PHA-Exchange> WHO Warns Vatican on Condom Advice

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WHO Warns Vatican on Condom Advice
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Source U.N.Wire
Thursday, October 9, 2003 
 
The World Health Organization has warned the Vatican about put-
ting lives at risk after a British documentary accused the Catho-
lic Church of telling people in countries with high rates of HIV 
that condoms do not protect against the virus, BBC Online re-
ports:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3176982.stm
 
According to "Sex and the Holy City," airing Sunday on BBC One, 
cardinals, bishops, priests and nuns on four continents are say-
ing HIV can pass through microscopic netting in condoms.
 
"These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous 
when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed 
more than 20 million people and currently affects around 42 mil-
lion," a WHO spokeswoman told the program.
 
Just yesterday, a U.N. Population Fund report said every 14 sec-
onds a young person is infected with HIV.
 
Being opposed to contraception, the Catholic Church has repeat-
edly refused to concur with health experts who say people should 
use condoms to protect themselves from HIV and other sexually 
transmitted diseases, and has instead advocated that people 
change their behavior.
 
In an interview, one of the Vatican's most senior cardinals, Al-
fonso Lopez Trujillo, suggested that HIV could pass through con-
doms, and suggested that governments urge people not to use them, 
BBC Online reports.
 
Archbishop of Nairobi Raphael Ndingi Nzeki also said in the docu-
mentary that condoms were helping to spread HIV.
 
"AIDS ... has grown so fast because of the availability of con-
doms," BBC Online quotes him as saying.
 
In Kenya, where one in five people is HIV positive, "some priests 
have even been saying that condoms are laced with HIV/AIDS," ac-
cording to Gordon Wambi, director of an AIDS testing program 
there.
 
The documentary said the claims about condoms are repeated as far 
as Asia and Latin America (BBC Online, Oct. 9).