On August 4th, 2000 the CDC a letter, concerning the spermicide nonoxynol-9, to "colleagues" from Helene Gayle at the National Center for HIV, STD, & TB Prevention. In this letter Gayle lays out a study done among sex workers in Africa to ascertain the effectiveness of the commonly used spermicide called N-9. In the study, granted these women engaged in a lot of sex so extrapolating this data is probably a mistake, but nevertheless this study found that the use of N-9 was accompanied by a 50% increase in HIV infection.

6/10/02:10:06:17 PM PST    comment