as that great american denis leary said, "fuck the pope"

[rone]

The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which the HIV virus can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.

The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to the HIV virus.

Comments

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

All newspapers are trying to sell newspapers first and deliver news second. The Guardian is one I've found to be particularly yellow-rag. Look at the following teaser for an article about AIDS:

Grace Matnanga is HIV positive. She is well at the moment but she will be dead in a few years without medicines we in the UK take for granted. A Guardian special investigation follows this human chain of money and power that prevents Grace and nearly 30 million like her from getting the drugs that will save them.

I think that packing this amount of distortion and simplification into 3 sentences is a newsworthy feat in and of itself. Briefly, I could respond to this:

a) She may not be dead in a few years.
b) You may "take the drugs" for granted in the UK, but they're not free. They're expensive to produce and distribute.
c) The human chain of money and power is not standing in the way of a free pipeline of endless livesaving drugs. Rather, it's the only thing that has a chance in Hades of actually getting the drugs to where they might be useful.
d) The drugs will not "save her." These drugs are dangerous, toxic, have side effects that can be fatal, crippling, or impossible to manage; they cause the emergence and transmission of resistant virus; and many people on these drugs die of AIDS anyway.

But here I err in the same way the Guardian does; "brief" discussions aren't really appropriate to convey the complexity of these issues. They may sell newspapers, but seriously, ronebofh, what do you care about that? You should stop paying attention to this pap.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I believe you are engaging in what is called, in the vernacular of debate, an "ad hominem" attack. You assail the Guardian's credentials (which, in itself, is not unreasonable), but in doing so, you do not address the issue i put forth: the Catholic Church is run by senile and retrograde living fossils.

Here are other reports of this ridiculous assertion by the Catholic Church via Reuters (http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=385870&section=news) and the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3176982.stm). I hope that they pass your journalistic muster.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

I wish i could say that the Church could suprise me anymore. But I can't. They are just too fucked up

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

you do not address the issue i put forth: the Catholic Church is run by senile and retrograde living fossils.

Address it? It's axiomatic. They're morons. What else is there to say?

[jwgh]

The information is also reported by Reuters, for what that's worth.

[reddragdiva]

You are too stupid to bother arguing with.

That's not a logical dissection of your position, but it's certainly the case.

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

> You are too stupid to bother arguing with.

Maybe true, but I hope you didn't come away with the idea that I'm somehow in favor of AIDS in Africa, or of withholding needed meds from people simply because they're African. The human catastrophe in Africa is on track to be the worst disaster in history, and I'm first in line to say that everyone needs to do what they can to help.

I'm also very much in favor of the idea of not doing any harm, though. And I think that careless or ill-considered attempts at help can do a lot of harm - remember that flap with the infant formula in the 80's? If we're going to put $15 billion into Africa, that's a tremendous amount of leverage to help or to harm, and I'm in favor of making sure all that leverage is used to alleviate human suffering rather than causing more.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Er, you appear to be critiquing the article teaser for...being a teaser.

Now, if the article itself fails to address any of the points you raise, that's a problem. (I haven't yet read the article; maybe it's crap, maybe it isn't.) But complaining that a three-sentence lead is not itself a full, balanced inquiry is missing the point in a manner that verges on the pathological.

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

The article's just as bad - go have a look.