"Religion is bunk"

Religious right political hacks like columnist Cal Thomas try to portray use of condoms and safer sex as a liberal-left political plot.

Yet Surgeon General Antonia C. Novello, appointed by Republican President George Bush, issued a statement published in the June 9, 1993 issue of the Journal of American Medical Association strongly supporting condom use for prevention of HIV transmission. Similar statements were issued by her predecessor, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who was appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan.

Novello claims that 20 percent, 40 percent, or 80 percent of all new HIV seroconversions in the United States will be avoided if 25 percent, 50 percent, or 100 percent, respectively, of persons use condoms consistently and correctly.

As to the question of pores in condoms, which has replaced the medieval question about how many angels can stand on the head of a pin in the minds of modern day religious zealots, she cites a National Institutes of Health study which found no holes even at 2000 times magnification.

Acknowledging that holes can occur, she refers to quality control testing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration which has found an average condom waterleak rate of .3 percent. If the failure rate of a batch of condoms exceeds four per 1,000, the condoms are recalled and barred from sale. This is a far cry from the 33% failure rate hysteria mongers like Thomas proclaim.

She says that there are further obstacles to passage of HIV even through a microscopic hole. A free virus, which is nonmotile, would pass through a hole only if it were associated with a cell that moves or if it were moved by hydrostatic pressure through a hole.

However, monocytes and lymphocytes that may carry HIV are too large to pass through microscopic holes detected by routine testing. In addition, a FDA study simulating free HIV in fluid under pressure found that most condoms leaked no fluid at all and that even the worst-performing condom reduced estimated viral exposure 10,000 fold.

The statement cites condom effectiveness during actual use evidenced by contraceptive failure rates ranging from less than one per 100 to 16 per 100 users per year. She illustrates the importance of proper condom use by results from a British study of married, more experienced users with condom-user failure rates for pregnancy as low as six per 1,000 users per year.

The Center for Disease Controls August 6, 1993 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report estimates that the HIV transmission rate for consistent condom users is 1.1 per 100 person years of observation, compared with 9.7 for inconsistent users.

C.M. Rolands concerns about the barrier performance of latex rubber featured in the June 1993 issue of Rubber World were rebutted by an article by M.D. Morris and T.D. Pendle in the very same issue.

Morris and Pendle attribute condom failures mainly to misuse rather than any inherent defect in the product. They claim that leaching in water, which is part of the normal condom production process, effectively makes the porous structure in the latex disappear. They also refer to the two rubber layers of a condom saying that, the possibility of a hole being made through both layers, or of a hole in each layer being perfectly aligned seems extremely remote.

Their contention is further borne out by the tensile strength of condoms under high elongation and direct experimentation with the HIV virus.

A March 1989 Consumer Reports article "Can You Rely on Condoms?" also reports that examination of stretched latex condoms by an electron microscope showed no pores and an effective intact barrier which wont even let water---one of the tiniest of molecules---filter through. It also describes various laboratory experiments showing that various sexually transmitted germs cannot pass through latex condoms.

The leaky boat rumors about condoms spread by religious right do not hold water. But, condoms do hold water and hold back the HIV virus too.