In a study reported by Dr. Margaret Fishel to the III International Conference on AIDS, married couples with one HIV-free partner, using condoms for protection, tested HIV Positive in 17 percent of the cases after only one and one half years.
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“Simply put, condoms fail. And condoms fail at a rate unacceptable for me as a physician to endorse them as a strategy to be promoted as meaningful AIDS protection.”
– Dr. Robert Renfield, chief of retro-viral research, Walter Reed Army Institute
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One test showed that 14.6 percent of condoms used in a clinical trial either broke or slipped off the penis during intercourse or withdrawal. A survey at a Manchester, England family planning clinic revealed that 52% of the respondents had experienced condom breakage or slippage during the past three months alone.
Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute. Family Planning Perspectives, January/February 1992, pages 20 to 23. Also see R.J.E. Kirkman, J. Morris, and A.M.C. Webb. "User Experience: Mates v. Nuforms." British Journal of Family Planning, 1990;15:107-111.
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“…an "antiquated system of birth control."
- Although touted by many as the solution to the problem of STDs and unwanted pregnancy, condoms definitely are not. They have a poor record for prevention of pregnancy, with failure rates of up to 13% or more per year.
Source: The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology
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In preventing pregnancy, condoms have a standardized failure rate of 14.7 percent over the course of a year.
For teens living together, condoms users experienced an unplanned pregnancy over 50% percent of the time over the course of a year.
For teens not living together, condoms users experienced an unplanned pregnancy over 14-23% percent of the time over the course of a year.
Source: H Fu, JE Darroch, T Haas, N Ranjit, Contraceptive Failure Rates: New Estimates From the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, Family Planning Perspectives, 1999, 31(2): 56-63