WHO Warns Vatican on Condom Advice (5)
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Source: The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI)
<media-bounces@www.guttmacher.org>
In a recent interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC), Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical
Council for the Family, inaccurately declared that HIV is small
enough to pass through a condom.
Public health advocates including the World Health Organization
and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) dispute this claim,
citing comprehensive research worldwide showing that consistent
and correct use of condoms significantly reduces the risk of HIV
and other sexually transmitted infections. A summary report on
the effectiveness of condoms issued in July 2001 by a panel con-
vened by NIH concludes that condoms are "essentially impermeable"
to even the smallest of STD viruses. By discouraging faith in
condoms, the Cardinal condemns the only available method to pre-
vent the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections
beyond mutual lifelong monogamy among uninfected couples. This
position ignores the sexual and reproductive health needs of
sexually active individuals worldwide, including those of married
couples.
An analysis from The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) shows that
condom use played a key role in Uganda's successful reduction of
HIV prevalence rates during the 1990s. For AGI's analysis of HIV
declines in Uganda based on nationally representative surveys,
"The role of behavior change in the decline in HIV prevalence in
Uganda" (Adobe PDF file 35 pp. 550 kB) click here:
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/memo_r303.pdf
For more on the evidence supporting condom effectiveness and the
dangers of the anti-condom campaign, click here:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/gr060101.html
For the full NIH report on condom effectiveness in preventing
sexually transmitted infections, "Scientific Evidence on Condom
Effectiveness for Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Prevention"
(Adobe PDF file 49 pp. 1.3 MB) click here:
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/stds/condomreport.pdf
For a statement from the UNFPA on how the Cardinal's statement
could contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS, click here:
http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=384
For more on the global AIDS epidemic that claimed 3.1 million
lives in 2002, click here:
http://www.unaids.org/en/default.asp
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