The news has sparked fears of an increase in sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, as the NHS issued a statement warning of ‘disruption’ to the supply.

Sexual health expert Dr Malcolm Vandenburg said the shortage could put the safe sex message at risk, saying: ‘The fear is that if there is a shortage, young people will begin to have unprotected sex.

‘Once they get used to doing this may continue not to use condoms even when the supply is back to normal.’

The shortage has been caused by Indian firm TTK Lig halting its supply of condoms in a price dispute with Durex owner Reckitt Benckiser.

The Slough-based company launched a High Court bid to force TTK to resume supply, but the claim was rejected.

A spokesman said the company was ‘actively managing the situation to mitigate any damage’.

Durex is the world’s most popular brand of condom, accounting for 40% of the market. TTK makes more than half of them.

Then, Health Commissioner Donald F. Schwarz unwrapped one. “We need to show kids that we touch these things,” he said at a City Hall news conference, because otherwise “they will never believe that it is appropriate and normal to use them.”

It was a scene that never would have happened 20 years ago, when public discussion of condoms provoked anger and controversy.

Now, with new HIV cases among city teens and young adults up 40 percent over three years - rates of other sexually transmitted diseases are rising, too - public health officials are seeking to jump-start talk about safe sex in any way they can.

Designed with young people in mind: A website (www.takecontrolphilly.org, with free online ordering), a Facebook page, and GPS-enabled iPhone app to get you to the nearest of more than 100 distribution sites.

The prevention campaign will include broader education about sexually transmitted diseases and stepped-up efforts to find and treat infected teens, their partners, and even others in their “sexual network,” officials said, although few details were available.

“I do believe that abstinence is a good theory,” Schwarz said in an interview. “In the meantime, a lot of kids are going to be put in harm’s way if we don’t find a way to make sex safer.”

He acknowledged, however, that a condom campaign alone would not solve the problem, calling it a “necessary but not sufficient” part of the equation.

While access to condoms may help, experts say that many teenage boys, perhaps even more than men, object to how they feel. And girls often do not push the issue.

“I don’t know if there is a single answer to it,” said 21-year-old Brittany Langford, reflecting on why she barely asked guys to wear a condom during the three years that she was moving from shelter to shelter, often having sex for money or a place to stay.

Fear was a big part of it, she said. “I didn’t want them to think I was infected.”

Langford, who said she managed, against the odds, not to get infected with any STDs, is now finishing her studies at Community College of Philadelphia and living in the Northeast with her fiance; their baby is due in June.

Her life was very different four years ago, when she spotted a flier for “free food” and showed up at the Youth Health Empowerment Project (Y-HEP) on North Broad Street, where she spoke about her experiences the other day. For six months, she came by only for food, clothing, and tokens, all free.

“Then I started talking and really asking for help,” she said.

Eventually she helped lead group discussions about STDs and HIV, with the candid talk more often than not turning into exercises on trust, patience and power.

Langford’s experience illustrates the limits of condoms as a prevention strategy.

“Part of it is to get these kids to realize that they do have a future and that if they get HIV and have unplanned pregnancies that these can interfere with their ability to achieve their future goals,” said John B. Jemmott, who studies HIV prevention here and in South Africa.

Jemmott, a professor of communication and psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, last year published one of the few studies to find clear evidence that abstinence education helped delay teen sex. The program focused on far more than abstinence, and included discussions about peer pressure, decision-making, dreams and goals.

It examined when teens begin to have sex, not specifically STD prevention.

“Unfortunately, if there was a simple answer then those of us who work with youth every day and those who work in public health would have figured it out,” said Nadia Dowshen, a pediatrician who specializes in HIV-positive youth at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“When I see youths in the office, a lot of what we focus on is communication skills and talking more about relationships in general,” Dowshen said. It is a cost-effective approach considering the expense of treating someone with HIV for life, she said, but no public health department has the money to individually counsel an entire teenage population.

The condom campaign is a relative bargain: $30,000 for the first run of 200,000 custom-labeled packages, with that and the remaining expenses for an expected distribution of one million condoms paid by a federal grant.

Dowshen is particularly pleased that the new campaign is “meeting youth where they are at, literally, in terms of technology.”

Recently, she presented at a medical conference the results of her own pilot study showing that simple daily text messages - chosen personally but sent automatically - helped HIV-positive young people stick to their daily regimen of antiretroviral drugs.

The city’s new website cannot send text messages, at least not yet, but it quickly found an audience. The first online order came in just minutes after the site went live, well before it was announced, officials said; 30 more had come in by 4:15 p.m.

From the city’s perspective, this was not a moment too soon.

More than 30 percent of girls and 12 percent of boys test positive for at least one STD over the course of their high school career. Infectious syphilis, gonorrhea and Chlamydia all have been rising rapidly in teens and young adults.

A recent health department analysis of screening data going back 10 years determined that a youth who tests positive for any of them is 2.5 to 3 times more likely to contract HIV than one who tests negative.

“I am worried that we are going to see an increase of newly diagnosed HIV cases in youth,” said Kathleen A. Brady, medical director of the city’s AIDS Activities Coordinating Office.

The city lost $2 million in state prevention money during the last year of Gov. Ed Rendell’s administration. Schwarz, the health commissioner, said that there had been no further cuts proposed - so far - by Gov. Corbett or the Obama administration.

He added: “We believe that with an increased number of cases we are going to need more funding. That we don’t have.”

At the news conference, Mayor Nutter introduced Michael Bodenberger, the 23-year-old IT worker who designed the winning wrapper, and handed him a (wrapped) Freedom Condom.

Nutter’s participation underscored the importance that the city is placing on the prevention campaign. But that was not the only reason he stood at the front of the room.

During recent high school screening for STDs, city health workers surveyed about 500 students on various aspects of the campaign. A slogan - “Why Risk It?” - came out of that survey.

The students were also asked who would be influential in promoting a condom campaign. The question was open-ended.

“No. 1 was (actor) Will Smith. No. 2 was Michael Nutter,” said Schwarz. “I was blown away.”

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 15 (HealthDay News) — In a rare case, a man living in Germany who had both leukemia and AIDS no longer has any detectable HIV cells in his blood following a stem cell transplant for his leukemia three years ago.

But experts were quick to caution that the case does not have practical implications for the treatment of AIDS worldwide.

As it turns out, the donor for that transplant carried a rare mutation in a gene that increases immunity against the most common form of HIV. First reported in 2009, this follow-up study, published online in the journal Blood, confirms that the recipient patient is still free of both leukemia and HIV three years after the transplant.

But one expert issued strong words of caution in interpreting the finding.

“Our phones have been ringing off the hook,” said Dr. Margaret Fischl, director of the AIDS clinical research unit at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “We are having patients calling us and asking if they can stop their antiretroviral therapy — and the answer is uncategorically no.”

The theory is that if you could wipe out every infected cell you could cure HIV, Fischl said, but this is a unique case.

The patient had intense chemotherapy and radiation, then relapsed and was given a second transplant from the same donor. The donor was unique in that he had a gene that could fight the most common form of HIV. This mutation is seen in about one in every million people, Fischl explained.

“How much did a second transplant contribute to the slow takeover of the donor cells that are resistant to one form of HIV? The extent that that happened is remarkable,” she said.

However, this patient also was infected with another form of HIV as well, Fischl said. “What they are hoping is that the chemotherapy and radiation therapy wiped out that form, too. Could that patient still rebound with HIV in the future? Yes,” she said.

This treatment also carries with it a 30 percent risk of death, Fischl added.

“That he was young and got through it is quite remarkable,” she said. “I would never give this to a healthy patient. I could never justify it. If you use this therapy, 30 percent of your patients could die from the intervention.”

Fischl said the study does present new ways to look for an HIV cure, however. “This is leading to looking at gene therapy in a totally different way,” she said.

“We tell our patients that this was a very particular situation. What made this work was that he got a very rare donor. It opens doors for us, but we are years away from potentially making gene therapy more broadly available,” Fischl said. “It shows us the hurdles we have to get over to get to the cure.”

Back in 2009, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the procedure was too expensive and risky to become either common practice or a “cure,” but noted it might help in the development of gene therapies to treat HIV.

Women and their partners in the United States are increasingly using male condoms when they have premarital sex for the first time, which may explain why teenage birth rates have declined in recent decades, according to a new government survey of contraceptive methods.

The proportion of women who used some form of contraceptive the first time they had premarital sex rose to 84 percent in the survey compared with 55 percent before 1985. Most of the increase came from the growing use of a male condom, used by 72 percent of women at first intercourse compared with 34 percent before 1985.

Contraceptive use varied greatly by the education level of parents. About 84 percent of women whose mother had a college education used contraception the first time they had sex compared with 53 percent of women whose mothers did not finish high school.

The numbers come from the National Survey of Family Growth , which is conducted every six to seven years by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most recent survey was carried out from 2006 to 2008, and its results were released for the first time Wednesday.

The survey has long been used to help answer why half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, a far higher proportion than is found in many other industrialized countries. One clear reason is the relatively high share of unprotected sex that occurs in the United States.

“There are some pieces of good news in here,” said Bill Mosher, a statistician with the National Center for Health Statistics, “but what struck me was how persistent some of these patterns are. And that they’re different from some other countries’.”

About 40 percent of births in the United States in recent years are to unmarried women. In addition to about 4 million births that occur annually in the United States, there are 1.2 million abortions and an estimated 1 million miscarriages and stillbirths.

Eleven percent of sexually active unmarried women who are not looking to become pregnant do not use contraceptives, the survey found, with a far higher share of black women failing to use contraceptives than white, Hispanic or Asian women.

Among women who did not use a contraceptive before an unintended pregnancy, the most common reason they gave was that they did not think they could get pregnant.

Religious teachings forbidding contraceptives are almost universally ignored in the United States, since 99 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 44 who had sex at least once have used some form of contraception. The most popular method in the United States is the pill, used by 10.7 million women between the ages of 15 and 44, closely followed by sterilization, used by 10.3 million women.

The typical pattern among women is to rely on a male condom at first intercourse, the pill to delay birth and sterilization once a woman has had all the children she wants. Indeed, 54 percent of sexually active teenage women who used contraception chose the pill compared with just 11 percent of women over the age of 40.
The share who had ever used a contraceptive patch rose to 10 percent from 1 percent in 2002, but that share is likely to decline since warnings about risks caused a drop in its popularity.

The IUD is becoming increasingly popular in the United States, increasing to 6 percent of those who use contraceptives from 2 percent in 2002. Even among teenagers, nearly 4 percent of those who use contraceptives chose an IUD. There are now more than two million IUD users in this country.
Black and Hispanic men are far less likely to have had a vasectomy than white men, the survey said.
In European countries with far lower birth and abortion rates, women are much more likely to use the pill or an IUD and much less likely to use sterilization than women in the United States.

WASHINGTON — District of Columbia officials are granting a request from high school and college-age students and will offer bigger condoms.

Students had complained the free condoms in schools and other locations from the city’s HIV/AIDS administration were of poor quality and too small.

Really, it’s about the brand. In a survey, youth said they felt Trojan brand condoms were of better quality and that the Durex condoms offered by the city were most likely to “pop or break.” Consumer Reports says both brands have perfect scores.

The head of the HIV/AIDS administration says they want to promote that condom use is healthy in the district where studies show 3 percent of residents have HIV. So they’ll spend extra money to offer Trojans in bulk, including the super-size variety.

Published - Washington Post

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 21, 2010

We have received a great deal of requests asking about what happened to the Inspiral brand of condoms. Over the last year we have made contact with the company that imports these from India with no luck in getting any answers.

Over the course of the last year and a half all orders we placed for inventory where rejects that from what we understand where returns from drugstores. Packaging was all damaged and all of the product we received was near expired. We made the decision to stop selling the Inspiral Condom until we could get clarification from someone about why all of our shipments where damaged, near expired seconds. A year later and still no information on this issue.

The major supplier of the Inspiral Condom no longer stocks the product because of similar supply issues. This also leads to many questions.

As of today’s date, we will not be carrying the product and recommend being very cautious with these condoms until further information is found.

Please stay tuned.

CondomDepot.com Announces the Winners of its 9th Annual “World’s Best Condoms” awards.

Please Visit http://www.condomdepot.com for the detailed list of winners and reviews.

CondomDepot.com is proud to sponsor Spencer “The King” Fisher. Fisher fights in the 155 lightweight division currently holding a record of 7-3 with the UFC and an overall professional record of 24-4. Spencer is widely recognized for his quick hands, which comes from his several years of Boxing experience. Aside from being a phenomenal stand up fighter he has a sick ground game as well. He is known and greatly respected for his “fight-ending knees…” and “creative elbows” says’ Mickey Dubberly of KO Dynasty Management. In addition to his boxing training he has received extensive training in Muay Thai and Jiu-Jitsu which helped him earn 2 of his UFC wins by way of Triangle Choke. The first fight he won with the Triangle choke took place in Pekin, Illinois at the Silver Back Challenge where we went up against Derick Noble. Noble fell victim of Fisher’s Triangle Choke hold and was defeated 2:00 minutes into the 1^st round. His last fight against Shannon Gugerty took place at UFC 90 and ended 3:55 seconds into the 3^rd round due to his fundamentally sound Triangle Choke hold once more. This resulted in his 7^th win in the UFC.

Before Fisher teamed up with UFC he was a boxer based out of North Carolina where he conquered his way through his Heavyweight and Middleweight bouts. Reggie Holland has been with Spencer from the beginning, in 1996, as his boxing coach, helping him bring what he learned from the ring and transition into the cage.

Spencer has worked hard for his deserving accomplishments as he has spent time in Thailand training at the Fairtex Training Camp. He has trained with some of the best including Multi Time World Champion Muay Thai Fighter Coban Lookchaomaesaitong. He is currently training with 2 boxing coaches, Reggie Holland and Jeremy Williams. He also has been studying and practicing with Robson Moura who is the #1 Bantam Weight Jiu-Jitsu practitioner in the world!

Fisher has not only achieved respect in the cage but also as a family man. He is married to Emily Fisher, who is also an MMA fighter holding a professional record of 3-1. They have three daughters, Aleta, Madison, and Lucia. They currently reside in Bettendorf, Iowa. Fisher truly enjoys spending time with his family and participating in outdoor activities like hunting.

Make sure you catch tomorrow’s fight on Pay Per View where Spencer “the King” Fisher will go head to head, toe to toe, and elbows to elbows with Caol Uno. John Tankersley of CondomDepot.com states, “we are proud to sponsor Spencer Fisher as he is a veteran of the UFC and we are all huge fans of the UFC at CondomDepot.” Although the majority of UFC fans are in favor of Spencer Fisher, this is going to be a fight you won’t want to miss. Here at CondomDepot We are certainly routing for Spencer and hope to see him come out of this with another victory.

]]> http://www.condomdepot.org/2009/06/12/spencer-the-king-fisher-steps-in-the-cage-at-ufc-99/feed/ http://www.condomdepot.org/2009/06/08/durex-avanti-bare-new-condoms/ http://www.condomdepot.org/2009/06/08/durex-avanti-bare-new-condoms/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:35:25 +0000 Brandyce http://www.condomdepot.org/?p=13 Durex Avanti Bare Condoms - World’s #1 Non Latex Condom Brand!

When using this condom it feels like having nothing on.  It’s much more natural feeling that Polyurethane, and suitable for latex sensitive users.  It sure does live up to its name; “BARE” . No condom has ever felt better.

Durex Avanti Bare is a revolutionary advancement in condom technology.

Banned Durex Video…pretty funny.