MetaFilter posts tagged with condoms and aids

AIDS Prevention Strategies in Africa

Roach — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:32:52 -0800

According to Senior Harvard AIDS Prevention Researcher Dr. Edward Green, condoms not only are not helping to prevent the AIDS crisis, but are actually making the problem worse.

Are We About to Eliminate AIDS?

andoatnp — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:40:53 -0800

New Scientist:

What if we could rid the world of AIDS? The notion might sound like fantasy: HIV infection has no cure and no vaccine, after all. Yet there is a way to completely wipe it out - at least in theory. What's more, it would take only existing medical technology to do the job.

Here's how it works. If someone who is HIV positive takes antiretroviral-drug therapy they can live a long life and almost never pass on the virus, even through unprotected sex. So if everyone with HIV were on therapy, there would be little or no transmission. Once all these people had died, of whatever cause, the virus would be gone for good. It's a simple idea, but the obstacles to implementing it worldwide are enormous. Persuading everyone with HIV to start therapy purely for public health reasons could be ethically dubious. To identify everyone who is HIV positive would require such widespread testing that some may feel it breached their civil liberties. Then there is the question of who would fund such a massive undertaking.

Much much more in the article.

World AIDS Day: more people are living with AIDS than ever before

jessamyn — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 13:30:35 -0800

"[S]ave more lives" is what George Bush pledged to do in a speech today about the AIDS epidemic. With more people living with AIDS in the world than ever before, is the US's problematic stance of promoting an ABC policy and other controversial policies working? Or is it an appropriate response to a culturally touchy topic that some oddball health officials in African nations are still coming to grips with?

Policies that kill?

mathowie — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:08:47 -0800

Starting with this year's State of the Union address, President Bush began a plan to increase aid to Africa, and at the center of that plan is funding to prevent the spread of AIDS and HIV that has reached epidemic proportions on the continent. Critics however, have noted that aid to clinics comes with strings attached. Abstinence is preached first and foremost and condoms are mentioned only as a last resort. This reporter flat out says the policy to curtail the funding and use of condoms in Africa is killing millions.

Christianity and a piece of rubber.

stonerose — Wed, 26 Nov 2003 17:52:40 -0800

The value of disobedience. [note: nytimes] "Ignoring the reactionary policies of the Vatican, some local priests and nuns quietly do what they can to save parishioners from AIDS." So: when and why do people choose to quietly disobey, rather than leave and promote change from outside their social institutions...or vice versa? Should dissenters just leave, or stay and fight? Anecdotes from Republicans and NRA members are especially welcome ;-)

The Church and science

the fire you left me — Thu, 09 Oct 2003 08:49:41 -0800

Vatican declares fresh Death all around. It seems the Vatican is telling people in countries with high AIDS infection not to use condoms, because the virus is small enough to pass through the porous latex. The World Health Organization believes condoms do reduce the risk of AIDS transmission. To which the Vatican's Cardinal Trujillo replied: "They are wrong about that... this is an easily recognisable fact."

Condoms bad! No sex, good!

dejah420 — Wed, 20 Nov 2002 10:14:55 -0800

White House Wages Stealth War on Condoms The government is waging a covert war on condoms. Fact sheets on the effectiveness of condoms in preventing the transmission of the AIDS virus have disappeared from government sites. Right wing activists have been appointed to the the presidential AIDS panel. Government audits of AIDS activist groups who protest these policies have begun. So, apparently only evil-doers have sex outside of marriage, and they deserve to die horrible deaths.

jellybuzz — Fri, 15 Feb 2002 09:54:48 -0800

There goes Colin Powell, pissing off the far right again. This time the Family Research Council and folks like Gary Bauer demand to know how dare he go on MTV and, in response to a teen's question about AIDS, tell kids to USE CONDOMS! (And for that matter, what is the secretary of state doing appearing on that smut-filled network in the first place, and what kinds of parents allow their children to listen to satanic rock music and hip-hop, and how dare insolent children raise filthy questions with government officials about SEX?!)

120degrees — Thu, 12 Jul 2001 12:36:33 -0800

No ~~soup~~ sex for you!. President Daniel arap Moi has urged Kenyans to abstain from sex for at least two years to try to curb the spread of HIV. The government announced plans on Wednesday to import 300 million condoms to fight AIDS.

4midori — Fri, 15 Jun 2001 12:37:10 -0800

Catholic Church offered solution to AIDS crisis? Though I certainly lean more left than right, I have The National Review in print an online for many years to get some balance in my media intake. I must say, they have run numerous articles online of late that I felt were well-reasoned, fair and insighful. This, however, is crap. "Many have tut-tutted the Church for opposing condoms even as an AIDS prevention tool. Some have even called the Church complicit in AIDS deaths. But, as it has turned out, condoms aren't a very good AIDS-prevention tool after all. [emphasis mine] " So now condoms are not useful for preventing AIDS. Did we miss something?

allaboutgeorge — Thu, 08 Feb 2001 18:20:15 -0800

"I don't imagine I'll be able to get it up again" A controversial five-story high condom banner is blown off the side of a South African civic center by gale-force winds.