Dear Editor,

In my opinion, it is very important that parents talk to their children about the dangers of using condoms, contraceptives and abortion methods as the morning-after pill or RU-486.

Today, young people are constantly besieged by the media and schools. They tell them that using condoms will prevent unwanted pregnancies, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Likewise, they are besieged by television programmes where it is normal to see infidelity, pornography, explicit sex, and all those degrading programmes of junk TV.

Health campaigns based on condom distribution to prevent AIDS led into this deception. These conceal information and do not contribute towards prevention, but a greater spread of risky behaviours, since they imply that health authorities are giving their approval to the behaviours and lifestyles that are responsible for the epidemic.

It has long been known that the condom has a relative effectiveness as a contraceptive. Statistics show that this prophylactic fails in 15 per cent of cases as a contraceptive, and therefore we can not believe that the AIDS virus, that is 450 times smaller than sperm, can be always stopped by the latex barrier as if by magic.

Uganda is the only African country where this problem has decreased because the system of abstinence and faithfulness to one partner was adopted. When sexual promiscuity decreased, the HIV infection rate dropped from a peak of 15 per cent in the early 90s to approximately 4 per cent in 2003.

Would it cost so much to educate young people in this regard?

In this very sensitive matter the numbers prove it.

Isabel Costa

Huesca, Spain