The Mary Magdalene Project

Can we help female commercial sex workers to find simple, safe, cheap and readily available ways of protecting themselves against HIV infection?

Their profession makes them particularly susceptible to infection. It is often impossible for them to insist that their male customers use condoms, and some men make the situation worse by bribing them to have unprotected sex.

Many female commercial sex workers in developing countries are living in extreme poverty. Sex may be the only thing they have to sell. And yet they are in the front line of our fight to contain the global spread of HIV infection. How can we help them?

Recent research has indicated two exciting possibilities:

Intra-vaginal lime or lemon juice has been used by European women for centuries as a very effective contraceptive. Doctors in Jos, Nigeria have recently made a major breakthrough. They have discovered that over 80% of female commercial sex workers in that city are routinely using intravaginal douches of lime or lemon juice immediately before or after intercourse in
the belief that this is protecting them from pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases in general. They do not know their HIV status.

The co-authors of the Jos Lemon/ Lime Juice study who'd be the beneficaries of the Mary Magdalene Project appeal funds are, from left to right, D.Viola Onwuliri, Professor Atien Sagay and Godwin Imade.

We urgently need to discover whether citrus juice is protecting these women from HIV infection, or whether it is harmful. They provide us with an amazing opportunity, since there can be no ethical objection to studying existing citrus juice users. The study could begin immediately if funding
became available.

Funding opportunities for work on commercial sex workers recently received a major setback. The Washington Post of March 6th reported that the Bush administration had announced a new policy that requiring all U.S. HIV/AIDS groups seeking federal funding for work overseas to make a written pledge to oppose commercial sex work, or risk losing funding. The Editorial rightly
criticizes the Bush administration for allowing its AIDS efforts to be governed by utopian delusions, and concludes by saying "it would be nice if the prostitutes the world over could be helped toward a different way of life. But the world's oldest profession is not going to disappear and
millions of lives depend on getting AIDS prevention services to its practitioners". Amen to that.

Courageously, the government of Brazil immediately put its money where its mouth is and refused $40 million of US funding to fight AIDS, saying that Bush's ideological conditions were too severe. Bravo Brazil!

In the light of all these developments, we have decided to launch a Mary Magdalene Project, initially to fund the two HIV prevention trials among the female commercial sex workers of Jos, Nigeria, as outlined above.

The project is named after Mary Magdalene who was thought to have been a prostitute and subsequently became one of Christ's disciples.Her Saint's Day is observed on July 22nd; she has colleges named after her in both Cambridge and Oxford.

The Mary Magdalene Project was launched at the Annual Conference of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in Wellington, New Zealand on Tuesday May 10, 2005, by Melbourne's Professor Roger Short in delivering the Priscilla Kincaid-Smith Oration.

He said: " It is exciting to think that female commercial sex workers could lead the way in developing new ways of protecting women all over the world from HIV infection. They need our support."

Contributions to the Mary Magdalene Project may be sent to:-

The Australian AIDS Fund Incorporated,
PO Box 1347, Frankston,Victoria, 3199,
AUSTRALIA.

* (Cheques to be made payable to The Australian AIDS Fund Incorporated)

Progress will be reported regularly on this website.