Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Thu, 16 Apr 1992 05:12:24 EST
From:         Kerry Stephenson <KSTE@PURCCVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: AIDS/Condoms

Darryl:
  If you wish to drop the subject, I have no objection.  However, if you
wish to continue the discussion, I would like you to explain how you can
justify your position Scripturally, as you alluded to in your previous
posting.  I have seen no such defense of "safe sex" from you (or from
anyone else), and I cannot see how it would be possible to advocate such
a behavior from a Biblical perspective.

  Finally (and, if you agree to end the discussion, this will be the last
posting on the topic, at least from my end), I would like to clarify one more
thing.  I did not cite any studies regarding the ineffectiveness of condom
usage because I did not say studies _had_ demonstrated the _ineffectiveness_
of it, merely that I was unaware of any studies demonstrating the _effective-
ness_ of it.  I am satisfied by Dr. Redfield's statements on the matter from
the Ankerberg postings.  Apparently, you are not.   However, I would submit
the following, which, I am told by the person handing out the literature,
comes from statistics from the US Center for Disease Control (the accuracy
of that attribution you may judge for yourself.)  The actual document I am
using comes from the Fund for the Feminist Majority.  In a chart entitled
"Failure Rates of Birth Control Methods," we find the following:

                Method                      % of Women Pregnant
                                              in first year of use

         Spermicides                           21%
         Sponge with spermicide                18%
         Diaphragm with spermicide             18%
         Condom                                12%

I have not included methods from the chart that have no relevance to the
AIDS discussion, but would be glad to send the rest if people are individually
interested in the information.

The bottom line here is that, if condoms fail at a 12% rate at preventing
pregnancy, (which is a statistically likely outcome of sex during a 72-108
hour period during a woman's monthly cycle, requiring that a fertilizable
egg be present to be fertilized by a viable sperm, under conditions in the
uterus that are conducive to fertilization), it seems unlikely that they
would be reliable in preventing the transmission of a virus smaller than
a sperm.  Particularly when the transmission of the virus requires only
that one partner be infected and that there be blood to blood contact,
which will always occur during sexual intercourse if sperm is present
in the vagina, due to the permeability of the vaginal walls.  This is not
an opinion; it is a medical and biological fact.  (Note here that blood to
blood contact is an overall term to describe passage of one individual's
infectious cells into the bloodstream of another; it does not require the
presence of what we think of as actual "blood."  Despite public impressions
to the contrary, there is no known evidence that actual AIDS-infected blood
_per se_ can transmit the virus in the absence of transmission from one
blood_stream_ to another.  In that sense, this phrase, which is the medical
shorthand of choice, is not entirely accurate.  However, given the under-
standing that it is a shorthand phrase for a far more complex process,
it is considered to be generally acceptable usage in the literature on
AIDS.)
                                        Love and Peace (and Happy Easter),
                                                              ---Kerry
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