Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Observations Yankee Doodling

The papal position on condoms and HIV

BMJ 2009; 338 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b1217 (Published 25 March 2009) Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1217

Rapid Response:

Re: Evidence for Abstinence

This is merely a general reply to the rapid response from Anne
Williams on condoms, HIV, Africa and the Pope (1).

The statistical table she provides has no p- values, and makes no
proper comparisons. There is no sense of a case/ control context. If HIV
is unstoppable without Catholic morality, then surely HIV should be much
more rampant in the veritably godless West.

She does not consider various confounders- for example, lack of
education about AIDS is the true sad reason for its cruel spread.

Pompous Pharisee- like lectures about promiscuity are not going to
work. What is the blinkered Catholic attitude to birth control? Chaos, no
planning, a Malthusian apocalypse with a planet unable to sustain too many
billions of poor neglected children. Narrow Catholicism would convert the
Third World into a desolation.

Repressing human sexuality can be cruel. Condoms are not the total
solution, but the battle against AIDS will fail without 'prophylactics' as
part of the physician's armoury. Perhaps Anne Williams has neglected a
pragmatic Protestant approach.

As for the Vatican, its grimly simple- minded homilies on condoms are
making the HIV Holocaust even worse. The Pope is not a medical genius and
his comments on condoms are blind ones.

REFERENCES:

(1) Evidence for Abstinence. BMJ Rapid Response. Anne M H Williams. 1
April 2009.

Competing interests:
None declared

Competing interests: No competing interests

04 April 2009
Zekria Ibrahimi
psychiatric patient
Coombs Library UB1 3EU