The Pope Right About Condoms and A.I.D.S. in Africa

So says Dr. Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies — Guess who says pope was right about condoms, AIDS. "The pope is correct," said Dr. Green, "or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope's comments." More:

There is a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded 'Demographic Health Surveys,' between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates. This may be due in part to a phenomenon known as risk compensation, meaning that when one uses a risk-reduction 'technology' such as condoms, one often loses the benefit (reduction in risk) by 'compensating' or taking greater chances than one would take without the risk-reduction technology.

[....]

We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.... The best and latest empirical evidence indeed shows that reduction in multiple and concurrent sexual partners is the most important single behavior change associated with reduction in HIV-infection rates.

[link via the Western Standard's Andrea Mrozek — Beware religious dogma in Africa]