holes are microscopic. They are considered routine.

The AIDS(HIV) virus is much smaller than the holes which are found in latex condoms.I believe the virus is actually about 70 times smaller than the holes in the condoms.

Condoms also don't protect fully against HPV--human papilloma virus--which can be spread from skin to skin contact at the base of the penis.

[floridarocks]

http://nomorefakenews.com/archives/archiveview.php?key=1360
This is a different take on the AIDS crisis.

[Almondjoy]

If your God's plan is to kill people off for having sex you have a weird idea of what is "holy", "just", or "right".