This study undertaken by Mexico Government Investigator Felipe Uribe MSc beginning
the very final years of the 20th century is a very important study. The study was undertaken in the southern
part of the south Mexico state of Chiapas in the Soconusco region. The sample size of these young women prostitutes (an
honerable profession in Mexico) studied was very adequate with the average age 26. Many were rural young women who had
moved from Central American nations to make better money in prostitution in Mexico. There had been on line
a rather detailed presentation of the study with photographs of the medical staff who conducted the study shown together.
The Government of Mexico left this more detailed study on line one half decade before taking it off the internet.
In March 2003 30:3 the Journal of The American Sexually Transmitted Disease Association summarized this study
and the reader may gain this summary from them. Roughly one of every one hundred and fifty of these women were HIV
seroconverted (infected). As to the other common venereal diseases (common STDs not HIV) the study found the high rate to
be expected in prostitutes. But these women had a very low rate of HIV viral infection to seroconversion. The
Mexico investigative group concluded the results suggested the area they came from had not been exposed to much HIV which
accounted for the very low rate of HIV.
However a better possibility is that the pace of living is much easier going in the south of the state of Chiapas, Mexico
and these women had no great problems with tasks of living when they caught a common venereal disease and thus refrained from
sex untill the venereal disease lesions and tissue debilities were healed - prostitution to reiterate is an honerable profession
of women in Mexico. With exception of heterosexual anal intercourse where there is minimal natural body defense against
HIV the HIV virus is not transmitted heterosexually unless there is an infected sexually located lesion or tissue
debility (usually venereal - STD) which the the HIV virus must have as a route to invade the body. Except
for the anal route the human body is exceptionally well defended against HIV virus, a very weak virus but impossible so far
to get rid of once it takes hold. Thus the study suggests these prostitutes limited to vaginal and oral intercourse avoiding
anal intercourse, did not spread common venereal diseases once they caught them to the male population but refrained from
sex untill the venereal disease had been healed and thus it was impossible for HIV virus to invade their bodies
their bodies presenting no route for invasion. And economic pressures on this profession is much less than
in the large Mexican cities to engage in sexual intercourse when they have an unhealed common venereal disease with its
lesions and infected tissue debilities.
In the rural part of Chiapas, Mexico where this study was undertaken condoms are seldom used.
James Franklin Lawton
