QUOTABLE QUOTES

"If you had available the partner of your dreams, and knew the person carried HIV, how many of you (sexologists attending the World Congress of Sexology in Heidelberg, Germany) would have sex depending on a condom for protection?" asked Dr. Theresa Crenshaw. Of the 800 sexologists present, most of whom recommend condoms to their clients, only one raised his hand after a lengthy pause. Dr. Crenshaw then boldly said, "It is irresponsible to give advice to others that you would not follow yourselves!" Commenting later, Dr. Crenshaw explained, "Putting a mere balloon between a healthy body and a deadly disease is not safe."
(Dr. Theresa Crenshaw, Congressional Testimony for Children and Teenagers to the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, 18 June 1987, p. 3.)

Condom expert Malcolm Potts said, "Telling a person who engages in high-risk behavior to use a condom is 'like telling someone who is driving drunk to use a seat belt.'"
(U.S. Department of Education, "Will 'Safe Sex' Education Effectively Combat AIDS?", 22 January 1986, p. 16.)

GENERAL INFORMATION REGARDING CONDOMS

A workshop sponsored by several U.S. government agencies recently concluded that published research concerning the effectiveness of condoms to prevent STD transmission was "inadequate". In other words, there is no research that clearly indicates exactly how effective condoms are when used to protect against most sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

("Workshop Summary: Scientific Evidence on Condom Effectiveness for Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Prevention." July 20, 2001. Available at: www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/stds/ condomreport.pdf.)

"Leakage of HIV-sized particles through latex condoms was detectable for as many as 29 of the 89 condoms tested." (That is, 32.5% failed.)
(Ronald F. Carey, SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES. Vol. 6, No. 5, 1993.)

The FDA (Federal Drug Administration) has no performance standards for condoms.
(Richard Smith, "The Condom," unpublished paper, October 1990, p. 6.)

"The FDA has had a long history of seizure actions against condoms because of defects".
(FDA (Federal Drug Administration) Compliance Policy Guides, Chapter 24 - Devices, 12/30/87.)

In 1997 after consumers complained their condoms were breaking, 57 million were recalled by the Food and Drug Administration.
("Condom Makers Break The Bad News", Reuters. October 21, 1997.)

PROTECTION AGAINST PREGNANCY

The Adolescent Family Life Program (AFL) is required by law to give accurate information concerning condoms. The AFL statistics as of May 1997 state that the failure rate of condoms for teens is between 18-30%.

"Condoms, as used by teenagers, have about a 20% failure rate - slightly higher than the failure rate of Russian roulette."
(Dr. Thomas Sowell, "The Big Lie", Forbes Magazine, December 23, 1991. (Dr. Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, California).

(Condoms) fail 36.3 percent of the time annually in preventing pregnancy among young, unmarried minority women.
(Elise F. Jones and Jacqueline Darroch Forrest, "Contraceptive Failure In The United States: Revised Estimates from the 1982 National Survey of Family Growth," Family Planning Perspectives 21 (May/June 1989): 105.)

One-third of sexually active women under the age of twenty-five who use only condoms for contraception will be pregnant after one year.
(D.R. Mishell, The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 320, pp. 777-87, 1989.)

"The FDA requires that the manufacturer [of condoms] lists the ideal and use effectiveness rates of approved contraceptives in the package inserts for oral contraceptives. Condoms are listed at 97-64 percent. . ."
(Nancy E. Dirubbo, "The Condom Barrier", American Journal of Nursing, October 1987, p. 1309.)

Condoms are only 70-90% effective.
(Dr. Gary Noble, Surgeon General Task Force, November 12, 1986.)

A survey conducted in the United States revealed that more than 27% of all never-married, low-income teenage girls who depend on condoms to prevent pregnancy became pregnant in their first year of condom use.
(Elise F. Jones and Jacqueline D. Forrest, "Contraceptive Failure Rates Based on the 1988 NSFG." Family Planning Perspectives, January/February 1992, pages 12-19. See Table 2, page 15.)

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PROTECTION AGAINST AIDS

The Department of Health and Human Services released a report stating "there are no clinical data supporting the value of condoms in preventing HIV."
(A. Parachini, "Condoms and AIDS: How Safe is 'Safe'?," Los Angeles Times, 18 August 1987.)

"We cannot tell people how much protection condoms give."
(Dr. Malcolm Potts, one of the inventors of condoms lubricated with spermicides, and the president of Family Health International. "Condoms: Experts Fear False Sense of Security," The New York Times, August 18, 1987.)

"Health institutions have been telling people, 'for safe sex, use a condom.' Our point is that while the condom gives a measure of protection, there is no research to show the exact protection...If your life depends on how safe a particular brand of condom is, wouldn't you want to know its effectiveness?"
(Dr. Bruce Voeller, president of the Mariposa Foundation which specializes in the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. UPI, San Francisco Examiner, November 7, 1985.)

The AIDS virus is 450 times smaller than the sperm cell.
(Nancy E. Dirubbo, "Condom Barrier," American Journal of Nursing 87 no. 10 (1987):1306.)

An issue of Social Science and Medicine reported that Dr. Susan Weller of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston analyzed 11 U.S. HIV studies to gauge condom effectiveness. From her research, Dr. Weller estimated that condoms are "only 69 percent effective in preventing heterosexual HIV transmission". This means the failure rate is approximately 31% or 1 out of 3.
"(Caught!", FOCUS ON THE FAMILY CITIZEN, April 18, 1994, p. 3.)

Nearly 1 in 3 will contract AIDS from infected partners with 100% condom use.
(Dr. Margaret A. Fischl, Journal of the American Medicine Association, February 1987.)

A study done in Florida of heterosexual couples showed that 30% had caught HIV from their spouse even though they knew their mates were HIV positive and conscientiously used condoms.
(Flechl M.A. et al., "Heterosexual transmission of HIV, relationship of sexual practices to zero conversion," III International AIDS Conference, Washington, D.C., 1987.)

"You just can't tell people it's all right to do whatever you want so long as you wear a condom. It's just too dangerous a disease to say that."
(Dr. Harold Jaffe, Center for Disease Control chief of epidemiology, "Condoms: Experts Fear False Sense of Security," The New York Times, August 18, 1987.)

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PROTECTION AGAINST STDS

The failure rate of a condom in preventing the transmission of gonorrhea is between 40%-60%. (NOTE: Each year in the United States, 100,000 women are made sterile as a result of the damage done by gonorrhea.
(d'Oro, L.C. et al: (1994) "Barrier Methods of Contraception, Spermicides, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases: A Review". GENITOURINARY MEDICINE, Vol. 70. pp. 410-417.)

Condoms provide little, if any, protection against human papilloma virus (HPV), one of the most common STDs in the U.S. today. (NOTE: The genital warts caused by human papilloma virus (HPV) often cause cancer of the male and female reproductive anatomy - cancer of the cervix, vulva, vagina, and penis. In fact, at least 93% of all cervical cancer is caused by HPV, and cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide
(Dr. Kenneth Noller, OB/GYN CLINICAL ALERT, September 1992.)

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HOW EFFECTIVE ARE CONDOM DISTRIBUTION PROGRAMS IN SCHOOLS?

In a St. Paul, Minnesota, high school where condoms were distributed to their students, the number of teenage pregnancies increased 33% while a high school in Dallas which had the same procedure saw an increase in teen pregnancies of 47%.
(Douglas Kirby, et al., "The Effects of School-Based Health Clinics in St. Paul on School-Wide Birthrates," Family Planning Perspectives, January/February 1993, pp. 12-16. See Table 2, p. 15.)

Balboa High School in San Francisco, California, supplied students with coupons which could be redeemed for condoms at a nearby city dispensary. The percentage of female students engaging in sexual intercourse increased by one-fourth (25%) in just two years.* A similar study in Switzerland showed the proportion of girls under the age of 17 who engaged in sexual intercourse increased almost two-thirds - from 36% to 57%.**
(*Douglas Kirby, et al., An Assessment of Six School-Based Clinics: Services, Impact and Potential (Center for Population Options, 1989), pp. 32, 65; and "Six School-Based Clinics: Their Reproductive Health Services and Impact on Sexual Behavior," Family Planning Perspectives. January/February 1991. pp. 6-16, at pp. 11-12.)

(**Dominique Hausser and P.A. Michaud, "Does a Condom-Promoting Strategy (the Swiss STOP-AIDS Campaign) Modify Sexual Behavior Among Adolescents?" Pediatrics, April 1994. Table 3, p. 582.)

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CONCLUSIONS

1. The failure rate of condoms in preventing teenage pregnancies is at least 20% or 1 out of 5.

2. The failure rate of condoms in preventing the transmission of HIV is about 31% or almost 1 out of 3.

3. The failure rate of condoms in preventing teens from getting infected with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) like gonorrhea and human papilloma virus (HPV) is between 40-100%.

4. Condoms provide no protection against the emotional, psychological, mental, social, moral, and spiritual problems sex before marriage often cause such as guilt, shame, broken hearts, shattered dreams, low self-esteem, lost innocence, bad reputations, family problems, feelings of being used, depression, regret for losing one's virginity, embarrassment, and humiliation.

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