Phil Harvey
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Phil Harvey (1938) is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist and libertarian who over the past 30 years has set up large scale programs that deliver subsidized contraceptives in poor countries, has supported freedom of speech issues in the US--all with profits from an American commercial enterprise that sells sex-related products. Harvey is the president of DKT International, the Washington DC based charity which implements 12 programs in 11 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America, and the chief sponsor of the Liberty Project which raises awareness about freedom of speech issues in the US. Harvey is also the president of Adam & Eve, the North Carolina based company that sells dildos, videos, condoms and many other sex products to anyone who is over 18 years and wants to spice up his—and increasingly her—sex life.
Over these years, Harvey has used profits from Adam & Eve to supplement support from international donors to protect millions of poor couples from unwanted pregnancies and HIV infections. During 2006 Harvey’s programs protected 12 million couples.
[edit] Business and non-profit enterprises
Innovation and entrepreneurial acumen mark the work of both Adam & Eve and DKT International. Adam & Eve uses the internet and mail order facilities to run a highly efficient delivery system, making it one of the largest in the world for such products. DKT International uses vast networks of small shops, pharmacies and clinics to sell low priced contraceptives efficiently. Special projects--like with the military in Ethiopia which obliges all soldiers to carry condoms when they leave the base or with local medical practitioners in India who make a small profit selling condoms—ensure the products are very widely available. (In some ways, DKT International’s contribution in Ethiopia is responsible for keeping its HIV-infection rate one of the lowest in Africa - around 5%, as opposed to as high as 40% in other nations).
[edit] How it all started
Harvey's career began in 1969, when, after first serving the United States Army, he joined [1]CARE to participate in their pre-school feeding program in India. There, he concluded that the root of many social problems was a lack of effective family planning; upon returning to America in 1970, he joined forces with physician Tim Black to begin selling condoms via mail-order (in violation of the Comstock Act). Their efforts to expand the range of products offered led to the evolution of the sex products business: in Harvey's own words, "(w)e tried to get our customers to buy leisure wear, shipbuilding kits, belt buckles, model airplanes, but they just yawned at that stuff. Every time we put something with erotic appeal in the catalog, the bells would ring."
They used the profit from their mail-order business to launch Population Services International, which now works in about 70 countries and later DKT International, named for the late D.K. Tyagi, an early pioneer of family planning in India. (Harvey continued to be on the executive board of Population Services International till 2003.)
Hillsborough, North Carolina-based Adam & Eve (which, despite initial community protests, was later voted "Company of the Year" by the Chamber of Commerce) is one of the most successful sellers of mail-order pornography and sex toys in America, and has faced (and been victorious) in multiple obscenity prosecutions under the Reagan administration; similarly, DKT (which, aside from Harvey's participation in both, has no link to Adam & Eve) has faced multiple obstructions from the George W. Bush administration.
