Birth Control
Microbicides
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Currently, if a sexually active woman wants to protect herself from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), her options are limited. She can abstain from any sexual activity that would put her at risk, she can use a condom or dental dam to block "bodily fluids," or she can be monogamous and hope that her partner is uninfected and also monogamous.
These are the strategies recommended by most prevention programs, and according to many women’s health advocates, they’re not good enough. Megan Gottemoeller, a community educator at the Global Campaign for Prevention Options for Women, believes that existing prevention strategies are essentially meaningless for many women at risk of infection. "Messages that encourage women to be abstinent, monogamous, or to use condoms every time they have sex ignore the reality that often it is their partners' behavior rather than their own that puts women at risk. A woman cannot protect herself by being faithful if her partner is not. Nor can every woman insist on condom use. Too often, the economic or social consequences of insisting on safe sex in terms of lost trust, abandonment or abuse can be more threatening than the risk of contracting a disease."1
Gottemoeller and other women's health activists have been advocating for the development of female-controlled methods of STD prevention, including the development of microbicides. Microbicides are products applied directly to the vagina or rectum that reduce the risk of transmitting STDs. Like today's spermicides, a microbicide could be produced in many forms, including gels, creams, suppositories, films, or in the form of a sponge or a vaginal ring that releases the active ingredient over time.
1. Megan Gottemoeller, "Empowering Women to Prevent HIV: The Microbicide Advocacy Agenda." Agenda Magazine, 2000.
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