The medical journal the Lancet has accused Pope Benedict XVI of distorting scientific evidence to promote Catholic doctrine following his remarks about condom use and HIV.
The attack — which also said that the pope did not know what he was talking about and had put millions of lives at risk — followed his statement last week during a visit to Africa that the use of condoms increased HIV infection rates. This was later amended by the Vatican, which said that condom use merely increased the risk of transmission.
The pope’s remarks, made to journalists on a flight to Cameroon at the start of his visit, overshadowed his trip and provoked condemnation from health and aid agencies, as well as protests from the UN and the governments of Germany, France and Belgium.
Today’s Lancet editorial said the Pope’s statement was “outrageous and wildly inaccurate“. It added: “By saying that condoms exacerbate the problem of HIV/Aids, the pope has publicly distorted scientific evidence to promote Catholic doctrine.
“Whether the pope’s error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear … When any influential person, be it a religious or political leader, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record. Anything less from Pope Benedict would be an immense disservice to the public and health advocates, including many thousands of Catholics who work tirelessly to try and prevent the spread of HIV/Aids worldwide.”
Good thing The Lancet editors don’t read the crap fountaining from the head-holes of American bible-thumpers. They’d have to increase the size of their publication just to keep up.
Thanks, K B
We are driven by natural instincts to have sex and reproduce. That natural instinct is more powerful than any religious dogma. The Pope has the blood of everyone who listened to His Ignorance, succumbed to the forces of nature and will die of aids or other STD.
Catholic Doctrine? Religious Extremism? Religious Terrorists?
Death by overpopulation, disease, ignorance?
How is this going to save my soul? And who’s business is it? The Pope’s?
I think NOT!
I used to be a good Catholic.. and I still am, (at the end I’m comfortable with my life),
but I don’t believe EVERYTHING Rome says anymore.
I think someone ‘up there’ has a weird sense of humor.
#4, Ah Yea,
Abstinence, on the other hand, is 100% safe,
Therefore, using a condom increases the risk of aids – as compared to abstinence.
Just as an aside here, if you keep your mouth shut and your hands in your pockets you will never tell a lie. Therefore not saying or writing anything is 100% effective while checking accuracy is only 98% effective.
Which ‘ya gunna do?
JImR I have to agree. Procreation is one of the strongest instincts in humans. No religion or religious dogma will change that. Even people who take vows of abstinence struggle against that instinct every day. Most cannot resist.
Re:#17, #20
Evil? Maybe, but I think he just looks horny…. maybe didn’t get a chance to polish the crucifix yet that day. See how clean his hand is?
Just to play Pope’s Advocate for a moment:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
“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.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, while it’s correct that the Pope and the Vatican are against condom use because it allows for promiscuity, etc., it is also a valid point that people often think of condoms and other forms of protection as a license to take more risks.
A condom is better than nothing, but changing one’s behavior is just as important.
That ‘ole, fava beans and chianti, smile.
Also from Science Magazine…
Article: UTTING INDIA’S HIV TALLY, January 2007
“The report is in line with a March 2006 paper in The Lancet by Rajesh Kumar and Prabhat Jha of the University of Toronto in Canada, who reported a one-third decline in new HIV infections in the worst-hit regions of India, thanks to condom use and AIDS awareness programs.”
Article: Twenty-Five Years of HIV/AIDS, July 2006
“Even without a vaccine, HIV remains an entirely preventable disease in adults; and behavior modification, condom use, and other approaches have slowed HIV incidence in many rich countries and a growing number of poor ones.
I think the Pope is in serious need of a beej.
So it’s like if you have a bicycle helmet law, it encourages kids to be more reckless in their riding.
#30–Mike==this is a good example of how using the name and number of the post you are responding to is NECESSARY for good communication/thread development.
You’ve made an excellent analogy to Post #26. I hope he returns to give an answer.
Was the Pope “right or wrong?”–all depends on what the EXACT question is. Hardly matters when the Poop is anti-sex, and anti-condom. He should be ignored as bat shit crazy to begin with.
In doing some research this afternoon, I can’t find any aids organization that even remotely agrees with Dr. Edward C. Green. I expect he may be making some retractions come Monday.
Brain cells, are there any left?
#32 JimR, until we get final word on that, maybe I’ll make sure the ol’ crucifix has a good sheen (wink wink, nudge nudge).
And for anyone who may have missed it, the newest euphemism for masturbation is taken from #25, “polish the crucifix,” something that priests don’t do quite enough, judging by numerous lawsuits.
He has white horns.
Steve.. that is priceless!!
I didn’t notice them before. No wonder he looks evil.
#29, Sis,
Ya but, … then he has to drink a few whiskeys to get the taste out of his mouth.
#26, Selvy,
Do you have a link for that “quote”?
Although JimR (#28) didn’t provide a link, he did report where the article came from.
What’s interesting is that just about everyone debating HIV/AIDS is wrong. Viruses are dead, not living things that need to be killed. HIV is a myth. Testing is not specific. Condoms have holes in them bigger than any virus.
The lies about the complex immune system and claimed cause by one virus is paramount to fantasies of Superman and Kryptonite.
Disease conditions are complex, created, and not transmitted as if viruses were footballs to play catch with and never be able to let go of.
Study aidsmythexposed.com and aliveandwell.org and search “aids lies” in various places if you are ready to risk exposure to the truth, and get ready to throw in the trash the misleading claims about condoms, claims sex is going to kill you, and nonsense about dead viruses that aren’t even bigger than flea poop.
Are you scared of things as big as flea poop? If so why?
Turn page upside down for answer.
#31 bobbo
“Risk Compensation”. An interesting topic.
The question isn’t whether risk compensation is real, but whether it applies to condoms and the spread of AIDS.
Apparently, it does. There has been discovered exactly this relationship #26 talks about.
http://tinyurl.com/cslq5z