VATICAN: CONDOMS DON'T WORK
A top Vatican official told the BBC Oct. 12 that condoms do not prevent HIV transmission.
The president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, told BBC1's Panorama program that all condoms contain tiny holes that HIV can pass through.
'The AIDS virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon,' Lopez said. 'The spermatozoon can easily pass through the net that is formed by the condom. ... These margins of uncertainty should represent an obligation on the part of the health ministries and all these campaigns to act in the same way as they do with regard to cigarettes, which they state to be a danger.'
The World Health Organization and AIDS educators said the Vatican is confused. 'These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million,' WHO said.
Condoms can break or slip off, the organization said, but they do not contain small holes that HIV can slip through.
The Catholic Church teaches that it is a deadly sin to engage in any sexual act that cannot lead to pregnancy, such as oral sex, masturbation, gay sex, and sex with condoms.
SWEDISH GAY PARENTS LEGALIZED
Swedish gay couples are being recognized as the parents of their children following a recent change in the law.
A lesbian couple in Umeå are now the legal parents of a girl who was born to one of the women, and two men in Stockholm are now the legal parents of a girl they previously adopted in the U.S.