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That's because over the past few years, numerous manufacturers have been caught making counterfeit condoms whose quality is anything but trustworthy.
As the Los Angeles Times reports, Chinese authorities say that up to one-third of all the 2 billion condoms used in China each year may be counterfeit.
Elizabeth Dalziel, AP
Counterfeit condoms are believed to make up one-third of all those on the market in China.
"The quality of the knockoff condoms cannot be guaranteed, and they can easily break," Cheng Feng, director of China's Family Health International, told the Times. "Such condoms definitely cannot play the role of contraception and disease prevention."
In fact, many of the counterfeit condoms themselves were found to spread infectious diseases due to lack of sterilization.
Wrapped in packaging made to resemble that of makers like Trojan, Durex and Rough Rider, the phony condoms have even made it to American shores. Some have been seized by federal officials in stores in New York, Texas and Virginia, the L.A. Times reported.
China has long been a source for the production of an array of bogus goods, such as iPhones, DVDs, liquor, computer software and baby products. In fact, it seems that wherever a successful product appears, its Chinese-made counterfeit equivalent is soon to follow.
The Chinese government says it is cracking down on counterfeiters of all kinds, including those that produce shoddy and even outright dangerous condoms. In November, police in Hunan Province said they raided a factory there that had made 2.16 million unsterilized condoms since last March.
As the London Times reported, employees at the factory were found lubricating them with common vegetable oil before placing them, unsterilized, in their wrapping.
The U.S. and the European Union have estimated that Chinese knockoffs of all products represent an annual loss of $60 billion for Western companies.
"Despite repeated anti-piracy campaigns in China and an increasing number of civil IPR [intellectual property rights] cases in Chinese courts, counterfeiting and piracy remain at unacceptably high levels and continue to cause serious harm to U.S. businesses across many sectors of the economy," said U.S. Trade Representative Paul Kirk in his annual address to Congress in December.
Just as worrisome as the overall piracy question, however, is the fact that the fake condoms, while not providing adequate protection against pregnancy and communicable diseases, could be harmful in and of themselves.
