For Immediate Release

The 25th annual National Condom Week celebration slated for February 14- 21 seems to be growing bigger every year according to Fred Mayer, R.Ph., M.P.H., President of Pharmacists Planning Service (PPSI) based in San Rafael, California.

The Fifth International Condom International Meeting on Condoms and STD Prevention is scheduled for May 9th at the Crystal City Marriott, Arlington, Virginia featuring some of the nation's foremost health experts. Seminars set for Friday, May 10th will include such topics as "The Other Viral Sexually Transmitted Infections - HIV: What Can We Expect?"; "Condoms and the Prevention of the Other STDs" What are the Facts and What Do They Mean?"; "Condom Design, Production, Quality Control and Related Manufacturing, Commercial and Economic Issues and Poster Symposium and Exhibit".

On Saturday, May 11 seminars will include "Overcoming Individual, Group and Societal Barriers to Condom Use" and "Presentation of Condoms, Spermicides and Lubricants in Pregnancy and STD Prevention". The Conference will be Co-chaired by Penny Hitchcock, former Chief of the "Sexually Transmitted Disease Branch of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases"; Gary Richwald, former Director and Chief Physician of the Los Angeles County, Sexually Transmitted Diseases Program and Barry Bleidt, Director of Post Graduate Professional Education, Associate Professor of Pharmacoeconomics and a founding faculty member of the Hampton University School of Pharmacy, Virginia.

"We are trying to alert the public to the continued need for safe sex," Mayer recently said, "Especially now where Gonorrhea has shown its first increase in 25 years with 133 cases per 100,000 people".

Other shocking statistics include Gonorrhea infection for African Americans at 849 cases per 100,000; Latinos, 75 per 100,000 and whites 28 per 100,000.

The nation's syphilis rate is at 2.5 cases per 100,000 people. In brief, the need for condom awareness is based on staggering health statistics including the fact that the United States has the world's highest rates of curable STDs with 12 million new cases reported annually including over three million teenagers.

The increase with STDs generates an enormous economic cost to society. It is estimated that economic costs of HIV and other STDs totaled approximately $34 billion in 1999.

Consistent and proper condom use is an effective method to prevent unwanted pregnancies, HIV transmission and infection without STDs.

For more information contact:

Pharmacists Planning Service, Inc. (PPSI)
Phone (415) 479-8628
Fax (415)479-8608
e-mail: ppsi@aol.com