CONDOMS UNSAFE

Vancouver Sun - August 15, 2001
http://www.vancouverprovince.com/newsite/edpage/010815/646996.html
When it comes to sleeping around, it's a very small world
Susan Martinuk, The Canadian Press

"It's a small world after all."

The song has been around for a while, but it is only lately that the tune has moved out of the realm of music - and into that of scientific fact. More surprisingly, that little shift should be making us all just a wee bit uncomfortable.

A recent study in Nature has demonstrated that it doesn't take much to connect the promiscuous people of the world. Or even the mostly monogamous.

In fact, all it takes is "between three and seven sexual contacts to be linked to the sexual partners of anyone else."

For years, theorists have told us that as few as six handshakes can connect one person from every other person in the world. But the infamous and rather fun-to-think-about "six degrees of separation" theory has now turned into a more risky and perhaps even more deadly theory, known as "six degrees (or less) of copulation."

It's a sobering thought.

Especially for those who choose to sleep with multiple partners. Suddenly it isn't just the sexual history of one known partner that comes into play. Rather, it is the sexual history of every person whom that person has slept with ... and everyone that they have slept with and so on.

You get the point.

It will take a lot of discussion to convince the public that this web of interconnectedness is real - and that it is entirely possible for one utterly unknown yet promiscuous person to dramatically alter another individual's state of health. But it's the kind of scenario that keeps public health workers and epidemiologists awake at night and munching on Prozac during the day.

And the bad news doesn't end there.

Not long after this study appeared, a US government report was released stating there is little evidence to suggest that condoms are able to prevent the spread of most sexually transmitted diseases. That's right - scientists are finally admitting that the once invincible condom is quite helpless when confronted with various viruses. It should be no surprise - after all, even Superman had kryptonite.

But it now appears that condoms provide a minimal (at best) defence against infections like chlamydia, genital herpes, human papilloma virus (HPV) and syphilis. Consequently, HPV (a virus associated with cervical cancer in young women) will infect 55% of all sexually active young women within the next three years. And a woman's chance of contracting HPV increases by a whopping 1,000% with every new sexual partner.

The report states that condoms are still capable of preventing pregnancy and HIV infection. But, as far too many parents already know, there is a very good reason that condoms don't provide a guarantee when it comes to preventing pregnancy. So it's hardly reasonable to believe that they are any better at protecting one against HIV and AIDS.

The statistics are dizzying and it's easy to brush them off as some sort of "scientific mumbo-jumbo" which has little practical significance. After all, as Mark Twain has said, "There are lies, damn lies and statistics."

But surely most Canadians are beginning to realize that there is a growing plethora of medical research that is telling us we are in deep trouble if we do not change our sexual behaviours.

The wisdom of putting our faith in condoms to stem an epidemic of AIDS and STDs has always been rather tenuous. It was an easy fix; an obvious Band-Aid for a gaping sore that needed something.

But 20% of Canadian adults now have STDs and, for the first time since 1994, HIV infection rates in Canada are increasing.

The latest studies suggest that, although the world may be getting larger, our relationships are becoming increasingly interconnected.

We have invested much of our time and energy in the foolish hope that we could promote sex as play - as long as we simultaneously promoted the use of condoms. But this blind hope, rather than any manipulation of statistics, is now revealed to be the "damn lie" that has misled us.

Consequently, continuing to preach it will only lead to further disease and epidemics.