Pope 'distorting condom science'

[Evo]

Last week the Pope said -

"don't use condoms - even to prevent the spread of Aids"

BBC News

Now the medical journal the Lancet has thrown some strong criticism towards the Pope about his remarks saying he:

"publicly distorted scientific evidence to promote Catholic doctrine on this issue"

"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 figure, 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."

From BBC News

I am pleased to see the Lancet come out and make these statements as the position of the Pope is going to do more damage than good. He needs to recognise that promoting this kind of Catholic teaching is harmful to efforts to control the spread of HIV/Aids and he, and in turn Catholic teachings, should never get involved in this kind of issue, leave it to medical science to solve this issue.

 

[unozero]

what a fuktard.


can't wait till he drops dead like the last one.

 

[Raziaar]

What a ****ing asshole he is.

It's like they want an overpopulated world full of sexually contagious diseases.

 

[Stigmata]

I will say this: Advocates of the Pope's stance on this issue do raise a single good point. The widespread use of condoms can go hand in hand with something called "risk compensation", where extra risks (more dangerous sexual practices i.e. anal sex) are taken when in the presence of a risk mitigator (condoms).

Of course, the solution to something like that is the dreaded Sexual Education course. And it might take a little while for the Pope to come around on that.

 

[<RJMC>]

What a ****ing asshole he is.

It's like they want an overpopulated world full of sexually contagious diseases.

as long as everyone is catholic.......

 

[jet_porkins]

Isn't the Pope's main point to Catholics that abstinence should be practiced, rather than using condoms? Doesn't seem like he's 'distorting' anything about condom science. This isn't really news and shouldn't be unexpected coming from the Pope's mouth.

 

[Warped]

The Pope would probably be against stem cell research even if it extended his life...and with that being said Religion -1 yet again

 

[kineaesth]

Isn't the Pope's main point to Catholics that abstinence should be practiced, rather than using condoms? Doesn't seem like he's 'distorting' anything about condom science. This isn't really news and shouldn't be unexpected coming from the Pope's mouth.

Yes, but he also said something along the lines of 'condoms do not prevent AIDS, in fact they increase it's spread'.

 

[jet_porkins]

What he said was that the way to combat HIV/AIDS was not through condoms, rather than condoms do not prevent AIDS. He justifies this stance with the notion that allowing a sexual preventive device would abandon the moral high ground of fidelity altogether (that is: We can have sex all we want now that we have condoms). He also said about condoms: "which can even increase the problem." This differs from claiming that condoms increase the spread of AIDS. He's basically saying that more people will be having sex, and since condoms aren't fail-safe, there will be a lot more chances for the spread of disease to occur.

 

[Warped]

who wears condoms anymore?? if your partner has a disease, that condom only has a 10% chance to save your dick

 

[MJ12]

Isn't the Pope's main point to Catholics that abstinence should be practiced, rather than using condoms? Doesn't seem like he's 'distorting' anything about condom science. This isn't really news and shouldn't be unexpected coming from the Pope's mouth.

Catholics always try to be coy about this shit, and I've been through 12 years of Catholic education, so I know.
The reason they don't want condoms being used is for their agenda about believing that wearing a condom prevents procreation, and therefor is "bad".
However, the catholic church believes that you can **** your wife when she is on her period so that she will not get pregnant. Their reasoning for this shit is because it is "natural" as opposed to condoms or birth control. Hypocritical ****tards.

He's a complete worthless piece of trash. Yeah, people need to be more intelligent about who they ****, but that doesn't mean getting rid of condoms is the solution.

"don't use condoms - even to prevent the spread of Aids"
"Don't ever defend yourself, even if someone is stabbing you"

who wears condoms anymore?? if your partner has a disease, that condom only has a 10% chance to save your dick

Can't tell if serious.

 

[kineaesth]

who wears condoms anymore?? if your partner has a disease, that condom only has a 10% chance to save your dick

Stop talking.

What he said was that the way to combat HIV/AIDS was not through condoms, rather than condoms do not prevent AIDS. He's basically saying that more people will be having sex, and since condoms aren't fail-safe, there will be a lot more chances for the spread of disease to occur.

Ah, okay, thanks for clarifying that. My personal problem with that claim, then, is its links to abstinence-only sex education, which is a topic for a different thread entirely. Suffice to say, I'd rather someone as high-profile as the Pope wasn't making claims that could be considered foolish.

 

[Raziaar]

What he said was that the way to combat HIV/AIDS was not through condoms, rather than condoms do not prevent AIDS. He justifies this stance with the notion that allowing a sexual preventive device would abandon the moral high ground of fidelity altogether (that is: We can have sex all we want now that we have condoms). He also said about condoms: "which can even increase the problem." This differs from claiming that condoms increase the spread of AIDS. He's basically saying that more people will be having sex, and since condoms aren't fail-safe, there will be a lot more chances for the spread of disease to occur.

Yeah, well, it's ridiculous though because people are having sex anyway. They're not stopping and they're not going to stop.

And the bad thing is, some of these people might thinking, "Oh, you know something... I heard that condoms don't really work at all... why do i have to put it on babe?" Or some other shit, and they'll end up not using it.

The best advice is... if you're going to **** anyway, you should use a condom. You stand a better chance.

 

[Evo]

Yeah, well, it's ridiculous though because people are having sex anyway. They're not stopping and they're not going to stop.

And the bad thing is, some of these people might thinking, "Oh, you know something... I heard that condoms don't really work at all... why do i have to put it on babe?" Or some other shit, and they'll end up not using it.

The best advice is... if you're going to **** anyway, you should use a condom. You stand a better chance.

Raz hits the nail on the head!

 

[Raziaar]

Raz hits the nail on the head!

Don't worry folks, when I 'hit that', I used a condom!

 

[Llama]

What he said was that the way to combat HIV/AIDS was not through condoms, rather than condoms do not prevent AIDS. He justifies this stance with the notion that allowing a sexual preventive device would abandon the moral high ground of fidelity altogether (that is: We can have sex all we want now that we have condoms). He also said about condoms: "which can even increase the problem." This differs from claiming that condoms increase the spread of AIDS. He's basically saying that more people will be having sex, and since condoms aren't fail-safe, there will be a lot more chances for the spread of disease to occur.

Expect that's a god damn retarded assumption to make.

Take a number of couples, x. All males in x have HIV.

A condom is 99% effective. So, if everyone has sex using a condom the number of people who pass on the disease will be roughly 0.01x.

Without a condom, the chance of any couple within x passing the disease on to their partner is roughly 1. So without a condom rate the infection rate will be approximately x.

If you want the chance of viral infection increasing with the use of condoms, you have to increase the number of people sexing about a hundredfold. That's only thinking in terms of total people, since condom use still massively decreases the risk per person.

In short, the pope is talking shit. As usual.

 

[MJ12]

Condoms vary between 85-98% effective.

People get such specific numbers as "10%" and "99%" depending on which side they are on. (Saying condoms are 10% effective, or 99% effective is ridiculous on both sides)

 

[Stigmata]

Yup. Condoms are 99.9% effective in theory, but in practice it's really closer to 85-98 due to user incompetence / manufacturing error / unforeseen consequences.

 

[Raziaar]

Shitloads better than nothing in any case.

Using a condom isn't going to increase your chances.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Pope's got the right idea...prevent overpopulation by cutting down the Christian community!

 

[jet_porkins]

Yeah, well, it's ridiculous though because people are having sex anyway. They're not stopping and they're not going to stop.

And the bad thing is, some of these people might thinking, "Oh, you know something... I heard that condoms don't really work at all... why do i have to put it on babe?" Or some other shit, and they'll end up not using it.

The best advice is... if you're going to **** anyway, you should use a condom. You stand a better chance.

You have to remember that he's speaking specifically to Catholic Africans, not Africa as a whole. Granted, some of them will give in and have sex with or without a condom. I know a few Catholics and as I understand it, a lot of Catholics are quite disciplined when it comes to obeying words spoken by those in the upper-half of the Catholic hierarchy (of course the people I know live in a completely different culture). I can only assume that many of the Catholics in Africa will obey this decree of abstinence just out of sheer fear of purgatory.

Yup. Condoms are 99.9% effective in theory, but in practice it's really closer to 85-98 due to ... unforeseen consequences.

So that's what Gman meant.

 

[Raziaar]

You have to remember that he's speaking specifically to Catholic Africans, not Africa as a whole. Granted, some of them will give in and have sex with or without a condom. I know a few Catholics and as I understand it, a lot of Catholics are quite disciplined when it comes to obeying words spoken by those in the upper-half of the Catholic hierarchy (of course the people I know live in a completely different culture). I can only assume that many of the Catholics in Africa will obey this decree of abstinence just out of sheer fear of purgatory.

The last thing Africans need is more stupid advice about sex, particularly about AIDS prevention. There's countries there where people have the retarded notion in their head that in order to cure their aids, they can have sex with a virgin. And so children and virgins end up getting raped in the process.

That's a very real thing that goes on in some parts of Africa. The last thing they need is more stupid advice like that, which results in further spread of AIDS.