Wednesday, June 11, 2008
When will they ever learn?
Remember that song from the 60's? See this article from AP: 25% of New Yorkers have genital herpes. Herpes doubles your risk of contracting HIV; it appears that people with genital inflammation both spread HIV more easily AND are at higher risk of contracting it. DenverDoc looks at a lot of pathology slides; people with inflammation have poor barriers, and also have a lot of lymphocytes in the inflamed areas. If there are a lot of lymphocytes, there are a lot of viral targets in the uninfected, and a lot of virus in the infected.
Herpes is for life.
Look at the last line. "The health department urges consistent use of condoms..." Yes, it is still important to maintain some fantasy that people can have as much sex with as many partners as they like with no consequences. That is MORE important than saving lives or keeping people healthy. Here is a link to an Annals of Internal Medicine article examining condom use. They loudly proclaim in the Abstract that condoms reduce the risk of HSV infection, but in the fine print at the bottom, they admit that frequent condom users have a 26% lower risk of infection. 26% lower? What a triumph. An incurable disease that puts a woman's pregnancies at risk, causes pain, increases risk of HIV, and we have public health authorities proclaiming that we need to use more condoms. At least the CDC website says that abstaining from sex or having a long term monogamous relationship is the most effective way of avoiding herpes (before bowing to the Condom idol once again.)
We Christians have a problem here, though. If we point out that having sex is dangerous, we get painted as either prudes or even worse, worshiping a God who punishes people for acting the way he created us. Worshiping at the idol of Free Love even takes priority over worshiping at the idol of Health!
I guess my best response is to say that we live in a dangerous world and that God gave us guidelines that help us avoid many of the dangers. If we ignore the guidelines and get hurt, is that divine retribution or our stupidity? If I run a red light and get hurt in a car accident, is that my stupidity or is it Colorado's Dept of Motor Vehicle imposing some kind of unfair punishment? Please.
Herpes is for life.
Look at the last line. "The health department urges consistent use of condoms..." Yes, it is still important to maintain some fantasy that people can have as much sex with as many partners as they like with no consequences. That is MORE important than saving lives or keeping people healthy. Here is a link to an Annals of Internal Medicine article examining condom use. They loudly proclaim in the Abstract that condoms reduce the risk of HSV infection, but in the fine print at the bottom, they admit that frequent condom users have a 26% lower risk of infection. 26% lower? What a triumph. An incurable disease that puts a woman's pregnancies at risk, causes pain, increases risk of HIV, and we have public health authorities proclaiming that we need to use more condoms. At least the CDC website says that abstaining from sex or having a long term monogamous relationship is the most effective way of avoiding herpes (before bowing to the Condom idol once again.)
We Christians have a problem here, though. If we point out that having sex is dangerous, we get painted as either prudes or even worse, worshiping a God who punishes people for acting the way he created us. Worshiping at the idol of Free Love even takes priority over worshiping at the idol of Health!
I guess my best response is to say that we live in a dangerous world and that God gave us guidelines that help us avoid many of the dangers. If we ignore the guidelines and get hurt, is that divine retribution or our stupidity? If I run a red light and get hurt in a car accident, is that my stupidity or is it Colorado's Dept of Motor Vehicle imposing some kind of unfair punishment? Please.
