The Condom Industry

The history of condoms goes back four centuries to when physicians first fashioned condoms out of sheep-gut (Approval, 1992). While animal skin condoms are still commercially available today, their use has largely been displaced by products made of latex (Condoms, 1990, p. 18). Originally, the condom was designed for birth control (Willis, 1990, p. 32). More recently, however, the medical device is being used to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STD) (p. 32). Of course, the only sure ways to avoid these diseases are either to not have sex at all or to limit sex to one uninfected partner who is also monogamous (Baulieu et al., 1993, p. 101). Short of this though, condoms--while not 100% effective--may reduce the risk of STDs if properly used (Willis, 1990, p. 32). This fact, coupled with the fear of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and recent "safe sex" campaigns, has resulted in an almost doubling of worldwide condom sales since 1985 (Barriers, 1991).

In his 1986 report on AIDS, the U.S. Surgeon General advised persons whose sex partners may have been exposed to the AIDS virus to always use a condom during sexual intercourse (Moran et al., 1990, p. 607). The extensive public health campaign that followed this report promoted condom use by persons who have sex outside of mutually monogamous relationships (Moran et al., 1990, P. 607). The response to this AIDS education was a rapid rise in condom sales. Between 1986 and 1988, U.S. s

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s that they are less effective at preventing STDs (Scherer, 1989). When observed under a scanning electron microscope, the membranes of skin condoms reveal crisscrossed layers of fibers (Can You Rely, 1989, p. 137). Although that latticework endows the skin condom with extraordinary strength, it also allows for pores (Can You Rely, 1989, P. 137). These pores, which can be up to 1.5 microns wide, are smaller than sperm cells, but larger than both the AIDS and the hepatitis-B viruses (Can You Rely, 1989, p. 137). Typically, the pores don't tunnel all the way through a skin condom's wall; instead, they usually occur in individual layers of the skin's multi-layered membrane (p. 137). Thus, some experts have maintained that skin condoms do offer protection against STDS; that to get to the outside, a virus would have to perform the unlikely feat of zigzagging through the fibrous structure (Can You Rely, 1989, p. 137). Regardless though, laboratory evidence for the skin condom's protective capacity against STDs is mixed (Can You Rely, 1989, p. 137). One way to increase the effectiveness of all condoms is to employ a spermicide (Rietmeiier, 1988, p. 1851). Nonoxynol-9, the active ingredient in most over-the-counter spermicides, ki

Category: Medical - T