[Vision2020] Moscow's HIV alert

[Chasuk]

On 12/9/05, Kai Eiselein, LatahEagle Editor <editor at lataheagle.com> wrote:

> Condoms have failure rate of 2 - 3% when used correctly. That number jumps
> to about 17% when used incorrectly.

Those statistics don't correspond to statistics that I have read
published elsewhere.  For example:

http://www.fhi.org/en/RH/Pubs/booksReports/latexcondom/tenreasons.htm

> I'm a realist, Mr. Hansen, I know that kids are going to have sex. But
> shouldn't abstinence be stressed as the primary way to avoid STDs and HIV,
> with the "safe sex" strategy #2, since "safe sex" is not 100 % effective?

No.  The most _realistically successful_ method should be stressed,
not the most _theoretically successful_.  I know a nice girl who, at
only 21, has been pregnant eight times.  Each time by a different
father.  She gave birth four times, and is now raising two of the
children.  Condoms have always been readily available to her (as they
are readily available to virtually everyone).  Still, she engages in
frequent promiscuous sex, and nothing is ever likely to change that.

The sort of person who engages in risky sexual behavior will have sex
whether the condom is available or not.  The answer for these people
is to make condoms so easily accessible that it is like offering a
free umbrella to someone about to step out into the rain.

Abstinence works for the people whose temptation
level/restraint/libido ALREADY works with them, and not against them. 
It is like preaching to the choir.  It doesn't work for the people
most at risk, and thus should not be stressed as the primary way to
avoid STD's and HIV.