You use it --

Scientists are heralding a "breakthrough in the long quest for a tool to help women whose partners won't use condoms." It's a gel that they're practically calling a miracle. It cuts in half a woman's chances of getting HIV from an infected partner. In the first place, what idiot woman would knowingly sleep with a man who has HIV? In the second place, what idiot woman would sleep with a man who didn't care whether or not he infected her? In the third place -- well, gosh, if you only have a 50% chance of contracting HIV, I bet all those scientists are racing to try this "miracle" gel.

Anyway, I think 50% is a bit of a stretch. There were two groups of 445 women. They don't even know how many of their partners had HIV -- it's quite possible a large proportion of the women didn't have sex with an HIV positive partner. Anyway, out of the two groups, the one that had the placebo had 60 women who contracted the disease. That's about 13.5%. The group using the "miracle gel" had 38 women contract the disease. That's about 8.5%. For these mathematically challenged scientists, that's about a 37% reduction -- not 50%.

The bottom line is, they're trying to find some way to tell people it's OK to be promiscuous. So if the numbers don't add up, they'll just blatantly lie about them.

"Gel for women shows promise in blocking HIV." The Dallas Morning News; July 20, 2010; p. 9A.