Word: mucous
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...sexual partner than vice versa. Certainly more women have got the disease from men than men from women: women make up 75% of those who have contracted AIDS through heterosexual intercourse. Researchers have speculated that the virus is more concentrated in semen than in vaginal secretions and that the mucous membranes lining the vagina are especially vulnerable to penetration by the virus...
...that many more men now have the disease. As more women become carriers, he suspects, they will infect their partners. "There is no doubt," says Dr. Margaret Fischl, an AIDS researcher at the University of Miami School of Medicine, "that this virus, when it comes into contact with any mucous membrane, is going to be transmitted." Men and women, she insists, are equally vulnerable...
...tears, almost all AIDS transmission results from contact with the semen or blood of an AIDS victim. In semen, the virus rides as a passenger, probably in the disease-fighting white blood cells in the fluid. During intercourse, the white blood cells containing the AIDS virus alight on the mucous membranes inside the rectum or the vagina. Unlike the skin, which is an efficient barrier to the virus, the mucous membrane is a much thinner tissue and is more susceptible to infection. If microscopic tears occur in the membranes during sexual contact, these may act as passageways for the virus...
Women transmit AIDS to men far less frequently. The CDC says only one- quarter of all U.S. heterosexually acquired AIDS cases are men. A woman's blood or secretions could infect a man during intercourse; the penis also has mucous membranes, but it is probably exposed to less virus. The risk from oral sex appears to be much lower than from either anal or vaginal intercourse...
...autopsy established that Bias had a large, strong heart and was in excellent shape. His mucous membranes were clear, indicating that he was probably not a veteran snorter of cocaine. Dr. Smialek reported that Bias had no more than "an average level of sensitivity" to the drug and avoided attributing the 6.5 mg-per-liter concentration of cocaine in the athlete's bloodstream to an "overdose." "This particular concentration might not kill another individual," the medical examiner said. "On the other hand, another individual could die at a lower level...