Return Of The Contraceptive Sponge

The Today Sponge contraceptive is back on the market, eight years after it disappeared from U.S. drug store shelves.

The return of the sponge is expected to lead to bulk buying — and perhaps more spontaneous romance — among its fiercely loyal users.

Allendale Pharmaceuticals, a start-up business in New Jersey, bought rights to the Today Sponge from the drug company that discontinued it. Allendale began selling it this month through two Canadian Internet sites.

More sponges, priced at the U.S. equivalent of about $2.90 each, will hit the shelves at 4,000 pharmacies, Wal-Marts and other stores across Canada, according to Allendale. The manufacturer is hoping for Food and Drug Administration approval to sell them in U.S. stores within a year.

"I think there's just thousands of people out there waiting for it," said Marisa Dawson, a nurse in Ocoee, Florida, who is awaiting a dozen sponges she paid for in advance last spring.

Roughly 250 million polyurethane Today Sponges were sold from 1983 to 1995.

Originally made by a pharmaceutical giant now called Wyeth, it was taken off the market in 1995 after problems were found at the company's Hammonton factory. The FDA said the sponge's safety and effectiveness were never questioned. Wyeth simply stopped selling it rather than pay to upgrade its plant.

The sponge's disappearance is depicted in a 1995 episode of the television show "Seinfeld." In it, Elaine runs around New York seeking the sponge, her favorite birth control.

She finally locates a whole case at a pharmacy, and stretches the supply by deciding whether a boyfriend is "spongeworthy." She makes her boyfriend scrub his bathroom and pass other tests before she will have sex with him.

The episode was apparently more than a work of imagination: Plenty of real women ran store to store, buying up all they could. Dawson was living in New York City in 1995, and went hunting for sponges.

"I didn't do the `spongeworthy' test, but I was hoarding them," Dawson said.

Since the disappearance of the Today Sponge, two foreign brands have been available over the Internet, but not in U.S. stores. Protectaid, made in Canada, lacks a withdrawal cord, and some women find it difficult to remove; Pharmatex, made in France, costs twice as much as the Today Sponge.

In 1998, Gene Detroyer, Allendale's president and chief executive, and a few partners scraped together money to buy the patents and the complex manufacturing equipment. Detroyer hoped to get the product back on shelves in a couple of years, but tougher new FDA standards for manufacturing and record keeping forced repeated delays.

The first sponges will go mostly to 700 people who pre-ordered — 24 each, on average — as far back as January 2001, and to thousands more who subscribe to The Spongeworthy Watch, an e-mail newsletter from birthcontrol.com, said Barbara Bell, co-owner of the Internet women's products seller.

The sponge helps prevent pregnancy in two ways: It covers the cervix, and it contains a spermicide.

Many women preferred the sponge. It was not messy like creams and foams, was easy to insert and remove, could be kept in a purse or pocket, did not limit sensitivity, could be bought without a prescription and could be inserted well in advance of having sex. Unlike a diaphragm, the sponge does not have to be fitted by a doctor; one size fits all.

But contraceptive sponges do not protect against sexually transmitted diseases and do not prevent pregnancy as well as the pill, which is 99.1 percent to 99.5 percent effective if taken every day.