Originally published August 6 2005
A new way to protect women from AIDS
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A new lubricant called Microbicide has been created to help prevent STDs in women and also help prevent unwanted pregnancy. To get the product developed and tested, women need to ask for it.
Imagine a product that would protect you from HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and a host of other sexually transmitted diseases - and prevent unwanted pregnancy at the same time.
Now, imagine that your bedside helper wasn't a condom, but a vaginal lubricant you could use, whether or not you wanted your boyfriend or husband to know about it.
Recent infusions of cash from the Gates Foundation and commitment from G8 leaders to buy microbicides once they're ready have given the concept credibility.
Throughout the nearly 25 years of the AIDS epidemic, sexually active women have had limited means of avoiding HIV.
Women's lack of power has been deadly: Unprotected sex with men now accounts for 79% of new female HIV infections.
Microbicides could potentially save the lives of 2.5 million people worldwide over a three-year period, according to a report commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation.
A gel, cream or capsule that a woman could insert into her vagina before sex, a microbicide would protect her against disease by immobilizing HIV or ratcheting up her natural immune defenses against the virus.
Fourteen versions are in the works, and five have proven safe and promising enough for scientists to begin testing whether they actually protect women from HIV.
Still, just 2% of the AIDS budget of the National Institutes of Health - $69 million - is devoted to microbicides research, compared to $607 million for its AIDS vaccine studies.
AIDS is the leading killer of African-American women ages 25 to 34, and the sixth-leading cause of death among all U.S. women in that age group.
HIV is spreading fastest among Americans who are 25 and younger, with unprotected sex with men accounting for 79% of new female infections.
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