Catholic Cardinal Pushes for Condoms

[Julianna]

People do we not realize that HIV/STD’S are God punishment for sexual immorality. God does not punish we have Jesus, right but if you follow his will God has no need to punish. Our lady of Fatima, said God punishment for his people being evil was war, she said if you were to pray WW1 would have never happen, they did not take the advice what happen WW1 started. **Was ther not a individual in the Old Testament that got punished for spilling his seed, **so his dead brother now his wife not get pregnant.

1. You’ve got to be kidding. Not the God I know.
2. Again, the OLD Testament. It was a customary for the brother (single) to marry a brothers wife if he should die, so that he can “take care” of her. Fast forward to 2007. That is not necessary now, and is kinda…“ewwwww” …“GROSS”. I have 6 brothers-in-law…and you would have to beat me unconscience to marry one of them.

 

[Dale_M]

1. You’ve got to be kidding. Not the God I know.

I agree with you. There are far, far too many innocent children and spouses afflicted with HIV for it to be divine punishment. The bishops conference of South Africa, which is perhaps the country hardest hit by HIV, has specifically rejected this “divine punishment” theory.

 

[jack_hawkins]

Saying it has as ‘impact’ is a conscession?

Well then chalk me up to giving you a concession as well. Condom use will certainly have an impact…a negative one.

Do I get applause now

The context of the quote gives support to what I inferred, although I stand to be corrected if necessary.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Nor did I. I read every word too. I’ll ask again Vern, evidence? Resistance? From whom?

Nohome

There is a long-standing political issue aimed at first denying, and then playing down the failure rate of condoms.

To encourage the use of condoms is to encourage illicit sex. After all, what else are condoms used for?

A person who has sex with a partner whose HIV status is unknown takes a grave risk. A person with HIV who engages in sexual relations puts his partner at risk. Those who foster the idea that condoms eliminate or minimize the risk to an acceptable level are engaging in a cynical delusion.

 

[Nohome]

1. You’ve got to be kidding. Not the God I know.

No kidding, please read #203 for my spin on the whole thing.

Nohome

 

[Nohome]

Nohome I am on the side of condoms for HIV prevention, believe me - I was applauding what I saw as a concession from vern that condoms work! That’s a start at least!

Right, gotcha Jack!

 

[Nohome]

There is a long-standing political issue aimed at first denying, and then playing down the failure rate of condoms.

Nonsense! If you can’t back this up with fact, have the class to conceed that you are just throwing out your personal opinion.

To encourage the use of condoms is to encourage illicit sex. After all, what else are condoms used for?

More nonsense! I can back this up with research if you care to read it.

Nohome

 

[vern_humphrey]

Nonsense! If you can’t back this up with fact, have the class to conceed that you are just throwing out your personal opinion.

More nonsense! I can back this up with research if you care to read it.

Nohome

Do you always get this angry when someone doesn’t agree with you?

This approach is as political as the earlier rejection of testing for those at-risk for AIDS (or routine testing for people needing surgery and so on.) Boy, was that a mistake!!

 

[jack_hawkins]

There were many medical/ethical considerations as regards routine testing - when you don’t have an effective treatment, screening is not justified

 

[vern_humphrey]

There were many medical/ethical considerations as regards routine testing - when you don’t have an effective treatment, screening is not justified

The ethical issue is that sexually active persons in the at-risk group had a moral obligation to be tested. They had no right to wear a blindfold and continue spreading the disease.

Beyond that, those with an obligation to protect the public had an obligation to institute routine testing.

 

[Dale_M]

This approach is as political as the earlier rejection of testing for those at-risk for AIDS (or routine testing for people needing surgery and so on.) Boy, was that a mistake!!

I think arguments against requiring the test for at-risk populations lost most of their validity with the introduction ten years ago of protease inhibitors and the subsequent HAART routine.

But routine testing for folks getting surgery? Why are surgical patients considered an at-risk population? Universal precautions in the medical field assumes that everyone is infectious.

 

[vern_humphrey]

I think arguments against requiring the test for at-risk populations lost most of their validity with the introduction ten years ago of protease inhibitors and the subsequent HAART routine.

So prior to that time, it was okay for a person to deliberately not learn of his status, and go blythely on infecting others?

But routine testing for folks getting surgery? Why are surgical patients considered an at-risk population? Universal precautions in the medical field assumes that everyone is infectious.

Becaused “universal precautions” don’t always work. Surgeons do nick their fingers now and them while working. Dr. Michael de Bakey came out of surgery and showed tiny spots of blood on his glasses and pointed out that any one of those spots, if it had landed in his eye, would have infected him.

 

[Nohome]

Do you always get this angry when someone doesn’t agree with you?

Angry? No. I do get frustrated when opinion is distorted as fact.

Nohome

 

[vern_humphrey]

Angry? No. I do get frustrated when opinion is distorted as fact.

Nohome

You mean posts like this:

Originally Posted by Dale_M
I think arguments against requiring the test for at-risk populations lost most of their validity with the introduction ten years ago of protease inhibitors and the subsequent HAART routine.

There was never any validity for wearing blinders. People in the at-risk group had a duty to lean their status – and not go on infecting others. Public officials had a duty to protect the public.

The AIDS issue is shot through with political correctness – which has not made things better.

 

[Dale_M]

People in the at-risk group had a duty to lean their status – and not go on infecting others.

I think this is a very reasonable attitude.

The AIDS issue is shot through with political correctness – which has not made things better.

I suspect all things human involve politics to some extent. Look at the controversy over requiring the HPV vaccine. It could be argued that states should require the vaccine, regardless of parental anger.

 

[vern_humphrey]

I think this is a very reasonable attitude.

Thanks.

I suspect all things human involve politics to some extent. Look at the controversy over requiring the HPV vaccine. It could be argued that states should require the vaccine, regardless of parental anger.

All things do involve politics – but there are differnces in degree that lead to a difference in kind. Compare breast cancer with AIDS. Both have powerful lobbies, but the breast cancer lobbies never advised women not to be tested.

I suspect people who oppose HPV vaccines will soon quiet down – their position doesn’t make sense nor advance any moral issue.

 

[Brendan]

FYI, here are the conclusions of the “Scientific Evidence on Condom Effectiveness for Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Prevention” Issued by the Dept of Health and Human Services in conjunction with the CDC.

premaritalsex.info/docs/condomreport.pdf

Among participants who reported always using condoms, the summary estimate of HIV/AIDS incidence from the twelve studies was 0.9 seroconversion per 100 person years. Among those who reported never using condoms, the summary estimate of HIV/AIDS incidence from the seven studies was 6.7 seroconversions per 100 person years. Overall, Davis and Weller estimated that condoms provided an 85% reduction in HIV/AIDS transmission risk when infection rates were compared in always versus never users.

So that translates rather closely into odd involved in taking 5 shells out of a revolver and playing Russian Roulette with it.

Yes, it’s safer that a fully loaded revolver, but still not something one should be doing in the first place.

And it still couldn’t be called “Safe Gun Play”

 

[Nohome]

FYI, here are the conclusions of the “Scientific Evidence on Condom Effectiveness for Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Prevention” Issued by the Dept of Health and Human Services in conjunction with the CDC.

premaritalsex.info/docs/condomreport.pdf

I’ll try not to shout. Nobody ever said condoms were 100% effective. Nobody questions the challenges about their efficacy dealing with this epidemic.

So that translates rather closely into odd involved in taking 5 shells out of a revolver and playing Russian Roulette with it.

Yes, it’s safer that a fully loaded revolver, but still not something one should be doing in the first place.

And it still couldn’t be called “Safe Gun Play”

And they don’t call it safe sex, they call it “safer” sex. A revolver is a poor comparison since the intent of such behavior would be death. People don’t have sex with the intent of killing themselves or others, AIDS makes that a possibility.

Sexually transmitted disease has plauged humans, animals and even plants since the dawn of time. Sex is somethig people do and even though it would make St Augustine cringe, they enjoy it very much.

Since abstaining from sex is unrealistic, until there is a cure for AIDS, we have condoms.

Nohome

PS I’m still waiting a response from our earlier discussion.

 

[Nohome]

So that translates rather closely into odd involved in taking 5 shells out of a revolver and playing Russian Roulette with it.

Brendan, I thought you said you were an engineer, surely you know the difference “incidence rate” and “incidence rate reduction”?

Your analogy is a straight forward incindence rate. That is we would expect one of five (20%) Russian Roulette players to blow their brains out (assuming of course the gun were a five shooter).

There research you cite demonstrates the reduction in incidence rate. They estimate that unprotected sex has an incidence rate of 6.7 seroconversions per 100 person years (normalized data way to complex to explain in casual conversation). Condoms reduce the RATE 85% to somewhere around 0.9 seroconversion per 100 person years.

So, back to your analogy. If wearing a helmet reduced the risk of injury from Russian Roulette 85%, we would expect the incidence rate to drop from 20% to 3%. I could explain further, but since you are an engineer, I’ll let you do the math.

Nohome

 

[vern_humphrey]

I’ll try not to shout. Nobody ever said condoms were 100% effective. Nobody questions the challenges about their efficacy dealing with this epidemic.

And they don’t call it safe sex, they call it “safer” sex. A revolver is a poor comparison since the intent of such behavior would be death. People don’t have sex with the intent of killing themselves or others, AIDS makes that a possibility.

Many people who play Russian Roulette don’t intend to kill themselves, either. But both sex with an HIV-positive partner and Russian Roulette can kill you.

As for “safer” sex, suppose you had a revolver with nine chambers instead of six – would you advertise it as being “safer Russian Roulette?”

Sexually transmitted disease has plauged humans, animals and even plants since the dawn of time. Sex is somethig people do and even though it would make St Augustine cringe, they enjoy it very much.

“If it feels good, do it,” eh?

Since abstaining from sex is unrealistic, until there is a cure for AIDS, we have condoms.

And by touting them as a method of “safer sex” we encourage people to have more illicit sex – more dangerous, life-threatening illicit sex.