The new finding was largely an accident. Human infants often test positive after ingesting vaginal secretions during delivery. Researchers suspected that the newborns lacked the stomach acid to kill the virus. But when they placed SIV (the simian AIDS virus) in the mouths of adult monkeys, the animals were easily infected. And the dose required to infect them orally – though far higher than what you’d find in saliva – was 6,000 times lower than the dose required for rectal infection. No one knows how well this applies to humans; few HIV infections have been traced to oral sex alone. But the uncertainty may give the flavored condom a new allure.
