Adviser: Adulterers are criminals

By JULIA DAIA BORE
ANYONE who commits adultery should be treated as a criminal and the Adultery Act should be amended accordingly, a specialist in lifestyle diseases said.
Dr Thomas Vinit, a Health Department adviser, said people having sexual relations with multiple partners were contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country.
“Adultery should no longer be considered a civil matter but be made a criminal act,” he told the Constitutional and Law Review Commission conference on underlying law in Alotau, Milne Bay, last week.
Vinit also said the government’s promotion of condom use was intended towards the alleged reduction or containment in the spread of HIV/AIDS did not achieve that “prevention” purpose.
And that the people of PNG were ill-informed that the use of condom was a “safe”.
He said results of studies done recently (2006) in the United States showed the use of condoms was not safe at all in stopping the HIV/AIDS being spread.
The government’s promotion of condom was only promoting the spread of the virus, as condom was not 100% safe.
“The HIV virus, through cryo-electron microscophy tomography, reveals that HIV virus measures a few nanometer in size.”
He added that with this scientific and medical revelations, he, as an adviser to the government, had brought this relevant information to the relevant authorities, but it had fallen on deaf ears.
“As the technical adviser on lifestyle diseases, it is my responsibility to advise the government and responsible organisations on the latest technical information so we can change the policies.”
Vinit said: “PNG has embarked on the World Health Organisation’s ABC strategies in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
“The Health Department and National AIDS Council (NAC) have given too much emphasis on condoms and have ignored abstinence and being faithful strategies that can be approaches from churches moral teaching on sex and marriage.
“They also fail to listen to advice from local and international specialists to embark on the multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary public health approaches as per my Submissions to responsible persons and organisations since 2001.”
He said it was highly necessary that the country’s Adultery Act must be reviewed and enacted as a criminal offence.
“The controversy surrounding the promotion of condom amounts to what I call a medical scandal because we have been using the efficacy of condom to stop the sperm to prevent pregnancy or the prevention of HIV transmission.”