Roland said that what I am about to relate is "common knowledge among good scientists who have no political agenda."
Electron microscopy reveals the HIV virus to be about O.1 microns in size (a micron is a millionth of a metre). It is 60 times smaller than a syphilis bacterium, and 450 times smaller than a single human sperm.
The standard U.S. government leakage test (ASTM) will detect water leakage through holes only as small as 10 to 12 microns (most condoms sold in Canada are made in the U.S.A., but I'll mention the Canadian test below).
Roland says in good tests based on these standards, 33% of all condoms tested allowed HIV-sized particles through, and that "spermicidal agents such as nonoxonol-9 may actually ease the passage."
Roland's paper shows electron microscopy photos of natural latex. You can see the natural holes, or intrinsic flaws. The "inherent defects in natural rubber range between 5 and 70 microns."
And it's not as if governments don't know. A study by Dr. R.F. Carey of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that "leakage of HIV-sized particles through latex condoms was detectable for as many as 29 of 89 condoms tested." These were brand new, pre-approved condoms. But Roland says a closer reading of Carey's data actually yields a 78% HIV-leakage rate, and concludes: "That the CDC would promote condoms based on [this] study...suggests its agenda is concerned with something other than public health and welfare." The federal government's standard tests, he adds, "cannot detect flaws even 70 times larger than the AIDS virus."
Such tests are "blind to leakage volumes less tha one microliter - yet this quantity of fluid from an AIDS-infected individual has been found to contain as many as 100,000 HIV particles."
As one U.S. surgeon memorably put it, "The HIV virus can go through a condom like a bullet through a tennis net."
It's the same story with latex gloves. Gloves from four different manufacturers revealed "pits as large as 15 microns wide and 30 microns deep." More relevant to HIV transmission, "5 micron-wide channels, penetrating the entire thickness were found in all the gloves." He said the presence of such defects in latex "is well established."
For Canada, the story is the same. A standard Health and Welfare Canada test of condoms manufactured between 1987 and 1990, based on stringent tests of pressure, leakage, and volume (as in the U.S., there is no effort to examine micron-level leakage), reported that an astonishing 40% of the condoms tested failed at least one of the tests. Tests in 1991 showed an "improved" 28% rate.
Are there any products – natural or man made – that are “perfectly safe”? Everything I use in my daily life has an element of risk, however slight. I am drinking my morning coffee after a breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast. I am consuming caffeine with my coffee. I consumed Nitrites and nitrates with the bacon. Evil eggs contain cholesterol. The bread I toasted was store bought, not home made – so it contained preservatives. I even put butter on the Toast. Guess I just like to live dangerously.
Everything we use is a tradeoff between the benefits and hazards. Nothing I can think of is “perfectly safe”.
I guess since I wear latex gloves every day all day means I should have dropped dead by now. Plus there's the fact that I handle neurotoxins and mutagens every day. . . I don't really consider the use of latex in condoms a health risk.
During Operation Desert Shield, every British soldier there got quite a few condoms allocated to him each month. American soldiers couldn't really figure out what the condoms were for: it was pretty much all guys in the middle of the desert, and there wasn't much to do all day except clean your rifle from all the sand and dust that had blown into the barrel. Then the Americans saw that the British soldiers would put a condom over the end of the barrel and secure it with a rubberband. This prevented sand from getting into the barrel...
btt
David,
How many threads have you started about condoms and birth control?
Do you get tired of it?
We do.
Nutcase anti-condom dude... as discussed....