Condoms

Teachers and counselors in the New York City school system begin handing out condoms on demand today. In Baltimore, students in five high school and two middle school clinics can receive condoms and oral contraceptives.The Evening Sun wants to know what you think about the condom giveaway program.Call SUNDIAL, the Baltimore Sun's telephone information system, on a Touch-Tone phone. The call is local, and answers will be registered between 10 a.m. and midnight. The SUNDIAL phone number is 783-1800 or, in Anne Arundel County, 268-7736.

Last year Baltimore City paid vendors more than $800 million, much of it for construction projects, gas and electricity, trash and recycling services, transportation and the like, according to monthly figures posted on a city website. But some purchases look odder than others, at least at first blush: Frozen mice. A mink coat. Paintball. About $27,000 worth of food from S'ghetti Eddie's for the Fire Department. Those spending details and many others emerged during a Baltimore Sun review of the city's 2012 figures.

I was amazed and appalled that nowhere in your article on the rise in HIV infection among African-American women do you mention the need to use condoms to prevent the spread of the disease ("Black women in city infected with HIV at higher rate than national average," March 8). The idea that women should ensure their partners have been tested is good, but between the time of the test and intercourse, the individual could have been exposed. The idea of being "particular" about the type of man you date is nice but not safe.

Its incredible that with all of the articles on HIV and AIDS, the fact that the FDA has finally approved of a 15-minute over-the-counter test for HIV has barely been mentioned ("Rapid at-home HIV test gains federal approval," July 4). You talk about unprotected sex, you talk about abstinence, you talk about condoms, etc., but here we have a method to "privately and immediately " determine whether your partner is HIV positive. One would think this would be a strong deterrent for unprotected sex, but it seems like it's a taboo subject.

The following is adapted from a letter to Joseph A. Fernandez, chancellor of New York City public schools. The author, a lawyer and former member of the New York State Board of Social Welfare who frequently does legal work for the New York Archdiocese, questions the chancellor's proposal to distribute condoms in the high schools and junior high schools. The Board of Education, which debated the proposal on Dec. 6, has yet to vote on the plan.DEAR Dr. Fernandez:Your records show that during the 1988-1989 school year you had 184,989 students in the junior high schools and 261,097 in the senior high schools, for a total of 446,086.

NEW YORK City Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez has proposed distribution of condoms to any public-school student who wants them.The proposal is another white flag of surrender to the sex industry. It follows a decision by Massachusetts to begin one of the most aggressive condom-promotion campaigns of any state. The campaign will feature billboards, posters on buses and subways, and public- service announcements on television and radio.The excuse given by those who promote condoms in schools and elsewhere is that too many young people are getting pregnant or infected with venereal diseases, and widely available condoms are the best way to combat both.

The proposed distribution of free condoms by the Carroll County Department of Social Services should not be seen as a dramatic change but as an extension of current county policy to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.For the past four years, the county Health Department has successfully operated its "Three for Free" condom program, allowing people to obtain free condoms at its Washington Road office.It makes sense for the Department of Social Services to do the same.

Q: My husband is HIV positive, but he has told me that it is safe for us to have intercourse as long as he uses a condom. I would like to believe him, but a friend of mine became infected even though she said that her husband used condoms. How effective are condoms in preventing the spread of HIV infection?A: Totally abstaining from sexual intercourse is, of course, the most certain way to avoid an HIV infection, and this obvious fact is behind the "Just say no!" advice trumpeted to unmarried young people.

The Carroll County Department of Social Services Advisory Board yesterday recommended distributing free condoms at the department's offices in the Barrel House in Westminster.Board members suggested that DSS Director M. Alexander Jones should prepare a formal proposal for state approval.The proposal will be submitted to the state Department of Human Resources, which would have final say and would pay for the program if it is approved."I have struggled with it," said Mr. Jones, who brought the condom issue before the board yesterday.

A female condom program was highly effective in preventing HIV infections, according to a new economic analysis by researchers in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health . The analysis, published in the journal AIDS and Behavior , found the DC Females Condom program, a public-private partnership to provide and promote a type of female condom, prevent enough infections in one year to save more than $8 million in future medical care...

I was amazed and appalled that nowhere in your article on the rise in HIV infection among African-American women do you mention the need to use condoms to prevent the spread of the disease ("Black women in city infected with HIV at higher rate than national average," March 8). The idea that women should ensure their partners have been tested is good, but between the time of the test and intercourse, the individual could have been exposed. The idea of being "particular" about the type of man you date is nice but not safe.

Police in Anne Arundel county arrested an Arizona woman last week for prostitution after they found her in a Linthicum hotel room with condoms and over $1,000 in cash while executing a search warrant. The woman, a 29-year-old from Phoenix, is scheduled to face trial on a charge of prostitution in December. Officers in the county's vice unit searched the hotel on Nov. 18, around 9:30 p.m. after receiving numerous complaints of prostitution taking place at the hotel, according to a statement released by police Monday morning.

It should be one of the most popular spots on the Web. Instead, sex.com's mish-mash of blah links and boring essays (paired with a design our 10-year-old cousin could improve upon), makes it a what-could-have-been wasteland. That could change, though. Cnet.com reports that the site, originally registered by the founder of match.com, will be put up for auction next month as part of a foreclosure (which, apparently, happens even in the Web world). The domain name was reportedly last sold to a company called Escom LLC, which was apparently so troubled that there was a book written about the legal proceedings, "Sex.

Prosecutors dropped human trafficking and prostitution charges Monday against Carlos Silot, who was accused last year of running a brothel that catered to Hispanic men from a rented rowhome in the Patterson Park area. "The evidence was insufficient to proceed with the charges," said Assistant State's Attorney Jennifer McAllister. Silot, who was free on $15,000 bail, could not be reached Monday, nor could his attorney, listed in court records as Assistant Public Defender Arvaham Stone.

Prosecutors dropped human trafficking and prostitution charges Monday against Carlos Silot, who was accused last year of running a brothel that catered to Hispanic men from a rented rowhome in the Patterson Park area. "The evidence was insufficient to proceed with the charges," said Assistant State's Attorney Jennifer McAllister. Silot, who was free on $15,000 bail, could not be reached Monday, nor could his attorney, listed in court records as Assistant Public Defender Arvaham Stone.

It's a paradox worthy of the federal government: Abstinence-only education inhibits the effective promotion of abstinence. It is possible to keep teens abstinent, at least temporarily. More than a dozen programs have been shown, in peer-reviewed studies, to delay teen sex. For example, the Becoming a Responsible Teen program helped low-income African-American teenagers in Mississippi both to delay sex and to have safer sex, and its effects were visible one year later: Only 12 percent of sexually inexperienced participants became sexually active, compared with 31 percent in the comparison group.

Under glowing neon signs, amid strippers, barkers and a nervous parade of humanity, something unprecedented is happening on The Block in Baltimore. It's called public health. Maria Slechter, 22, totes a bag of clean hypodermic needles she provides to dancers and patrons, who turn in used ones. "They're shooting heroin and cocaine, I guarantee they are," says Slechter, wearing a black off-the-shoulder dress that helps her blend into the crowd. She is part of a group of outreach workers who since early May have descended on the region's densest concentration of nude dance clubs.