Condoms Don't Stop AIDS?

Brian Saint-Paul points out that condoms don't stop the spread of AIDS in Africa. Excerpt:

[A] March 2004 article in the medical journal "Studies in Family Planning." Titled "Condom Promotion for AIDS Prevention in the Developing World: Is It Working?," the piece was a meta-review of the scientific literature on the question. The results shocked condom advocates. In the article, researchers Sanny Chen and Norman Hearst noted, "In many sub-Saharan African countries, high HIV transmission rates have continued despite high rates of condom use." In fact, they continued, "No clear examples have emerged yet of a country that has turned back a generalized epidemic primarily by means of condom distribution."

No surprise, then, that Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and South Africa--the nations with the highest levels of condom availability--continue to have the highest rates of HIV prevalence. How could this be? After all, we're told that condoms are 90 percent effective. And that's precisely the problem. This claim--so prevalent in condom-promotion literature--is actually a tremendous strike against using condoms to reduce AIDS. Think of it: Assuming that the 90 percent figure is accurate, that means that 10 percent of the time, condoms don't offer protection against transmission. Condoms provide a false sense of security to those who use them. Being convinced of condoms' effectiveness and feeling invulnerable, users will simply continue--or actually increase--their high-risk behavior.