John Noble (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jackofallgeeks) wrote2006-11-28 05:29 am
jackofallgeeks) wrote2006-11-28 05:29 am
AIDs Prevention
From This article on an increasing trend in AIDs infections:
Simply focusing on treatment or politically uncontroversial prevention methods will not suffice. "You can't put all your eggs in the abstinence basket," said Hays. "We need a menu of strategies for real people," he said, adding that condom distribution as well as new methods, such as a vaccine, are needed.
OK, so we all know my personal stance here, but I'm honestly curious: I hear a lot of talk about condoms and the like as a means of 'safe sex,' but I've never seen any statistics on it. Generally I take all statistics with a grain of salt anyways (too many ways to bend the numbers, in my opinion), but I know there's still a chance of pregnancy when using condoms, so I'm just curious what things look like numerically on AIDs prevention.
And I'll be honest, what bothers me the most about the "can't put all your eggs in the abstinence basket" quip is the implication that we as humans generally lack the self-control to not sleep around. I mean, we're not really talking about a religious issue here any more -- the answer to "what's wrong with having sex" is no longer "God doesn't like it," it's "you could get AIDs and die." One would imagine that's a big enough stick to get most people to at least think about who they're sleeping with -- at the very least you shouldn't sleep with someone you know is sick, right? And you certainly shouldn't sleep with someone you can't trust is being honest about their sexual history. So... yeah. That's my thought for the moment.
Simply focusing on treatment or politically uncontroversial prevention methods will not suffice. "You can't put all your eggs in the abstinence basket," said Hays. "We need a menu of strategies for real people," he said, adding that condom distribution as well as new methods, such as a vaccine, are needed.
OK, so we all know my personal stance here, but I'm honestly curious: I hear a lot of talk about condoms and the like as a means of 'safe sex,' but I've never seen any statistics on it. Generally I take all statistics with a grain of salt anyways (too many ways to bend the numbers, in my opinion), but I know there's still a chance of pregnancy when using condoms, so I'm just curious what things look like numerically on AIDs prevention.
And I'll be honest, what bothers me the most about the "can't put all your eggs in the abstinence basket" quip is the implication that we as humans generally lack the self-control to not sleep around. I mean, we're not really talking about a religious issue here any more -- the answer to "what's wrong with having sex" is no longer "God doesn't like it," it's "you could get AIDs and die." One would imagine that's a big enough stick to get most people to at least think about who they're sleeping with -- at the very least you shouldn't sleep with someone you know is sick, right? And you certainly shouldn't sleep with someone you can't trust is being honest about their sexual history. So... yeah. That's my thought for the moment.
no subject
On condoms preventing STDs: Fact Sheet for Public Health Personnel: Male Latex Condoms and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (from the Centers for Disease Control, updated under Bush's tenure, so if the data is spun, it's likely spun in an anti-condom direction)
The CDC fact sheet contains a link to the summary of a workshop with lots more numbers. The key finding re: condoms and HIV was that individuals who reported always using condoms reduced their HIV transmission rate by 85%. Note that that's an 85% *reduction in the rate*, not that condoms are 85% effective (a mis-report I've seen on several right-wing sources). I.e., the finding is not that you have a 15% chance of contracting HIV from a partner if you use a condom - it's that if the chance of getting HIV from unprotected sex were, say, 10%, using a condom would reduce that to 1.5% (even if you know you're having sex with an HIV+ individual, it's not a 100% risk - the studies cited in the CDC report were of "serodiscordant" couples - where only one partner has HIV - and showed a reduction of infection from 6.7 per 100 person-years to 0.9 per 100 person-years).
On combating HIV/AIDS in Africa: A, B, and C in Uganda: The Roles of Abstinence, Monogamy, and Condom Use in HIV decline (from the Guttmacher Institute)
Condom use in Africa reduces prevalence rates of HIV, not just HIV in kids.
Incidentally, there's no really good data that I know of on the impact of ab-only programs (though a large study concluded in 2001 by the National Campaign Against Teen Pregnancy concluded that while ab+ programs delayed the onset of sexual activity - still not until marriage, but some - the available data on delay of onset for ab-only programs didn't look promising - you can get the summary or the full report online.) Mathematica is currently undertaking a multiyear review of Title V abstinence-only programs in the US, but its results aren't due out until the end of the year.