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Condoms promote the spread of AIDS!

Posted: 2009-03-25 06:04pm
by Junghalli
I'm in a debate with some right-wingers about the Pope's comment about AIDS and they've trotted out this, supposedly saying that his comments are backed by real science.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php? ... geId=92702
that article wrote:A senior Harvard research scientist confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI, who endured heavy criticism for declaring that condom distribution programs worsen the AIDS epidemic in Africa, was actually correct.

Dr. Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, told National Review Online last week that despite AIDS activists and media outlets pounding the pope for downplaying the effectiveness of condoms, the science actually supports the Catholic leader's claim.

"The pope is correct," Green told NRO, "or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope's comments."

"There is," Green added, "a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded 'Demographic Health Surveys,' between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates. This may be due in part to a phenomenon known as risk compensation, meaning that when one uses a risk-reduction 'technology' such as condoms, one often loses the benefit (reduction in risk) by 'compensating' or taking greater chances than one would take without the risk-reduction technology."

Aboard a plane traveling to Yaounde, Cameroon, last week, a French reporter told Benedict that the Catholic approach to combating AIDS – encouraging monogamy within marriage and abstinence before – was often considered unrealistic and ineffective.

According to transcripts released by the Vatican, Benedict responded, "This problem of AIDS cannot be overcome merely with money, necessary though it is. If there is no human dimension, if Africans do not help [by responsible behavior], the problem cannot be overcome by the distribution of prophylactics: on the contrary, they increase it."

Benedict immediately came under fire in the international press for proclaiming just what Green says the studies support: Encouraging fidelity in sexual relations decreases the spread of AIDS, and condom distribution programs increase it.

Rebecca Hodes, head of policy, communications and research for the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, blasted the pope for not advocating wide access to condoms as a means of combating AIDS.

"His opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans," Hodes told the Associated Press.

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"We call on the Pope to revisit the teachings on condoms with a view to lifting the ban at the earliest possible moment," said Jon O'Brien, president of Catholics for Choice. "In his review, we want him to include experts who are unequivocal that condoms do in fact help prevent the spread of HIV."

Syndicated columnist Roland Martin writes on CNN.com that the pope's position demonstrated "ignorance of reality."

"For the church," Martin writes, "to continue to ignore the definitive research that condoms play a huge role in decreasing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases is mind-boggling."

Even the Vatican, according to a report in the London Times, backtracked slightly on the pope's remarks, adding a word to Benedict's remarks, stating he said distribution of condoms merely "risked" increasing the spread of AIDS.

According to Green, however, the pope's critics have bought into a common myth about condoms and AIDS.

"We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates," said Green, "which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working."

Instead, Green noted, the pope's encouragement of Africans toward monogamous sexual relationships has proven to be a much more effective strategy:

"The best and latest empirical evidence indeed shows that reduction in multiple and concurrent sexual partners is the most important single behavior change associated with reduction in HIV-infection rates," Green said.

In Uganda, according to a report in Science magazine, teaching about AIDS and promoting monogamy has led to a dramatic turnaround in the country's AIDS epidemic.

"Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is preventable if populations are mobilized to avoid risk," states the report's summary. "Despite limited resources, Uganda has shown a 70 percent decline in HIV prevalence since the early 1990s, linked to a 60 percent reduction in casual sex. The response in Uganda appears to be distinctively associated with communication about [AIDS] through social networks. Despite substantial condom use and promotion of biomedical approaches, other African countries have shown neither similar behavioral responses nor HIV prevalence declines of the same scale. The Ugandan success is equivalent to a vaccine of 80 percent effectiveness."

Green further told NRO, "More and more AIDS experts are coming to accept the above. The two countries with the worst HIV epidemics, Swaziland and Botswana, have both launched campaigns to discourage multiple and concurrent partners, and to encourage fidelity."
I smell bullshit, especially since right below the article are links to such charming reading material as The Marketing of Evil: : How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom. So far I've been able to find the American Foundation for AIDS Research site which says condoms are 80-97% effective at preventing HIV spread if used properly, but I haven't yet found anything that conclusively rebuts it. Granted, I haven't searched very hard yet.

Does anybody have anything to contribute?

Re: Condoms promote the spread of AIDS!

Posted: 2009-03-25 06:20pm
by Darth Wong
Nothing he cites has anything to do with actual condom usage: he only cites "condom availability". It is entirely possible that condoms are made highly available in an area but are not consistently used by the high-risk groups.

If I helicopter millions of condoms into an African country, condom "availability" goes up immediately. But if the churches and mosques are still doing abstinence-only sex education (which has been proven to be worthless, by the way), those condoms won't actually be used.

Re: Condoms promote the spread of AIDS!

Posted: 2009-03-25 06:25pm
by Junghalli
Darth Wong wrote:Nothing he cites has anything to do with actual condom usage: he only cites "condom availability". It is entirely possible that condoms are made highly available in an area but are not consistently used by the high-risk groups.

If I helicopter millions of condoms into an African country, condom "availability" goes up immediately. But if the churches and mosques are still doing abstinence-only sex education (which has been proven to be worthless, by the way), those condoms won't actually be used.
He does appear to address use at one point:
"There is," Green added, "a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded 'Demographic Health Surveys,' between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates. This may be due in part to a phenomenon known as risk compensation, meaning that when one uses a risk-reduction 'technology' such as condoms, one often loses the benefit (reduction in risk) by 'compensating' or taking greater chances than one would take without the risk-reduction technology."

Re: Condoms promote the spread of AIDS!

Posted: 2009-03-25 10:25pm
by Darth Wong
That doesn't mean he has actual data on usage. Look at how vague that statement is.

The fact is that intermittent condom use is totally worthless for AIDS prevention; one must consistently use condoms, and he gives no indication of having any data at all about this.

Instead, he points to the fact that increased condom use is not necessarily correlated to a drop in HIV infection rate over time, and draws the conclusion that condoms do not help limit the spread of AIDS: the logic there is horribly broken. How does he know the rate of spread would not have been larger without condoms?

He also points out that monogamy is more effective than condoms in limiting AIDS. That is absolutely true. But that's like saying safe driving is more important than seatbelts.

Re: Condoms promote the spread of AIDS!

Posted: 2009-03-26 06:08am
by Terralthra
Green's statement is a beautiful example of post hoc ergo propter hoc. Yes, there is absolutely a correlation between the distribution of condoms and higher HIV rates. It's because we hand them out where the epidemic is worst, fuckwit.