Sobering news for rubber contraceptive users.
 
A German scientific research institute has warned that most condoms on the market contain a cancer-causing chemical and has urged that their manufacture be subjected to stringent quality control.
 
The Chemical and Veterinary Investigation Institute in Stuttgart said on Friday it had found the carcinogen N-Nitrosamine in 29 of 32 types of condoms it tested in simulated conditions.
 
The condoms, which were kept in a solution with artificial sweat, exuded huge amounts of cancer-causing N-Nitrosamine from its rubber coating. Researchers measured amounts of N-Nitrosamine, that were way above the prescribed limits for other rubber products such as baby pacifiers.
 
"N-Nitrosamine is one of the most carcinogenic substances," the study's authors said. "There is a pressing need for manufacturers to tackle this problem."
 
The study said that the carcinogen is thought to be present in a substance used to improve condom elasticity. When the rubber material comes in contact with human bodily fluids, it can release traces of N-Nitrosamine.
 
No immediate health risk
 
But since there are no prescribed limits of N-Nitrosamine for condoms, the study hasn't caused panic among manufacturers or mass-recalling of the products from counters.
 
Local government officials said condom users should not stop using rubber contraceptives based on the results of the study because N-Nitrosamine does not present an immediate health risk.
 
The Baden-Würtemmberg Social Ministry said it didn't think "it posed a risk." Authorities are also withholding the name of the affected manufacturers for fear of litigation.
 
Manufacturers should use alternative substances
 
But Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment said that daily condom use exposed users to N-Nitrosamine levels up to three times higher than levels naturally present in food.
 
Werner Altkofer, head of the Stuttgart-based Chemical and Veterinary Investigation Institute said that though the production of rubber usually uses chemicals that can exude N-Nitrosamine, condom manufacturers could bypass it by using more expensive alternative substances available on the market that didn't form the carcinogen.
 
"We believe that it's up to the manufacturers to use other production processes so that no N-Nitrosamine is formed in condoms," Altkofer said.
 
He added that the latter was technically possible going by the fact that products of some manufacturers didn't show traces of the carcinogen during the testing.
 
Beate Uhse taking no chances
 
Germany's biggest erotica compnay Beate Uhse however, has decided to play it safe.
 
Shortly after the results of the study were introduced on Friday, the group banned chocolate-flavored condoms from its range. That was because the study had show that condoms laced with a chocolate flavoring had overwhelming high levels of N-Nitrosamine. 

Study Says Condoms Contain Cancer-Causing Substance
Reuters ^ | Fri May 28,12:09 PM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - Most condoms contain a cancer-causing chemical and their manufacture should be subject to greater quality control, a German scientific research institute said Friday.

The Chemical and Veterinary Investigation Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, said it found the carcinogen N-Nitrosamine present in 29 of 32 types of condoms it tested in simulated conditions.

"N-Nitrosamine is one of the most carcinogenic substances," the study's authors said. "There is a pressing need for manufacturers to tackle this problem."

The carcinogen is thought to be present in a substance used to improve condom elasticity. When the rubber material comes in contact with human bodily fluids, it can release traces of N-Nitrosamine, the study said.
Local government officials said condom users should not stop using rubber contraceptives based on results of the study because N-Nitrosamine does not present an immediate health danger.

But Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment said that daily condom use exposed users to N-Nitrosamine levels up to three times higher than levels naturally present in food.

One condom has 3x the daily level of exposure.

If you have sex every third day, then you will get 1x the exposure. (Double your normal exposure.)

If you have it once a week, that's less than a 50% over-exposure per week. If you're getting laid once a week, what's your real risk? Probably catching the flu or getting an STI.

N-nitrosamines are present in cured meats, like bacon and hot dogs. So one way to cut down on your levels is to stop eating hot dogs. (I believe it's a product of sodium nitrite used to cure the meat.)

http://www.jtbaker.com/techlib/documents/ff-009.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7228259&dopt=Abstract

It's also present in snuff tobacco:

http://carcin.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/8/3/465

If they find it in cigars, then we'll definitely notice a trend between phallic shapes and nitrosamines.

You forget one tiny little thing. Absorbtion from the moist internal surfaces and soft tissue of sexual organs is 100 times greater than other parts of the body.

You need to multiply your figures by 100 to get the correct result.

In addition the friction of sex greatly increases absorbtion. It is called 'rubbing it in'.


Anal sex in gay men has increased 20 times since the wide spread use of toxic condoms.

That 100x number sounds like bullshit to me.

Absorbtion through the intestinal linings is greater than through the mucus membranes. I can't say for sure about nitrosamines: they may get converted in the stomach. The intestines are adapted to absorb chemicals, more than the mucus membranes. The skin, however, is adapted to prevent absorbtion as much as possible.

(Also, the risk from nitrosamines is probably cumulative, so you can reduce the risk by ceasing a risky behavior that most people do more often than sex, like eating nitrite cured meat.)

Viral infection increases if you use the nonoxynol-9 spermicide because it causes breaks in the skin, so virus can get into the blood, but the proof is in the pudding (so to speak). Gay men's HIV infection has been reduced thanks to condom use.

Meanwhile, it's rising in other groups.

It looks like the cumulative risk of having risky sex with a condom is lower than without.

I'm not sure where you get that anal sex number from. I suspect that anal sex is just becoming more socially acceptable, with gays and straights. People are more likely to say they have it.

I found this on the web, from a source I generally trust.

Dear Cecil:

Get a load of this clip from the Washington Times. It says the latex used in condoms contains pores through which HIV, the AIDS virus, can readily pass--suggesting that "safe sex" using a condom may not be very safe. What gives? Answer quickly. Lives are in the balance! --M.L., Chicago

Cecil replies:

I'll say. Your clip is a 1992 letter to the editor from Mike Roland, editor of Rubber Chemistry and Technology, a publication of the American Chemical Society. Roland argued that "the rubber comprising latex condoms has intrinsic voids [pores] about 5 microns (0.00002 inches) in size. Since this is roughly 10 times smaller than sperm, the latter are effectively blocked.... Contrarily, the AIDS virus is only 0.1 micron (4 millionths of an inch) in size. Since this is a factor of 50 smaller than the voids inherent in rubber, the virus can readily pass through."

This sounds scary, but there are a couple problems with it. First, Roland bases his statement about a 5 micron latex pore size on a study of rubber gloves, not condoms. The U.S. Public Health Service says that condoms are manufactured to higher standards than gloves. Condoms are dipped in the latex twice, gloves only once. If just 4 out of 1,000 condoms fail the leak test, the whole batch is rejected; the standard for gloves is 40 out of 1,000. A study of latex condoms by the National Institutes of Health using an electron microscope found no holes at a magnification of 2000.

The second problem with Roland's letter is that it suggests, at least to the casual reader, that condoms offer no protection at all against HIV. That's not so. Roland himself estimates that condoms reduce HIV transmission risk by a factor of three. He cites a 1993 analysis by S. C. Weller suggesting that condoms are 69 percent effective in preventing HIV transmission.

The government's counterargument to this is that Weller did not distinguish between consistent and inconsistent users of condoms. Government spokesmen cite two European studies of "serodiscordant" heterosexual couples--that is, one partner had HIV, the other didn't. One study found that among couples using condoms consistently, there were zero cases of HIV transmission between the partners. Inconsistent users had a 10 percent infection rate. The other study found an infection rate of 1.1 percent between consistent users, 5.7 percent between nonusers. In other words, conservatively speaking, condoms reduced HIV transmission risk by a factor of 5.

We could argue about these numbers, but let's put this in perspective. Roland thinks condoms reduce AIDS risk by a factor of 3. A study cited by the government says they reduce it by a factor of 5. Avoiding high-risk sex partners, it's believed, reduces it by a factor of 5,000.

In short, regardless of who's right about latex, you'd be foolish to make condoms your only defense against infection. Abstinence or, more realistically, avoidance of high-risk sex partners are far more effective strategies. (If you're a gay male and thus in a high-risk group to start with, at least stay away from IV drug users.) On the other hand, condoms do offer substantial protection, and if you insist on having sex with a high-risk partner, they're a lot better than no protection at all.

CONDOMS VERSUS AIDS, ROUND 2

Dear Cecil:

Thanks for nothing, Cecil. At first your column on condoms seemed long overdue: a concise rebuttal to the Christian right's disinformation campaign about how HIV supposedly can readily pass through "pores" in latex condoms. Too bad it took you only a few paragraphs to lapse into the kind of tired, false propaganda about "abstinence" and "high-risk partners" that would fit quite comfortably alongside the vitriolic bigotry in the pages of the Washington Times.

You point out that the 5-micron "intrinsic pores" scare is based on the latex in rubber gloves, not condoms, and you point out the vast differences in manufacture of the two. Good. You cite studies about correct, consistent use of condoms, a distinction the anti-condom, anti-sex troops never make while making the rounds of talk shows. Fine.

But why skip the biggest hole in the "porous latex theory"? HIV isn't some free-ranging microscopic bug; it's an intracellular virus, and it's these cells that would somehow have to squeeze through those fabled 5-micron holes.

And then, for you, it's back to the same old idea that "only bad people get AIDS"; and for the self-satisfied schmucks behind Cecil Adams, bad people are evidently those who have sex outside the confines of a heterosexual monogamous marriage contract. "If you're a gay male and in a high-risk group to start with, at least stay away from IV drug users"?! It must be quite reassuring to think of all queer men as inherently diseased and of all drug users as inherently self-destructive. Too bad that's a crock. The queer men who have made safe sex a consistent part of their sexual lives and the IV drug users who make a point of cleaning and not sharing their works are exercising a hell of a lot more self-restraint and self-protection than the idiots who think they're immune because they're not in a high-risk group. I guess it's called the Straight Dope for a reason: it's heterosexist . . . and stupid. P.B., Chicago

Cecil replies:

Great letter, P. In more than 20 years of writing this column it's the first defense I've gotten of IV drug use, which to be honest I do think of as "inherently self-destructive." But I didn't say "queer men" were "inherently diseased." I said they were in a high-risk group, which no one disputes, and that while condoms significantly reduce the risk of infection, no one should think they will render you immune to AIDS. Discretion in your choice of sexual partners is a sound strategy regardless of your sexual orientation. That said, by all means use condoms as well.

As for the substantive issue you raise, it's true "the transmission of HIV by genital fluids most probably occurs through virus-infected cells since they can be present in larger numbers than free virus in the body fluids" (Jay Levy, "Pathogenesis of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection," Microbiological Reviews, March 1993--an exhaustive treatment of the subject). But it would be wrong to construe this to mean that HIV is transmitted only by cells. When I spoke to Dr. Levy he readily conceded that HIV may be transmitted by free virus as well. He did add that the viscosity of semen may hinder the passage of such virus through the latex barrier.

We could debate the technical stuff all day. My point is this: for whatever reason--pores, improper use, etc.--real-world research shows condoms don't offer 100 percent protection against AIDS. Maybe not, say the AIDS experts, but if you tell people that they'll use it as an excuse not to use condoms. To which I reply: the arguably greater danger is that they'll use condoms the way some weight watchers use Diet Coke--as an excuse to continue dangerous behavior (e.g., promiscuous sex, not gay sex per se). If that's "anti-eros," as some people seem to think, too bad. A friend of mine who died of AIDS attributed his illness to a wild weekend he'd once had. It's hardly anti-sex to wish he'd stayed home.

--CECIL ADAMS

The condom itself is not 100 % safe. Result of examination show the following :

A condom is made of rubber (latex), a hydrocarbon compound with polymerization, which means that it is fibrous and porous like woven cloth.

By means of an electronic microscope the pores of the condom can be seen in a non-stretched state with a width of 1/60 micron, while the HIV/AIDS virus has a width of 1/250 micron.

When the condom is stretched the pores of the condom are 10 times as wide as that of the virus; in other words, the virus can go through the wall of the condom. The condom was designed for family planning (to strain sperm, not viruses); and a condom is not meant for fornication/prostitution.

Research carried out in the U.S. on 89 condoms in circulation on the market proved that 29 out of 89 leaked, which means that the leakage was about 30 %. In Indonesia condoms imported from Hong Kong in 1996 were withdrawn from market because 50 % leaked. In practice in the field there is often failure of condoms use for family planning because of leakage, let alone for fornication/prostitution. As a comparison, sperm are as large as oranges and viruses as large as a period (dot).
Another examination conducted in the U.S. ( the Physical Division of Human Sciences, Maryland, USA, 1992) showed that particles as minute as viruses can be detected going through the wall of condoms.

In every condom there are 0.4 % pinhole, microscopic defect in the manufacturing process. The area of the condom is 80 cm2 and if you count 32,000 pinhole in each condom, and if each pinhole is 1/1000 micron, you can imagine the total number of pinholes in a condom.

Based on the above finding, the anti-AIDS campaign in the U.S. no longer uses the Safe Sex Use Condoms slogan, but just the reverse (a turn of 180o),

At the same time an expert of the University of Utah, Professor Victor Cline, state in 1995 that if we believe that by using condoms we are protected from sexually transmitted diseases including the HIV/AIDS virus, we really have gone astray.


___________

"The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, released the report compiled by the panel of 28 experts, who analyzed about 138 published studies on the use of condoms during penile-vaginal intercourse.

"There was a lack of evidence to help us make a definitive conclusion about the effectiveness of condoms," said panel member Dr. Timothy Schacker, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota"


___________

PANACEA OR PLACEBO?
In conclusion, Herbert Ratner, M.D., offers the best summary of all when he says,
Actually, the major accomplishment of the condom campaign to prevent AIDS is to impress the promoters, politicians and the public at large that something is being done; and although well-intentioned, it offers more of a placebo than a panacea.

Publicizing the condom to the four winds is, for the most part, the bravura of a puritan who is trying to prove to the world that he is not a puritan.

To concentrate on the mechanical aspects of the sex act to the exclusion of the emotional and psychological aspects (which the condom campaign ignores) is the essence of Puritanism. The only difference between the new and the old is that whereas the traditional puritans were alleged to believe that sex was something to be isolated and repressed, neo-puritans accept sex as something to be isolated and exercised. (28)
Reviewed by Joel McIlhaney, M.D., of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health

28.Ratner, Herbert, M.D., "Condoms and AIDS," ALL About Issues, Feb. 1989, p. 36



__________

STANDARD WATER TEST

"The FDA tests every batch of imported condoms as well, though imports account for very few condoms used in this country. Although the smallest hole the water test can find is 100 times bigger than the HIV virus, officials believe the water test is sufficient. "


_________

THE SPERM VS. THE AIDS VIRUS
A paper in the February 1992 issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology reports that filtration techniques show the HIV-1 virus to be 0.1 micron (4 millionths of an inch) in diameter. It is three times smaller than the herpes virus, 60 times smaller than the syphilis spirochete, and 50 to 450 times smaller than sperm. (8)

8.Lytle, C. D., et al., "Filtration Sizes of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 and Surrogate Viruses Used to Test Barrier Materials," Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 58, #2, Feb. 1992.