ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, June 7, 1996 TAG: 9606070048
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
A study in monkeys suggests that oral sex may pose as great a risk of AIDS virus infection as many other forms of sexual intercourse. But the research found no evidence of increased risk from casual contact, such as kissing or sharing utensils.
``This study shows that people need to know that oral sex is not safe sex,'' said Dr. Ruth M. Ruprecht, chief of a virus research laboratory at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. ``This is important public health information that should be widely published.''
Earlier studies have hinted that oral sex represented a risk for HIV infection, Ruprecht said. But many people have thought infection could occur only if there were cuts or sores in the mouth. Many people, she said, assumed that oral sex was a safe alternative to other forms of intercourse.
``I've talked with physicians who work in AIDS clinics who felt that oral sex is not that much of a risk,'' said Ruprecht. ``Very few people use condoms for oral-genital contact.
``On the basis of reports on humans and on our study, unprotected receptive oral intercourse should be added to the list of behaviors that place people at risk for infection by HIV,'' she said.
Ruprecht led a laboratory team that experimentally exposed monkeys to the simian immunodeficiency virus, SIV, a virus closely related to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Six of seven monkeys that received doses of SIV virus at the back of the tongue developed simian AIDS disease. The minimum dose of SIV to cause infection through oral exposure was less than the dose required to cause SIV infection through rectal exposure, Ruprecht said.
However, Dr. Ronald O. Valdiserri, an expert on HIV transmission at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that the monkey study was not a true model for human exposure to HIV.
``It was an experimental condition, so you cannot have a 100 percent correlation,'' he said.
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