Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1990. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Sunday, OCT 07 1990
The researchers looked at 82 men who tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Of the 82 -- all of them part of three continuing studies in the San Francisco Bay area -- 17 percent reported they engaged in oral sex and no other behavior that carries a high risk of catching AIDS.
"Oral sex was not implicated as a major risk factor in previous studies," one of the primary researchers, Warren Winkelstein, said Friday. "What this study does is show pretty clearly that it is a strong risk factor.
"We've always pointed out that oral sex was a potential risk. Now, we've confirmed it," added Winkelstein, professor of epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Public Health.
Kent Taylor, spokesman for the federal Centers for Disease Control, called the findings "very interesting. This is obviously a very difficult topic to research."
Epidemiologist Michael Samuel, who presented the analysis last week at the American Public Health Association annual meeting in New York City, said the men analyzed became infected between 1984 and 1990.
More than half of the 82 men engaged in receptive and insertive anal intercourse and receptive and insertive oral sex, according to the study.
Thirty-four percent didn't engage in receptive anal intercourse -- which is known to carry a high risk of AIDS transmission -- but did participate in at least one of the other three behaviors. And 17 percent of the infected men reported only oral intercourse, either receptive or insertive.
Samuel said that the infection risk also was elevated with the use of a douche or enema before anal intercourse, countering a belief by some that such actions might decrease a chance of HIV infection.
The new findings do not address the risks of oral sex between men and women. They also do not indicate how the AIDS virus was transmitted during the oral sex, or to what extent condoms or any other protective measures could have prevented infection.
The San Francisco Health Department reported the first two documented cases in which men became infected with the AIDS virus through oral sex on Oct. 1, 1989.
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