The gay (ill) health “experts” love to undermine the effectiveness of condoms in HIV prevention. It’s part of their product replacement strategy and bareback agenda to get more gay men taking PrEP as the preferred HIV prevention method.
Their aim is to instil fear, anxiety and doubt that condoms will not be enough to stop you being infected with HIV. But do their simple percentages hold up as true representation of the effectiveness of the humble condom compared to other so called “strategies”?
Undetectable=Untransmittable is 100% effective?
You will hear the gay ill health repeaters state time and time again “If a HIV positive person has an undetectable viral load HIV is untransmittable”. The word YOU need to take from this is “if” and its a big “if”.
It’s not about “trusting the science”. Would you “trust the person”? Would you trust a HIV+ gay man who claims to be undetectable and wants condomless sex? Do you trust them 100% that that is a true statement? “If” that gay man was “undetectable” at his last blood test, is he still or has his status changed? It is simply a snapshot in time. Would you put your trust in a politically correct billboard which only tells you a half truth, is misleading, and go bareback?
PrEP is 99% effective?
Stats for PrEP effectiveness are all over the place. 80%, 92% 99%. So which is true? No one really knows. These stats are based on calculations of the number of people infected with HIV whilst on PrEP (7 worldwide) or in trials according to adherence, which again is difficult to quantify.
What we all want to know as gay men is: if a HIV positive gay men with a high viral load shoots his load inside us will PrEP protect us? The answer to that one is no one has the percentage chance because it’s not a “real life” scenario. So the 99% effectiveness is meaningless. Lets face it, HIV is an ever mutating virus. PrEP may “work” now but outbreaks of the virus will occur in the future with PrEP resistant strains.
“Consistent” condom use is 63-92% effective?
This is the stat the gay ill health experts love to pounce on and quote. Yet in their ads and leaflets of the 80s and 90s they told the gay community not to discriminate against HIV+ gay men and to have sex with them We were assured that condoms would protect us.
Why say that then if the risk was actually so high? Did they put HIV negative gay men at risk for politically correct reasons?
In fact, if you look at the CDC website, the stats are fully explained and the headline 63-92% effectiveness of condoms doesn’t hold up. The gay ill health experts are lying about condoms NOW because they want to promote PrEP and bareback sex.
There are 2 key word “consistent” and “optimal”.
Consistent condom use in studies includes “user error” where the man does not put the condom on properly, therefore it slips off etc and “condom failure” where the condom breaks, splits etc. These are rare.
Optimal condom use means consistent and correct condom use each and every time. That statistic is 99.9% effective and will remain so if HIV mutates and becomes resistant to the drug combination in PrEP.
Also of note is that “self reporting” of condom use could be over reported ie. the gay man reported using a condom when in fact they didn’t. Due to the bareback stigma. Yes, gay men do lie!
In these condom studies it is assumed that the partner is HIV+ and has a high viral load. Therefore it is not a fair comparison to PrEP studies where trial participants would be having unprotected sex with other gay men with differing statuses. The 99% effectiveness of PrEP is meaningless in that context. You are comparing apples and oranges.
The PrEP v Condom always states PrEP is 99% effective when taken as directed, with a daily pill. However it doesn’t include “user error” whilst the stats the gay ill health experts quote for condom effectiveness do include “user error”.
These gay ill health unprofessionals are deliberately misleading the gay community, playing down the effectiveness of condoms and playing up the effectiveness of PrEP with unfair comparisons. Their manipulative and devious bareback agenda is revealed.