Pat Robertson Says Kenyan Towels Can Give You AIDS

Can you get AIDS from a towel? According to Pat Robertson you can.

On Thursday's broadcast of the "700 Club," televangelist Pat Robertson offered some surprisingly rational advice to a viewer concerned about Ebola, along with his patented brand of idiotic claims about AIDS transmission, Right Wing Watch reports.

An anonymous viewer wrote to Robertson, asking the octogenarian minister to allay their concerns about accepting mission work in Kenya, in light of the Ebola outbreak on the other side of the African continent in Liberia.

"I am planning on going to a mission trip to Kenya in December. I believe that God heals today and am not consumed about the chance of contracting Ebola. [..] Do you think there are undo risks that we do not know about and the dangers are higher than perceived here in America?"

"Not in Kenya. You might get AIDS in Kenya," Robertson said. "The people have AIDS. You gotta be careful, I mean the towels could have AIDS."

Prior to his warning about using the supposed "AIDS-ridden" towels in Kenya, Robertson offered some surprisingly rational and almost cavalier advice to the viewer about the media-hyped ebola outbreak.

"I was in Zaire during the great Ebola outbreak and we were helping people with Ebola and there wasn't all this panic," he said. "It's one of those things. It's a horrible disease, but it can be contained and it can be dealt with. A few hundred miles away from an Ebola outbreak means your totally safe."

Thursday's assertion by Robertson isn't the first time the anti-gay televangelist has made outrageous claims about HIV transmission. In August of 2013, ' target='_blank'>it was reported Robertson told a viewer, who was concerned about driving an elderly member of her congregation to church on Sundays, that AIDS was purposefully transmitted by gay men and jewelry.

"You know what they do in San Francisco, some in the gay community there they want to get people so if they got the stuff they'll have a ring, you shake hands, and the ring's got a little thing where you cut your finger [...] Really. It's that kind of vicious stuff, which would be the equivalent of murder," he said.