Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Miami Herald - Friday, December 12, 2003
Effective protection
In response, Dr. Alexandre Grangeiro director of Brazil's anti-AIDS program, broke a long-standing silence and objected to the church's position: "The church is wrong to insist that condoms don't protect," he declared. The church's position notwithstanding, the scientific community has long accepted that condoms are an effective tool against the spread of the virus that causes AIDS, and the experience of Brazil bears this out.
Every year the government gives away $200 million worth of condoms through health clinics and programs. This is just one of many tools that it uses to combat AIDS, but the results are impressive: Instead of the 1.2 million people suffering from the virus that early projections estimated for Brazil before it adopted an aggressive anti-AIDS program, the number is closer to 500,000. As a result, Brazil is considered the only developing country with a successful anti-AIDS strategy.
The use of condoms was explicitly and emphatically endorsed at the last International AIDS Conference, held in Barcelona last year. One key speaker, Dr. Helene Gayle, director of the HIV-AIDS program for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said that 29 million of the estimated 45 million more AIDS cases that will develop by the end of the decade could be prevented by, among other things, using condoms more often.
Consider also the endorsement of important leaders such as Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was asked during a TV appearance last year about the church's ban on condoms. "I certainly respect the judgment of the Holy Father and the Catholic Church," he said, but he added that condoms were a vital defense against disease. "I not only support their use, I encourage their use."
Combine forces
One unfortunate result of this controversy, as we have noted before, is that it overshadows the splendid work done by priests, nuns and Catholic workers in church-run hospices and medical-care facilities around the world.
The fight to prevent AIDS is no place for religious taboos, however. Instead of concentrating only on those suffering from the disease, the church should join hands with governments to endorse preventive measures that would reduce both the number of victims and the level of suffering everywhere.
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