Subject: Condom for Women To Be Sold in Europe; FDA Review Is Set
Date: Published: 1/20/92 (51 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology & Health:
    Condom for Women
    To Be Sold in Europe;
    FDA Review Is Set

    GENEVA (AP) -- Condoms will soon be available for women,
 finally allowing them to provide their own protection against
 AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
    The new condom goes on sale in Switzerland early in
 February and in France and Britain later in the year.
 American health officials could recommend its approval at the
 end of the month.
    "We are 100% in favor," said Karen Pataky of Planned
 Parenthood in Washington.
    "Many heterosexual men don't like using condoms and the
 bottom line is that if they don't want to use one they won't
 use one," she said.  "Female condoms would give women another
 option."
    The vaginal condom is a large, lubricated, polyurethane
 adaptation of the male version.  It is about seven inches
 long, has flexible rings at both ends and is inserted like a
 diaphragm.  The inner ring fits behind the pubic bone and the
 outer ring remains outside the body.
    Unlike the diaphragm, which only stops sperm from passing
 the cervix, the female condom also protects the entire vagina
 and labia from contact with HIV, the AIDS virus.
    Its Swiss distributors, UhlmannEyraud, said it would sell
 for about four times the cost of the standard male condom.
    An advisory committee of the U. S. Food and Drug
 Administration is scheduled to meet on Jan. 31 to decide
 whether to recommend that the female condom be given FDA
 approval for U. S. distribution.
    Mary-Ann Leeper of Wisconsin Pharmacal Co., the U. S. 
 company that would manufacture and market the product in
 North America under the brand name Reality, says 75% of women
 surveyed were happy with the condom.
    The concept was developed by a Danish gynecologist, who
 was working on problems of infertility, said Patrick Rowe of
 the World Health Organization.
    Dr. Rowe said sexually transmitted diseases cause 65% of
 female infertility in sub-Saharan Africa and 25% in developed
 countries.  He said WHO became interested in the female condom
 as a way of preventing such diseases, particularly AIDS.  

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