A Workshop on condom effectiveness conducted in 2001 by the FDA, CDC, NIH, and USAID1 concluded that there was “no epidemiologic evidence that condom use reduced the risk
of HPV infection.” This analysis is the largest ever conducted to review the available scientific data on condom effectiveness. While it did find that condoms reduce, but do not eliminate, the risk of HIV and gonorrhea (for men only), it also concluded that that “the published epidemiologic data were insufficient to draw meaningful conclusions about the effectiveness of
the latex male condom to reduce the risk of transmission of genital ulcer diseases (genital herpes, syphilis and chancroid).” Additionally, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) found that “condoms are ineffective against HPV.” In a statement to Congress, the NCI stated that “the conclusion that condoms are ineffective against HPV infection is based on the results of several long term studies that have failed to show that barrier contraceptives prevent cervical HPV infection, dysplasia, or cancer.”2
HPV infection is the primary cause of cervical cancer, and there is no cure for HPV infection, which may also cause genital warts, and may be transmitted to children during childbirth. Cervical cancer will kill an estimated 3,700 American women this year.
In the five years it has taken the FDA to comply with this simple law, an estimated 27million Americans have become infected with HPV, over 50,000 women have been diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer, and nearly 20,000 women have died from the disease. Despite these tragic numbers, very few Americans are even aware of HPV or its link to cervical cancer.