What have we learned since the mid-90s about the effects of hormonal contraceptives on HIV in human beings?
A great deal of research on this topic has taken place since the mid-1990s. Some of it has been “lab-based” – that is, it has examined in detail the effects of hormonal contraceptives on particular bodily systems in women in an attempt to establish possible mechanisms through which hormonal contraceptives might affect acquisition and transmission of HIV. Less often, research has been “epidemiological” or “population-based” – that is, it has looked at groups of real people in an attempt to determine if hormonal contraceptive use actually seems to have an effect on HIV transmission in the real world. Although these two types of research often overlap, it can be helpful to discuss them separately, since the first type addresses itself to the question of how hormonal contractive use might plausibly affect HIV transmission, while the latter asks whether or not hormonal contraceptive use is actually having such an effect. Lessons learned from lab-based research: Lab-based human research has
