About Junko Expertise I can answer most questions pertaining to teen health, thought I cannot give medical advice. I can explain medical terminology, describe medical conditions and hopefully help people understand what is going on with their bodies. If I don`t know an answer to a question, being a medical student, I can easily find out the answer since I have many resources I can refer to.
Question Hi ..!
Let me first thank u for ur replies.Well Read this and u will understand why am so confused:-
A programme in San Francisco studied 198 people, nearly all gay or bisexual men. The subjects stated that they had only had oral sex for a year, from six months preceding the six-month study to its end. 20 per cent of the study participants, 39 people, reported performing oral sex on partners they knew to be HIV positive. 35 of those did not use a condom and 16 reported swallowing cum. No-one became HIV positive during the study.
In 2000, a different San Francisco study of gay men who had recently acquired HIV infection found that 7.8 per cent of these infections were attributed to oral sex. However, the results of the study have since been called into question due to the reliability of the participant's data.
In June 2002, a study conducted amongst 135 HIV-negative Spanish heterosexuals, who were in a sexual relationship with a person who was HIV-positive, reported that over 19,000 instances of unprotected oral sex had not lead to any cases of HIV transmission.
In most cases it is seen that oral sex is preety safe.Also one of the HIV experts suggested:-
Hello,
My name is Ben and I run the HIV information service at AVERT. The
personAt the 4th International Oral AIDS Conference held in South Africa, the risk of transmission through oral sex was estimated to be approximately 0.04 per cent per contact.My final word on the topic would be that if you were the recipient and
you
had no obvious cuts or sores in your mouth, and you did not have any
sexual
fluids or blood from someone else in your mouth, then there was no
risk. If
you had some fluids but no cuts or sores, then the risk was virtually
nil.
In this case it is impossible to say 100 percent no.
If you only had one incident of oral sex with someone who you did not
know
the HIV status of, then there really is no need to be as worried about
this
as you are.
*Q1> I dont understand whom to belive ? Some experts say that its risky while others say that its risky only when u have open cuts in the mouth and that the study results prove that unless u have a dental problem u cant get infected.
My gf is hiv positive and I cant decide whether I should give her oral or not.
Plz help.
I know you must be very busy sir but plz...answer this question in detail and provide me with the best correct information you can.
PLZ TAKE all the time you want BUT *PLZ REPLY BACK*.PLZ DONT IGNORE my email.
Anxiously Awaiting your Response,
PAUL.
Email:- sweetkiller21@yahoo.com
PS:-If possible plz mail back to my personal email add given below.Thanks.
***********
Answer -
Hi Paul,
Sorry, I can't reply to you through personal e-mail.
You ask some very good questions about the CDC study. Unfortunately, the people who performed the study you read about haven't published their data so I don't have access to the details of their study. I can only find a summary of what they presented at a conference which is not any more informative than the article you read. So I'm sorry to say that I can't tell you what the oral status was of the 8 people who got infected via oral sex. Since they only specified 3 of the 8 as having oral conditions, the other 5 probably didn't have any significant problems. However, they could have had other infections or other factors that could have contributed to transmission of HIV through oral sex.
To answer your second question, all this study proves is that the risk of HIV transmission via oral sex is higher than it was previously thought to be. The exact mechanism of HIV transmission in this study is still unknown. However, it further supports the fact that you put yourself at risk to get any kind of sexually transmitted infection anytime you exchange bodily fluids with someone else. You still need to practice safe sex with oral sex.
I'm sorry I can't be more informative about this study. Your best bet would probably be to contact the CDC directly to try to get more information. I hope this has been somewhat helpful to you!
-Junko
Answer Hi Paul,
I understand your confusion. This is a very confusing topic! Again, I can't comment specifically on the studies that you mentioned since I don't know the exact details of how the studies were performed, but as you can see, even the experts disagree on what the exact risk of HIV transmission via oral sex is. A big part of the problem is that there are a lot of other factors that contribute to HIV transmission via oral sex that we can't control for since these are human studies, and these other factors can greatly affect the outcome of the various studies.
Regardless of the different statistics, the one consistency is that nobody is going to tell you that you're 100% safe with oral sex. Yes, the risk of getting HIV from oral sex is relatively low, but is that good enough when you're talking about your life? Remember, there have been reported cases of men getting HIV from women after oral sex. The only safe guarantee is abstinence.
However, if you should choose to have oral sex with your girlfriend, you should definitely use some sort of latex barrier protection such as a dental dam or even plastic food wrap. Also keep in mind that the risk of transmission of HIV increases significantly when either you or your girlfriend has any sort of infection (sexual transmitted or not), any open wounds in the areas of exposure, or when your girlfriend is menstruating - basically whenever there is blood exposure.
I hope this helps you with your decision and good luck!
