Washington To Put Free Condom Machines In Gov't Buildings

(Washington , D.C.) In a move likely to cause a furor among conservative Republicans, the District of Columbia plans to install free condom dispensers in some government office buildings.

The District's health department says it will put 50 plain white dispensers in areas frequented by the public, including the D.C. Housing Authority and the departments of human services, motor vehicles and public works.

"They're going to be as common as water fountains," Ivan O. Torres, interim director of the city's HIV/AIDS Administration, said of the dispensers.

"The mayor is committed to this. . . . This is no longer something to be ashamed of. It affects all of us," Torres told the Washington Post.

In the next 12 months, the district plans to pass out about 550,000 male condoms, 45,000 latex dental dams and about 30,000 female condoms in a variety of venues, including the public school system.

Male condoms cost the city less than a nickel apiece, and female condoms cost several dollars each.

Washington has one of the highest per capita AIDS rates in the nation, about 132 cases per 100,000 residents. In the past 20 years the disease has claimed more than 12,000 lives in the region.

D.C. Council member Jim Graham, the former executive director of Whitman-Walker Clinic, the region's largest private HIV/AIDS agency, praised the plan.

"What's at stake is so great, and it is 2003," he said. "It's time we really move as aggressively as funds will allow."

But, while the DC Council is enthusiastic about the free condom plan, some in the Bush Administration are not.

Tom Coburn, a physician, and co-chairman of the presidential AIDS panel called the distribution misguided because, he said, condoms fail 20 percent of the time.

"We used to think condoms were fairly effective," t he former Oklahoma congressman said. "If used perfectly, they are probably 94 or 95 percent effective, but we're human, and we don't use them perfectly. . . . The city would be much better off spending its money getting people tested, treated and counseled not to give the virus to others."

Robert E. Rector, with the conservative Heritage Foundation said he doubted there is any positive effect in giving away condoms. "The number-one determinant of whether a person will catch a sexually transmitted disease is the number of lifetime sexual partners. We seem to go out of our way as a government and a nation to avoid telling people that, but we hand out a lot of free condoms."

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