Condoms don't prevent the spread of HIV, they slow it down. But in the study, in the course of a year, some women using condoms exclusively still contracted HIV from their partners. The number was high enough that eventually, most women will get the virus, even with condom use.
This is because the tiny tiny holes in the condom are larger than the virus. I don't understand why someone isn't designing a condom with holes small enough to prevent the virus from passing.
For example, one misleading headline read: Condoms Found to Block a Virus Harmful to Women
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/health/22condom.html<snip>
In the study, which independent experts said was the most conclusive to examine the role of condoms in preventing infection with the virus, women whose male partners used condoms every time they had sexual intercourse had less than half the rate of infection as did women whose partners used condoms less than 5 percent of the time.
<snip>
In the study, the researchers followed 82 female students at the University of Washington ages 18 through 22 from the time they said they had their first sexual intercourse with a male partner.
Every two weeks, the women electronically filed information about their daily sexual behavior and condom use to a protected Web site. Every four months, the researchers tested the women for papillomavirus and early indications of cancer. A researcher also conducted a personal interview.
The researchers used certain statistical measures to determine the findings in the study. For example, no malignant or precancerous cervical lesions were detected in 32 patient years at risk among women reporting 100 percent condom use by their partners. That compared with 14 such lesions in 97 patient years at risk among women whose partners did not use condoms or who used them less consistently.
<snip>
NOTE: The crucial measure regarding whether HPV is transmitted is not the number of malignant or precancerous cervical lesions - it is whether or not HPV is transmitted. The cellular changes caused by HPV can take years to decades to occur.
Note the sentence "women whose male partners used condoms every time they had sexual intercourse had less than half the rate of infection as did women whose partners used condoms less than 5 percent of the time". This is the crucial part. This sentence says that despite condom use, some women did get infected - albeit at half the rate of women who didn't use condoms more than 5% of the time.
The lesson to be learned: Condoms prevent against some, but not all, STDs; keep getting those pap smears if you are sexually active.
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