Dec 05, 2003  |  By: JOE CREA  | COMMENTS     

In a new effort to battle D.C.’s AIDS crisis, District health officials announced on Monday a plan to install 50 condom dispensers in government buildings, including the departments of motor vehicles, public works and human services.

“This is a real victory for prevention here in the District but at the same time I wish it had happened sooner,” said Wayne Turner, a spokesperson for the AIDS activist group ACT-UP DC. “Suddenly, D.C. has discovered that condoms work.”

City officials made the announcement on World AIDS Day and said the condoms are intended for the public and will be available in restrooms in government buildings. The city expects to distribute about 50,000 condoms annually through the new program.

“We are going to points of service with this plan,” said Ivan O. Torres, interim director of the city’s HIV/AIDS Administration at the D.C. Department of Health. “If you go to a bar, we are trying to reach you. But if you go get your license renewed, we are trying to reach you there too.”

Torres noted that in the past two decades, AIDS has claimed the lives of more than 12,000 in the Washington region, which includes 20 counties in Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia. And roughly 13,000 people in the region have AIDS, including 8,000 District residents. An estimated 14,000 District residents are believed to be infected with HIV.

Turner, who pitched a similar condom distribution proposal years ago, expressed hesitation with the plan since the condom machines would not include water-based lubricants.

“That is a concern to me,” Turner said. “You can only use a condom with a water-based lubricant. We [gays] access the same government services and the bars that everyone else does. I certainly hope it doesn’t take five or 10 years for the health department to come up with a strategy for that.”

Torres said that the proposed machines are not prepared to distribute lubricants and added that when one is faced with a choice of no condom or a condom without a lubricant, he would choose the latter. He also noted that the department distributes about 500,000 condoms in D.C. every year; most are handed out in bars with a lubricant and information about where to go for an HIV test.

Torres said there are currently 12 condom machines in the District located at gay venues such as Secrets, Ziegfeld’s and the Fireplace.

Torres added that two free condoms cost the health department a penny. He said within the next 12 months, the administration plans to distribute 550,000 male condoms, 45,000 latex dental dams and about 30,000 female condoms.

Condom distribution in the D.C. Metro area is not a new phenomenon. About 50,000 condoms are distributed annually in the city’s public school system through school nurses and condom machines can also be found at the Income Maintenance Administration, according to Ronald King, director of Prevention & Intervention Services at HAA.

Torres said that he has not faced criticism for the health department’s decision. He said that condoms “are not for everyone” and that the District has a policy in place called “abstinence plus.”

“You can be abstinent, and that’s great. It’s the safest way to keep HIV away,” Torres said. “But, if you decide to have sex, these are the options and that’s why our plan is called “abstinence plus.”