Reformer of the Month

We never hear about the courageous reformers in Massachusetts who stand against the entrenched establishment and demand change. That’s because the establishment media do not want us to know about them. Whereas, our difficulty at Massachusetts News is the multitude of people from whom to pick. We could write a book.

Diggs’ primary focus is getting the truth out about the so-called “safe sex” methods and the failure of condoms in stopping the spread of STDs.

Telling Kids the Truth About Promiscuity

By Susan Hikel-Greenleaf
September 2001

John R. Diggs, M.D. had treated so many people in his private practice for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that he decided to do something about it in his “spare time.”

A board-certified internist for over fifteen years, Diggs is a tireless spokesman for “Abstinence Till Marriage.” According to him, “The Center for Disease Control reports there are 65,000,000 people in the country with a transmittable sexual disease, but that wouldn’t be the case if people had sex only within marriage.”

He travels the country revealing to children the truth about the disease epidemic. He says, “Kids are being told, ‘Abstinence is best. But if you can’t be abstinent, use condoms,’ as if it were physically impossible to refrain from sex. It’s a false assumption that people can’t control their sexual activities. What most young people want is true intimacy. And that intimacy is when you’re open enough to be truly known. You can’t do that with twenty-five people.”

Diggs’ primary focus is getting the truth out about the so-called “safe sex” methods and the failure of condoms in stopping the spread of STDs.

“I share with people the truth about the STD rate and the comparison between HIV and Human Papilloma Virus (HPV),” said Diggs. “HIV affects 40,000 and gets a lot of attention (and untold funding) and HPV affects five million and gets almost no attention. It causes genital warts in only two percent of the people that have HPV and the other 98% don’t know they have it.” It’s not easy to test for HPV and there’s no cure for it. It causes cervical cancer in women and penile cancer in men.

“They keep talking about protected intercourse but there is no such thing. You can put on six condoms and you’ll still get HPV!”

Condoms Are Risky

Early last year, the National Institutes of Health published a report titled, “Scientific Evidence on Condom Effectiveness for STD Prevention.” Studies of over 100 investigators found condoms were ineffective for six out of eight diseases and only 85 percent effective for HIV. These facts were held back by the Department of Health and Human Services until July 2001 and were finally released only because Diggs was part of a group of doctors that filed for the Freedom of Information Act. “We’re talking about a fatal disease here. If you told me that condoms reduced gonorrhea by 85 percent, I’d say fine. Even with these failures you can at least treat them. But with HIV... we can’t do anything for those folks, they’ve got a death sentence hanging over their heads!”

When the report was finally released, Diggs says the Center for Disease Control tried to minimize the facts and say it wasn’t a big deal. “It’s a tremendously big deal! It’s almost like the old Soviet style press. There’s only one message coming from one direction. It’s so powerful that when the public hears a different message, they assume it’s not true; because if it were true, everybody else would be saying it too.”

Recently Diggs challenged the report released by the U.S. Surgeon General called, “A Call to Action” which fully endorses the dual message: “If you can’t abstain, use condoms and pills.” Diggs feels Dr. David Satcher missed a valuable opportunity to reinforce the facts now known about the deficiencies of condom protection against the incurable STDs such as HIV, herpes and HPV. He believes there will be a serious health crisis in the future if the Surgeon General does not put an emphasis on the importance of primary protection as the only effective method of prevention. It is vitally important to look to the scientific support for abstinence.

“There are dozens of studies in the areas of social science, psychology and medical science that clearly show that sex is best when it is within marriage,” he says.

Diggs has developed a whole line of brochures on various STDs. He speaks to doctors about the facts of condom effectiveness because most of them don’t understand and lack information. “When I give them information, they respond very positively,” he says.

Is it possible to convey to young people that it is better to abstain? Diggs believes so. He points to the successful, “True Love Waits” program, a product of a Southern Baptist coalition. “Literally, kids are turning to virginity by the thousands because of this program,” he says. “Five or six million youngsters have signed pledges to virginity. That’s a pretty sizable chunk of people exempting themselves from having sex. First of all, when people have sex, they’re having sex with other people. Second of all, this automatically alters sexual behavior and sets up a different norm.”

Family Travels With Him

The doctor speaks in high schools, colleges, and churches as far west as California. His supportive wife and three daughters, ages eight, five and two, often join him in his travels for speaking engagements. In a recent national conference on abstinence in Florida, Diggs dressed up in costume and his children helped him do a rendition of a top-40 rap song, changing the words to a song about abstinence, in front of hundreds of people. “Even the two-year-old got up on stage with me,” laughed Diggs.

Diggs believes, “The kids have a hint that the safe-sex message isn’t right. Even though they don’t have the data ‘per se,’ they see the fallout. When you talk to the kids, they know plenty of people that had children out of wedlock or they know people that have gotten divorced... and ultimately divorce comes back to sexual behavior.”

I tell the kids, he says, “There are certain habits that you form when you’re a youth and they’re hard to get rid of when you’re an adult. If you’re used to bonding with people through sex and then breaking up, that becomes your dating pattern. Or if you lived with people before marriage, that also sets up a pattern that you’re willing to repeat. There will always be times when things get rough in a marriage and it’s usually only for a season. But if you’re used to bailing out when things get rough, then it’s pretty likely it will happen again.”

Diggs can remember wanting to be a doctor when he was as young as four years old. “My father was a pharmacist and what initially intrigued me were the Latin words he taught me for medicine. I also wanted to take care of the starving children in Africa...I always liked kids, but I didn’t like to see sick kids,” Diggs concluded.

Dr. John Diggs can be reached at info@abstinence.net for speaking engagements.