Condom Failure Stressed by Panel : U.S. Study Urges Avoiding Common Homosexual Practice

In more emphatic language than federal health officials previously have used, a U.S. Public Health Service task force Friday issued a new warning about the risk of condom failure.

The task force warned that the risk in anal intercourse is so high that the practice should be avoided.

And it cautioned that--even with a condom--any type of intercourse with a person known to be infected with the AIDS virus is so dangerous to an uninfected partner that anyone in such a situation should “consider alternative methods of expressing physical intimacy.”

Panel Convened by Koop

The panel, which included representatives of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, was convened last December by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to review the latest condom research data. Koop could not be reached for comment.

The statement was released after publication by the magazine Consumer Reports of a new condom survey that ranked condoms by brand and model in terms of effectiveness in laboratory tests. The magazine, published by Consumers Union, ran the new study as the cover article of its March issue.

The new federal condom policy statement reaffirmed observations by Koop and other health officials that latex rubber condoms “are highly effective barriers against the passage of the AIDS virus and other sexually transmitted diseases.”

But the statement emphasized that the latex products “are not foolproof.” The warning, the task force noted, is especially applicable to persons who use condoms improperly or fail to use them from start to finish of a sex act.

The statement avoided any reference to condoms made from lamb membranes, whose ability to prevent passage of the AIDS virus is in dispute.

A task force member who asked not to be identified noted that Consumers Union and preliminary findings of an earlier UCLA condom study both reported variations in effectiveness among specific condom brands. But the task force member said that the panel decided against issuing a statement on differing effectiveness rates and any need to shop for condoms carefully among brands that have been highly rated in laboratory studies.

“You really can’t extrapolate from a small sample (such as those used in laboratory studies so far) to an entire product line,” the federal official said. “Sometimes, a (given condom) will score toward the low end on one test and, on someone else’s test, at the high end.”

The statement released Friday did not break completely new ground in its warnings on the inherent high risk of anal sex. Koop had warned against anal intercourse as early as October, 1987.

But Friday’s statement described the futility of relying on condoms for protection in anal sex in starker language than federal officials have used previously.

The practice, which is common among gay men, has been repeatedly identified as one of the two highest risk behaviors for AIDS transmission. The other is intravenous drug use.

High Inherent Risks

And the conclusion about unacceptably high inherent risks in any sexual relationship with a person known to be infected with the AIDS virus was also more emphatic than previous comments by Koop.

“This recent review by the Public Health Service confirms the fact that condom use can dramatically lower the risk of transmission of the AIDS virus,” the statement concluded. “However, the effectiveness of condoms in preventing transmission depends on the way they are used. This makes it crucial that those who use condoms to reduce their risk of acquiring the AIDS virus do so correctly.”