In the frantic search for ways to stop the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a gel that women apply to their vaginas before having sex, in order to destroy or disable the virus, sounds one of the most desperate. Yet it is not a foolish idea. Unlike the most reliable form of protection, a condom, it is the woman, not the man, who makes the ultimate choice about whether to use the gel. (So-called fe-midoms, inserted by the woman, have been a dismal failure.) Moreover, such a microbicide, as it is known technically, might simultaneously protect against the virus that causes AIDS, but permit insemination, and thus eliminate objections from both putative parents and some religious authorities to the use of contraceptives to avoid infection.
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