Historic day for AIDS prevention

The AP's Marilynn Marchione reports (printed on Hiffington post):

In the nearly 30 years the AIDS epidemic has raged, there has never been a more hopeful day than this. Three striking developments took place Tuesday: U.N. officials said new HIV cases are dropping dramatically worldwide. A study showed that a daily pill already on pharmacy shelves could help prevent new infections in gay men. And the pope opened the way for the use of condoms to prevent AIDS.

"I don't know of a day where so many pieces are beginning to align for HIV prevention and treatment, and frankly with a view to ending the epidemic," said Mitchell Warren, head of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, a nonprofit group that works on HIV prevention research. "This is an incredibly opportune moment and we have to be sure we seize it."

President Barack Obama said the groundbreaking research on the AIDS drug "could mark the beginning of a new era in HIV prevention."

The U.N. report said that new cases dropped nearly 20 percent over the last decade and that 33.3 million people are living with HIV now.

"We can say with confidence and conviction that we have broken the trajectory of the AIDS pandemic," said UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe in Geneva.

Health officials credit part of the decline to wider condom use, and on Tuesday, in a historic shift in church teachings, the Vatican said that using a condom is a lesser evil than infecting a sexual partner with HIV.

Condoms remain the best weapon against AIDS . . .

While I gave Pope Benedict a lot of credit in my last post for opening his mind and making this huge change in his position, these headlines which came just minutes later show what the effect would have been had he continued to take his same old position.

The evidence seems clearcut and can no longer be denied: condom use not only significantly helps prevent the spread of HIV, it is the simple condom that is most effective. To continue to forbid its use -- even for married couples -- would really make the Roman Catholic Church so far out of touch as to be irrelevant.

Ralph