Wow, this is pretty impressive.  Let’s read some stunning examples of misleading statistics.

To begin with, the pope is certainly right about at least one thing: Condoms have been disappointingly ineffective in the fight against AIDS in Africa. In Cameroon, for example, the country the pope was flying to when he made his notorious remark, condom sales more than doubled from 6 million in 1992 to 15 million in 2001. Meanwhile, HIV prevalence tripled from three per cent to nine per cent. Botswana, one of the best-governed countries in Africa, was quick to jump on the condom bandwagon in the early 1990s. Its reward: about a quarter of its adults are infected with HIV.

It’s hard to even know where to begin here.  Condom sales in Cameroon more than doubled to 15 million in 2001 and the infection rate is increasing: the country had 16 million people in 2003, meaning that people were using about 1.88 condoms per year (two people use one at once, technically).  Botswana, a country of just under two million in 2003, bought about three million condoms in 2001.  That’s about 3 condoms per year¹.  I don’t know, maybe they sell reusable ones.  Maybe I’m just a huge slut and my idea of how often people have sex is hyperinflated.  Maybe priests are more in touch.  But clearly, condoms are a failure, and we should stop promoting their use.

Well, I wound up showing these numbers are stupid and misleading even before getting to the fact that they’re bad statistics, but they are: does promoting condom use cause an increase in infection rates, or does an increase in infection rates cause promotion of condom use?  Gee, that’s a hard one.

But wait, there’s more!  And “better”!

A shift in sexual norms? Partner-reduction? Hmmm, isn’t that what Pope Benedict is promoting? With, by the way, much enthusiastic support from African women who find the notion of faithful husbands rather endearing. And with some success. Uganda, for example, which has long emphasized abstinence and fidelity over condoms, has seen its HIV prevalence rate drop from more than 15 per cent to less than six per cent in 10 years. And campaigns to discourage multiple partnerships have also had encouraging results in Kenya and Swaziland, with corresponding drops in HIV rates.

Wow!

First of all, a “prevalence” rate is the percentage of infected adults.  Having the prevalence rate drop from 15% to 6% over a decade doesn’t mean you’ve stopped the spread of AIDS, it means one of two things:

1. 9% of your population has keeled over dead.
2. Your uninfected population has more than doubled.

I don’t know about you, but I’m leaning towards number two.

Also, over the period in question, Uganda heavily promoted the use of condoms.  And to boot, since they jumped on the abstinence-based bandwagon, the infection rate has risen again.

So seriously, for Chist’s sake (literally), learn some statistics.  Or, you know, go on deliberately misleading the general public at the expense of millions of Africans.

1) For amusement’s sake, looking for the numbers in Botswana brought up this article, which calls 3 condoms per couple-year “condom-flooded.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 9:19 am and is filed under Geekery, Politics, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.