If you go back to the actual study, within the first few lines, the study itself says, “whether hormonal contraception increases the risk of HIV acquisition remains a crucial unanswered question.”
But the NYT felt the need to say “OMG, you guys! Hormonal birth control means you’ll get HIV!”
Okay, not quite, but that is precisely how the super-conservatives are going to spin it. The comment section already has me gagging at the assumptions of people who didn’t read the entire article.
The study was entirely discordant couples (one HIV infected, one not infected), and there was little in the article regarding the usage of condoms, just that “The researchers recorded condom use, essentially excluding the possibility that increased infection occurred because couples using contraceptives were less likely to use condoms.” Without data from the study, I’m not even sure what this means, and I can’t pay the $30 to read it right now.
The transmission of STDs has a much lower rate when barrier methods are used, period. When a couple’s biggest concern is contraception, not preventing transmission of an STD, they are not going to use a condom if the woman is on hormonal birth control. It seems like simple logic to me.
Also, the WHO should introduce the female condom in their contraceptive packages. When the woman isn’t the one who gets to decide whether or not she is having sex, and whether or not there is a condom on the man, the power needs to get put into her hands.
But this is a subject that I could go on and on and on about. Seeing the title of the article made me do a double take, then reading the article made me angry at the editor who chose the title. It isn’t proven, and the article made it seem like it is.
