At 4:16 PM 4/8/5, Jed Rothwell wrote: >Horace Heffner wrote: > >>It is perfectly logical that condom use will slow the spread of aids. It >>does not take an expert to see that. Further, the more the onslaught is >>delayed, the larger the number of people who will be saved by medical >>advances if and when they come. > >You are missing the point.
No, I made my point. You are attemtping to change the discussion to avoid the point. Condums are not safe. They break. They have defect rates. It is reckless to call them safe. The faillure rate and its effect should be published information, just like warnings on cigarettes. If you tell people something is safe then they feel free to do it. If you tell people somehing is safe when you know it is not, when in fact it can kill them, then this is reckless or worse. >People are only saved by medical advances in >rich nations. In most of the world there is no treatment at all -- not even >aspirin. This means the use of the condom not only slows the spread of >AIDS; it reverses it. You can only diminish the spread rate, not reverse it. You can not undo an AIDS infection. It is true the percentage of the population with the disease can eventually drop when the infected die off faster than new infections occur, but still the infection rate upon exposure has to be dropped to a very low percentage to accomplish that if the exposure rate is high. >People who get the disease die off rapidly, or they >become too sick to have sex. > >In advanced countries such as Japan where there is treatment and universal >health care, AIDS is not increasing. The number of infections in Japan is >holding steady at 12,000, with fewer than 500 deaths per year. The >onslaught has not only been delayed; it has been ended, mainly by the use >of condoms. Now this is amazing and very interesting, if true. It is difficult to believe the use of condoms is the main factor. Condoms are just not that reliable. There must be some other kind of prophylaxis involved. Maybe there is a natural protection in the Japanese gene pool? Maybe the treatment drugs being used prevent the spread of infection? If so, this would be a significant development. Also, the above numbers seem to indicate people with AIDS live about 25 years in Japan. This too is hard to belive. These numbers are amazing if true. One also has to wonder if the sex industry in Japan has some kind of influence on the reporting. >There is no longer any threat that AIDS will become endemic in >Japan, even though the society is rife with prostitution. There would be no >threat from AIDS in the U.S. if we had universal health care and sane sex >education. All this info on Japan is the best information you have provided, but is hard to believe, unless there is some other kind of prophylaxis involved due to genetics or health care in Japan, possibly similar to the prophylaxis that can be obtained prenatally. >Unfortunately a fifth of our people do not get proper care. How does medical care affect the spread rate? There is no cure. Prolonging the life of those with AIDS should only increase the rate at which it spreads. The better the health care the more AIDS is spread by those infected because they live longer, unless there is some factor more effective than condoms that directly affects the ability of the afflicted to spread the disease. Perhaps those diagnosed in Japan are more responsible than people in the US? >This >is reflected in health statistics such as chronic disease, infant >mortality, and longevity, which are far behind other major developed >nations, not to mention Brunei, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, >Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, >Slovenia, Spain and Cuba. (Overall the U.S. is number 30 in infant >mortality, and it is the only developed country in which the numbers are >getting worse.) > >If condoms did not exist, and someone invented them now, everyone would >assume this means the end of the AIDS epidemic. It would be considered a >cure. A treatment which reduces the chances of getting an infectious >disease by a factor of 10 or 20 will eventually eliminate the disease. This >rivals the effectiveness of the measles vaccine, which 98%. >(http://www.ilshrestha.com.np/vaccine.html) This is a competely different thing! What a bogus argument! The 98 percent vaccine effectiveness refers to indiviuals, not to exposures! There is a colossal difference! So, at worst case, you wipe out the 2 percent of the population for which the vaccine is not effective and that's not so big a deal. This differs totaly from a case where two percent of the *exposures* result in infection, and where exposure occurs on a regular and frequent basis. In the second case the entire population can be consumed if the infection rate is high enough to overcome the birth rate. Vaccines are seldom 100% >effective, plus there are always a few people who refuse to be vaccinated, >but despite this gap vaccines eventually eliminate an infectious disease. >Condoms would eliminate AIDS if they were widely used, even though >individuals would still be at risk, and many would still die from condom >failures. Well, here you make my point. Condoms are not "safe". > > >>The principle conclusion I've drawn is that no action should be taken, >>especially a misleading action, which draws people out of safe populations >>and into populations at risk. > >People do not have sex because you "suggest" they should, or you reassure >them it is safe. Nobody "draws them out." If you tell people something is safe then they feel free to do it. If you tell people somehing is safe when you know it is not, when in fact it can kill them, then this is reckless or worse. >They have sex no matter what, at >all times and places, even when Draconian penalties are imposed for >adultery. In Africa, nature has imposed the most Draconian punishment >imaginable: agonizing death by AIDS. Everyone there knows that, but they go >on having sex anyway. If that threat is not enough, what makes you think >advice would affect their behavior? My point was that disinformation will hurt, not that any specific advice will help. I recommended only that misinformation be avoided. Further, you are completely wrong in your assesment that *everyone* is in a risky promiscuous group. The number of people who are chaste or monogamous is a lot bigger than zero. > >Having said that, I agree that advice and education should be offered. It >will do some good, and save lives. But condoms are much more effective. If >you must choose one or the other, you should definitely go with condoms. My point is only that condoms should not be sold as safe - regardless of the above points, which are irrelevant to what I have said. Condoms are not safe. They can break. There *is* a failure rate in practice that is not commonly known. There is a cumulative risk to condom use of which most people are not aware. Most people are not aware of the Russian roulette effect, or Murphy's (real) law, or similar cumulative or random-walk effects. In my opinion, this is why many gamblers are such suckers, and why condoms are not as safe as they are made to appear. It is not just advice and education, it is spoecific information that should be provided and is not. Not only that, what is extremely dangerous, using condoms with a partner who has AIDS, should not be called "safe". Regards, Horace Heffner
