Condoms do reduce AIDS risk

THE EDITOR: It is crass stupidity for your writer, Jude Gonzalves, to say that a condom is no guarantee that you will not contract AIDS. No one said that it was. What a condom does is reduce the risk of contracting AIDS if you have sex with an infected person just as a seatbelt reduces the risk of serious injury in the event of an accident. I am sure that Gonzalves does not inveigh against the use of seatbelts because they are not a guarantee against serious injury.

What is most disturbing about his letter is the subliminal message that one should eschew the use of condoms altogether. That borders on reckless endangerment of those youths who have not limited their sexual liaisons despite the risk of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. In light of such intransigence, the message from the Minister of Health should be that you should use a double latex condom unfailingly each and every time you have sex outside marriage since this reduces your risk of disease. Further, women should also carry their own condoms, the better to protect themselves. Those are the facts and that indeed is the Minister’s responsibility, not any nonsense about guarantees.

P CLEMENT
Maraval