Cameroon: Isn’t It Time To Stop The Use Of Condom?

By Christopher Ambe shu

If there are people who doubt how precious or priceless life is, let them read the Bible to clear such doubt. For example, the Bible in Psalms 127:3 says,” Children are a blessing and a gift from the Lord”.

 Of course if we are men and women today, it is because we were children yesterday

All human beings are children of God. Because God, our Creator, values human life so much, He instructs: “You must not murder” (Deuteronomy 5:17).And there are many ways to kill someone. One could Kill directly or indirectly. God wants us to value not only our own lives but also others’ lives.

 Promoting the use of condom is not only morally wrong but also an example of indirect killing; for, the use of condom promotes the spread of HIV/Aids, which has no cure!

“I would say that this problem of AIDS cannot be overcome with advertising slogans. If the soul is lacking, if Africans do not help one another, the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem," said Pope Benedict XVI on his visit to Cameroon.

 But the rate at which condoms are being advertised on TV, on Radio and other media targeting especially the youth and school children is a serious cause for concern. Although condom manufacturers in the West claim that condoms have an 85 to 90% guarantee to protect one against the HIV virus if properly used, the assertion is still debatable.

 If the Pope’s critics think that he is not scientifically fit to doubt the effectiveness of condom as a supposed weapon against the HIV/AIDS, what would they say when renowned medical scientists agree with the Pope’s assertion? In an article in Korea Times, Clemente Ferrer , president of the European Institute of Marketing, Communications and Publicity, cited Dr. Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at Harvard University, who had told the Catholic News Agency that condoms are actually “exacerbating the problem" in Africa.

“The Harvard scientist”, Ferrer added, “noted that when the AIDS epidemic hit the African continent, the condom ``industry" began to use the spread of the disease to unfurl its marketing strategy while seeking subsidies for the production and delivery of condoms. Business had come for the death of potential human beings”.

Another scientist who reportedly defended the pope’s assertion about condom is Dr. Norman Hearst, an epidemiologist at the University of California at San Francisco, who was chosen by the U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS to undertake a scientific review to confirm if condoms had stemmed the advance of the virus. Dr.Hearst is reportedly to have found, to the contrary, that it was those regions with the greatest number of condoms per person which have the greatest number of cases of this cruel scourge.

Chief Albert Samba Ngwana is one of many Cameroonians who are worried about the advertising and use of condom. Chief Ngwana, who himself is an author and researcher, has recently organized public lectures in Douala, Buea and Limbe on “The Evils of Condoms and Abortion”, during which exposed the “hidden truth” about condom.

Hear him: “The latex rubber condom was first manufactured about 170 years ago.

The latex condom was manufactured as a contraceptive for the prevention of pregnancy, by preventing the human sperm passing through to fertilize the egg.

The condom was not manufactured against the HIV/AIDS virus which only appeared in 1981.

Electron micrographs reveal voids (holes) in latex condoms 5 microns in size, (50 times the size of the HIV/AIDS virus)

 “The AIDS virus is 50 times smaller than these tiny holes which make it easy for virus to pass through them, about as easy as a dime through a basket ball loop.

Condoms create a false sense of security (they are not foolproof and have shown a failure rate of 10 to 20%) And, may cause an increase in sexual activity or less careful choice of partners.”

Chief Ngwana argues that condoms promote the spread of AIDS for the following reasons:

Condoms promote promiscuity, which by its very nature promotes the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and infections: once a sexually transmitted pathogen enters a promiscuous population, infection spreads like wildfire because the saying goes thus: if you sleep with someone who slept with someone who has slept with someone, you have slept with all.

With the above facts about condom, isn’t it time the Cameroon Government stopped the importation, advertising, distribution and use of condoms?

  (NB:Article First Published as editorial in The RECORDER newspaper,Cameroon ,of January 6 ,2010)