A New York Times editorial addresses the recent statement by Pope Benedict XVI about the role of condoms in the spread of AIDS:
Pope Benedict XVI has every right to express his opposition to the use of condoms on moral grounds, in accordance with the official stance of the Roman Catholic Church. But he deserves no credence when he distorts scientific findings about the value of condoms in slowing the spread of the AIDS virus.
As reported on Tuesday by journalists who accompanied the pope on his flight to Africa, Benedict said that distribution of condoms would not resolve the AIDS problem but, on the contrary, would aggravate or increase it. The first half of his statement is clearly right. Condoms alone won’t stop the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Campaigns to reduce the number of sexual partners, safer-sex practices and other programs are needed to bring the disease to heel.
But the second half of his statement is grievously wrong. There is no evidence that condom use is aggravating the epidemic and considerable evidence that condoms, though no panacea, can be helpful in many circumstances.
Paul Raushenbush comments at Progressive Revival:
Only someone floating above the real horror of AIDS would be able to make such a counter productive remark as Pope Benedict did today. If even one person decides not to wear a condom when having sex because they heard the Pope make this statement and contracts HIV—it will be too many. Too many people have died and will die because of this kind of irresponsible rhetoric.
Read the full New York Times editorial and the full post at Progressive Revival.
And if many persons decide not to wear condom, but instead to abstain, and thus none of them is infected, whereas some of them would be on the occasion that they forgot the condom or it broke, etc.?
The editorials of the New York Times don’t have a very good track record for accuracy. And this is no exception. The following is from an interview with Dr. Edward Green, Director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard School of Public Health and Center for Population and Development Studies. Dr. Edward Green is a medical anthropologist with 30 years of experience in developing countries and in the fight against AIDS. [Source]
The Pope’s statement about AIDS and condoms is at the centre of a sharp debate and many—from Mr. Kouchner to Mr. Zapatero, including the EU Commission—have claimed his position to be abstract and eventually dangerous. What is your opinion?
I am a liberal on social issues and it’s difficult to admit, but the Pope is indeed right. The best evidence we have shows that condoms do not work as an intervention intended to reduce HIV infection rates, in Africa. (They have worked in e.g., Thailand and Cambodia, which have very different epidemics.)
In a recent interview to NRO you said that there is no consistent association between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates. Could you deepen this point?
What we see in fact is an association between greater condom use and higher infection rates. We don’t know all the reasons for this but part of it is due to what we call risk compensation. This means that a man using condoms believes that they are more effective than they really are, and so he ends up taking greater sexual risks. Another fact which is widely overlooked is that condoms are used when people are engaging in casual or commercial sex. People don’t use condoms with spouses or regular partners. So if condom rates go up, it may be that we are seeing an increase of casual sex.
So, even if it is surprising, it is proven that a higher use of condoms is associated with higher infection rates.
People began noticing years ago that the countries in Africa with the highest condom availability and highest condom user rates also had the highest HIV infection rates. This does not prove a causal relation, but it should have made us look critically at our condom programs years ago.