BY KEITH JACKSON

SELF-PROCLAIMED HIV/AIDS and sexuality campaigner, Bruce Copeland, may have gone too far this time.

He has proffered advice, labelled by medical experts as “dangerous”, that women who are raped should “remove semen/viral particles [using water] under pressure.

“This may be achieved,” he proclaimed to his email network yesterday, “by speedy insertion of a hose in the vagina with a blast of water to remove all floating semen.”

This reckless communication was quickly addressed by Wendy Holmes, Principal Technical Advisor at the Centre for International Health at the Burney Institute in Melbourne.

“I have to reply, because it is not just that your [Copeland’s] advice for women who have been raped will not work, but that it may cause serious harm,” Ms Holmes said.

“We must be careful not to promote harmful practices…..

“We already know that practices such as hosing and freezing are harmful, so it would not be ethical to conduct a trial…..

“It is very important not to promote the idea that it is safe to insert a hose and blast water into the vagina,” she said

Copeland also proposed that lemon juice may do the trick, suggesting that the reason it is not available commercially is that “it may be that drug companies squashed the report to ensure maximum drug sales.

“A pressure pack container of lemon may be just what is needed,” Copeland said.

Wendy Holmes responds to this claim saying: “As you know, lemon juice was promoted as a natural microbicide.

“A few years ago I wrote a paper outlining the strategy that would need to be followed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of lemon juice as a microbicide to protect against HIV.

"Since then initial safety studies have been conducted which indicated that larger scale safety and efficacy studies should not be conducted.”

Copeland’s response? “Dr Wendy Holmes …. she has a track record of advice that seems not professional….”

How much longer will the PNG government tolerate this man offering spurious, ill informed and potentially dangerous advice to Papua New Guineans?