From: Why the Pope opposes condoms
Now, I certainly don’t grant much, if any, intellectual honesty on such issues to the Roman Catholic Church, but what I’m asking in this thread is: On what basis is that 87% claim advanced by the Church, validly or otherwise?
Only then do I wish to know if such a claim or argument is valid and sound.
It seems possible to keep this a General Question thread, but I would have no objection to moving it to Great Debates if necessary.
Are you expecting the Church to avoid making statements unless they’re objectively verifiable?
It seems to me that the church might have gotten their figures from this study:
Karen R. Davis and Susan C. Weller, “The Effectiveness of Condoms in Reducing Heterosexual Transmission of HIV,” Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 31, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 1999), pp. 272-279.
Link to first page. You need a JSTOR account to get the whole article. Here’s the article abstract:
I have the whole article, and about one-quarter of it is devoted to a discussion of the results. The discussion contains a whole bunch of caveats, and makes clear that the results of studies like this are subject to many factors that are difficult to control for.
For example, the authors note that, while it is relatively easy to find good figures for transmission rates among consistent condom users, finding “unconfounded” rates for nonusers is more difficult, due to a variety of problems including selection bias. They also note that, in many cases, it is difficult to control for HIV risk factors not related to sex and condom use, such as intravenous drug use, and it’s not always clear, for example, whether those who do not use condoms might also be at higher risk of attracting HIV due to these other factors.
They note, in their conclusion:
Note that the 87% figure for this study does NOT mean that, if a couple where one person is HIV+ have sex using condoms, they have a 13% chance of infecting the other partner. It means that the rate of transmission is 87% less than for couples where one partner is infected and condoms are not used. As the figures quoted in the abstract show, the 87% figure is found by comparing the transmission rates per 100 person-years for no-condom and always-condom use.
The figures the Vatican is using seem to be borne out by the literature. It seems to me, though, that the biggest problem is what the Catholic Church concludes, based on those figures. While it’s clear from the study that condoms are not 100 percent effective, the authors make clear that much ineffectiveness comes from improper use, which can in turn be at least partially offset by proper education. Also, while condoms aren’t perfect, i think it’s highly irresponsible to argue against their use simply because of that fact.
Admittedly, complete abstinence would be more efficacious, and this presumably is what the church is striving for outside of monogamous marriages. But we’ve already seen here in America how ridiculously unrealistic abstinence education is. It’s easy for the church to stand on the pedestal and shout that everyone would be fine if they’d just stop having sex, but that ain’t gonna happen.
It seems very hard to study accurately. As mhendo notes, there are many variables that can’t be controlled, and the subjects cannot be observed, they can only be asked about their sexual behavior and the results of any such study would rest on the assumption that all subjects were 100% honest about those behaviors. In the study he cites, for example, they asked serodiscordant couples (couples where one partner was HIV-negative and the other HIV-positive) about their sex practices. If anyone in those relationships were cheating on their partner, they may have a reason to want to hide that.
Fully consistent condom use only 87% effective against HIV!
Consistent condom use decreases rate of the transmission of HIV by eight times!
Both sentences say the same thing. One sounds good, the other doesn’t.
So the RCC does seem to have a factual foundation for its position. I guess that means we’ll see panache45 in this thread eating humble pie with much the same alacrity as he posted in it to begin with…
crickets
The claimed condom failure rate for preventing HIV transmission is in the same ballpark as the failure rate for preventing pregnancy, so it sounds right to me.
One thing that people are also often mistaken about, is the risk of getting HIV from normal unprotected intercourse, which is about 0.05-0.1% per intercourse with an infected partner.
Possibly here.
In lab studies, of course, the transmission rate would be lower. Studies in the wild demonstrate that…lab studies do not necessarily translate to real life.
Hi Malacandra. Just before you start making snarky comments about panache45, can you please clarify your own position: do you think people should only make assertions that have a basis in fact? Do you think that to make assertions not based in fact should warrant snarky posts and ridicule?
So the “87% better than no-condom sex” figure actually translates into what… a 1% transmission rate?
But it’s Church teaching.
Unfortunately, I think the Church makes a mistake in wading into the condom debate-- not because they’re technically right or wrong, but by their teaching, it’s a complete distraction from the message they wish to convey: sex outside of marriage is sinful. Not necessarily extreme fundamentalist “you’re going to burn in Hell” sinful, but in Church teaching, the only way to find grace is through a loving, monogamous marriage sanctified by the Church. Condoms could be 100% successful in all cases, and it still would be irrelevant, for Church teaching is that there should be no artificial birth control.
The Church could junk that tomorrow-- but then they wouldn’t be Catholic.
Mmm, no. 13% of 0.1% is 0.013%. Or to state it another way, unprotected sex is a 1 in 1000 chance for each time you have sex. Protected sex is a 1 in 8000 chance.
The 0.1% is for a single sexual encounter.
Hi ianzin. This is GQ and the OP asked a civil question. The response “Huh. Since when does the Roman Catholic Church have a factual basis for anything?” would be unwarranted in this forum even if it weren’t shown, by the study cited, that as a matter of fact they do appear to have.
It’s not like people round here who want to rag on the RCC (of which I am not a member) are cruelly deprived of the opportunity to do so, is it?
Except that isn’t what she said, or even close to it. She’s simply noting that if the Church is expected to provide evidence for every assertion, they’re going to have to give up on the virgin birth, resurrection, miracles, the divinity of Christ, etc… which would be a bit of a problem for the Church, you see?
Nobody is bashing the RCC in this thread. Well, not yet.
What about snarky remarks abut ‘eating humble pie’? Are those warranted?
Well, panache45’s post pertained to what could or could not be verified. Since you felt moved to comment on it, I ask again, do you think it is important that people should only assert things that are objectively verifiable?
I have not seen any posts that ‘rag on’ the RCC. I have seen many that hold up to scrutiny statements made by or on behalf of the RCC that might be deemed risible, absurd, self-contradictory, harmful, misleading or ignorant. The same applies to many other organisations as well.
Who’s “she”?
Now, anyone with half a brain might draw a distinction between unverifiable statements that are questions of creed, such as the matters alluded to above, and verifiable statements such as the efficacy of condom use, and reasonably observe that merely being in the habit of making pronouncements on the one subject does not preclude making pronouncements on the other.
Snark not, that ye be not snarked on, I guess. Make a response appropriate to GQ and you’ll not be setting yourself up as a target.
And you can ask it again and again, and you’ll likely find that rather than simply committing to having stopped or not stopped beating my wife, I’ll put you to the trouble of divining what I mean from what I’ve written.
Sure. It all depends on your predisposition, doesn’t it? Regardless, I believe there’s already a perfectly good thread in the Pit for ranting and raving about the RCC’s ignorance. This thread just asked if there was a factual basis for the Church’s position.
The RCC has long since bumped up agaist the limits in its ability to stop people from having sex. However, it seems likely that they are still able to keep rates of condom use lower, mainly (I would argue) by influencing third parties who might otherwise promote them and make them available.
The net result is that more people die of AIDS.
So the question becomes, why should anyone listen to the Catholic Church and take them seriously? Has this issue or other issues increased or decreased their influence and credibility in recent years?
panache45 is a she. (Right?)
Regardless of what distinctions anyone with half a brain might draw, panache45’s post is not snarky. You’re just digging yourself a deeper hole.
Take off the offenderati goggles and read it.
Sorry, humble pie has too many carbs for me.
And for the record, I’m a “he.”