Pope says condoms don't stop AIDS

[brianozz]

Interesting article from our local rag ...

Pell backs Pope on condom stance | theage.com.au (http://www.theage.com.au/national/pell-backs-pope-on-condom-stance-20090410-a2i3.html)

Cardinal Pell speaking:

"He made the point that the people in remote areas are too poor to afford condoms and the ones that are available are often of very poor quality and weren't used effectively," he said.

Cardinal Pell compared the AIDS infection rate in Catholic Philippines with that of Thailand which, he said, was struggling to cope with an epidemic of the disease.

"If you look at the Philippines you'll see the incidence of AIDS is much lower than it is in Thailand which is awash with condoms," he said.

"There are condoms everywhere and the rate of infection is enormous.

"That's what the Pope is talking about."

This could be taken to say that condoms encourage promiscuity (the way the article went).

However it could also be taken as meaning that condoms don't affect transmission because "HIV" doesn't follow the normal paths of infection. Possibly because most of the positive results aren't actually infection, they're from false positive results which are already higher in asian populations (and where people's immune systems are already suffering due to parasites and starvation).

Anyway ... an interesting report!!

[PaulKing]

Philippines

Population: - 86,241,697 as of July 2004
Population Growth: - 1.88% (well under most countries in Africa)

Death rate 5.53 per 1,000

Median age: - 22.1 years (Lots of young people)

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: - Less than 0.1%

HIV/AIDS deaths: - Less than 500

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/rp.html


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The U.S. Army study of 1.1 million G.I.'s who were stationed in the Phillipines (over a ten year period) and kept 100,000 prostitutes in business (70% were said to be HIV positive.

The study showed only ONE was HIV positive and not sick.This was the only case of mass HIV testing in the World.

Condoms in the Phillipines are of such poor quality that only 8% can even hold water.



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There are 400,000 to 500,000 prostituted persons in the Philippines.

Prostituted persons are mainly adult women, but there are also male, transvestite and child prostitutes, both girls and boys. (International
Labor Organization. Dario Agnote, "Sex trade key part of S.E. Asian economies, study says," Kyodo News, 18 August 1998)

In the Philippines, a recent study showed there are about 75,000 children, who were forced into prostitution due to poverty. (Dario Agnote, "Sex
trade key part of S.E. Asian economies, study says," Kyodo News, 18 August 1998)

There are 400,000 women in prostitution in 1998, excluding unregistered, seasonal prostitutes, overseas entertainers and victims of external trafficking. One fourth of them are children and each year 3,266 more children are forced into the sex industry. (GABRIELA, Diana Mendoza, "RP
Has 400,000 Prostitutes," TODAY, 25 February 1998)

Military prostitution, it added, has always been a problem in the past when the US bases were still in the country. Past experience clearly showed that the security of the Filipino people, especially women and children, from the US military was never taken into account.
("Ex-streetwalkers fight VFA: Form advocacy groups in urban centers," The
Philippine Journal, 18 September 1998)


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Subsequently, the U.S. built 23 military installations covering a total area of more than 240,000 hectares ofland (2,400 sq.km.) by the time of the signing of the Military Bases Agreement in 1947. At its peak the bases
occupied nearly 1% of the country's total land area not to mention 11,000 hectares of territorial waters and a large swath of air space.

http://www.wowessays.com/dbase/ae4/lmy301.shtml
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"Why don't Filipinos want US troops in the Philippines?

There is a long history of US military intervention in the Philippines from the Philippine-American War (1899-1916) in which the US colonized the
Philippines. Filipinos resisted and one-eighth of the Filipino people were killed. Even though the Philippines officially became independent from the US in 1946, the US ensured control of the US military bases in the Philippines and access to Philippine natural resources.

The US military bases were finally kicked out in 1991 after mass protest from the Filipino people who were tired of special protected status for US
soldiers, toxic wastes (that until today, the US refuses to clean up), the prostitution of Filipinas, and the spread of alcoholism and drug use.
Filipinos don't want these again. "