Aids And Oral Sex

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By Newsweek Editors

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THERE'S NO QUESTION that HIV favors some forms of intimacy. Anal intercourse is particularly dicey, since it can tear rectal tissue and let the AIDS virus into the bloodstream. Since kissing and utensil-sharing are not risk factors, experts have considered oral sex relatively safe. But a new study done with monkeys challenges that assumption, leading researchers at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to conclude that ""unprotected receptive oral intercourse, even in the absence of mucosal lesions, should be added to the list of risk behaviors for HIV-1 transmission.''

The new finding was largely an accident. Human infants often test positive after ingesting vaginal secretions during delivery. Researchers suspected that the newborns lacked the stomach acid to kill the virus. But when they placed SIV (the simian AIDS virus) in the mouths of adult monkeys, the animals were easily infected. And the dose required to infect them orally -- though far higher than what you'd find in saliva -- was 6,000 times lower than the dose required for rectal infection. No one knows how well this applies to humans; few HIV infections have been traced to oral sex alone. But the uncertainty may give the flavored condom a new allure.

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