Amusing title and a pretty good information piece. I've been hearing a startling amount about various aspects of this issue from various sources for the past month or so... opinions?
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpcoc143002251nov14,0,7803300.column ?coll=ny%2Dviewpoints%2Dheadlines White House Wages Stealth War on Condoms Marie Cocco November 14, 2002 The government is waging a covert war on condoms. The start of hostilities wasn't announced from the Oval Office. Nor was it put to a dramatic vote in the Congress. This is a guerilla war. The insurgents inch forward with determined steadiness, and a certain stealth. A fact sheet on the effectiveness of condoms in preventing the transmission of the AIDS virus has disappeared from the Centers for Disease Control Web site. According to lawmakers who have protested, the missing sheet was based on public health data showing that "latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are highly effective in preventing transmission of HIV" and other sexually transmitted diseases. In its place is a notice: "Being revised." A separate CDC listing of sex-education "Programs that Work," meant to give local officials information on scientifically proven methods of reducing risky teen sexual behavior, also has vanished. The list was created at the request of schools that wanted "credible evidence of effectiveness" as they selected sex-education programs, lawmakers say. President George W. Bush has begun appointing critics of condoms to a presidential advisory panel on AIDS. They include social conservatives who question the international scientific consensus that condoms are highly effective in AIDS prevention. Instead, they emphasize failure rates from slippage, breakage and not using condoms every time. "The only 100 percent effective way to avoid nonmarital pregnancy and STD infection is to avoid sexual activity outside a mutually faithful, lifelong relationship - marriage," says the Texas-based Medical Institute for Sexual Health. The group's founder, Dr. Joe S. McIlhaney, Jr., now sits on the presidential AIDS panel. Asked in an interview if people who aren't monogamous should use condoms, McIlhaney said, "That's very simplistic and has been proven, so far, not to be very effective." Government audits of AIDS activist groups began after protesters disrupted remarks by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson at a conference in Barcelona. Conservatives in Congress now have called for expanding the audits to include such groups as the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, a 38-year-old organization that assists schools and health departments with AIDS and sex-education programs. The conservatives say they are wary that government funds may improperly be used to lobby against the administration's favored abstinence-only programs on teen sex. The groups say their books are open. "It's an intimidation tactic," said Tamara Kreinin, president of the sexuality information group. Abstinence-only programs, which promote sexual abstinence and do not provide information on contraception or AIDS prevention, are the administration's pet projects, slated for more and more funding every year. So far, studies on their effectiveness are incomplete or inconclusive. "There is no documentation of success with this material," said Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), a former school nurse who has run programs for pregnant teens and adolescent parents. Last spring, Capps tried to get the House Commerce Committee to agree that the government should fund only "medically and scientifically accurate" sex-ed programs. She failed, by a committee vote of 31-19, that mostly broke on party lines. The congressional preference, apparently, is for the medically and scientifically inaccurate. HHS officials did not return several phone calls seeking comment. White House spokesman Scott McClellan would not answer when asked if the president believes using condoms prevents transmission of the AIDS virus. He refused to say whether the president thinks public health officials should promote their use. "When it comes to combating HIV, we ought to be funding programs that work," McClellan said. In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when no one dared speak of what was then unspeakable, activist groups coined a phrase: Silence equals death. Two decades later, our own government has embarked on a campaign that begs for its own slogan: Disinformation is deadly. Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc. ---- "Wakey, wakey. I'm here with your weather report for the evening. I see rain, lightning, thunder, and your head nailed to that wall over there if you don't tell me what my friend and I need to know." -- Marcus, Babylon 5 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
