Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids
Steve Bradshaw
Thursday October 9, 2003
The Guardian
The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids
not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through
which HIV 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
HIV.
A senior Vatican spokesman backs the claims about permeable
condoms, despite assurances by the World Health Organisation that
they are untrue.
Article continues
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 HIV - 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.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,7369,1059068,00.html
