During my training, I remember dreading those patient visits where I was expected to provide "safe sex" counseling to my patients. It wasn't necessarily the awkwardness of speaking about such matters to a complete stranger so much as it was the difficult position of trying to meet the expectations of my evaluators without personally contributing to this irrational and flawed set of beliefs held by the "secular" medical establishment.
Ironically, the ones promoting biased, false, and misleading information are not the abstinence-based programs, but the condom devotees who arrogantly discredit such abstinence-based programs as failing to provide medically accurate material. In other words, the most scientifically accurate answer to the problem of sexually transmitted diseases and so-called "unwanted" pregnancies is not a wider distribution of condoms and more promulgation of condom awareness.
Undeterred by objective data to the contrary, we are still taught "if only we have enough faith in condoms, we will be saved; don't get bogged down and encumbered by scientific data, just believe and you will see..." What is the fruit of the worldwide conversion of hearts to a sincere faith in latex? Are we still cursed with HIV and AIDS because there remain a few infidels who obstinately insist on that dreary scientific evidence showing that self-mastery and marital fidelity is the real answer?
Consider the following epidemiologic data. In 1987 (shortly after the discovery of HIV), two Asian nations of similar population had approximately the same number of HIV patients. In Thailand there were 112 cases and in the Philippines there were slightly more -135 cases. Over the next 16 years, these two countries approached the problem with very different tactics.
The government of Thailand embraced the theology of condoms and successfully implemented a "100% condom use" campaign wherein every man, woman, and child had ready access to a superabundance of condoms and where thoroughly indoctrinated on the apparent benefits of latex barriers. In the Philippines, however, something very unusual happened when their government rejected the internationally popular condom movement and decided instead to promote sexual abstinence and marital fidelity.
How did these two radically different tactics fair [sic]? By 2003, Thailand had 570,000 people with HIV, whereas the Philippines had 9,000 people with HIV. In other words, the rate of HIV was 80 times higher in Thailand! Fortunately, this remarkable contrast didn't go unnoticed by all of the mainstream media. A 2003 New York Times article in 2003 reported on this unexpected data in the Philippines. However, the author was clearly perplexed and unable to see the logic and reason behind it. In pitiful desperation, he suggests a theory that prostitutes in the Philippines must be less promiscuous! Would he further conclude that we should encourage prostitutes to be more chaste, all the while standing by the belief that teaching the same to school children is irresponsible and dangerous? Absurdity upon absurdity....
The medical community has had to reform itself in a similar way over the past century with another issue. I speak now of a behavior that is even more habit-forming than the various sexual behaviors so vigorously promoted by the more influential members of modern society--cigarette smoking....
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