Further terrifying tales of the Republican Majority
The government is waging a covert war on condoms.
[...] 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.
I believe that Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was — an arctic region covered with ice.
And perhaps George W. Bush can make this country what it once was. A place where teenage girls who can be convinced in the moment, say, that you can't get pregnant if you do it standing up, are dying in back-alley abortions. (Obviously dumbing down sex education and overturning Roe v. Wade are different things... but is anyone going to be surprised when he goes for it?)
(Via MeFi)
Or, given that it was fairly recently that we found out that spermicide condoms were less useful in preventing disease, and given the notorious speed of government work, maybe these documents are actually being revised. <Gasp!>
Posted by Timprov on November 25 2002 13:36
That would be a comforting thought. But I doubt it.
Here's the page in question from June 10, 2001 courtesy of archive.org (a bunch of more recent archive.org hits on the page show it reporting 'temporarily down' — maybe it is the case that the CDC website is just lame.) All it has to say on nonoxynol-9 is:
...which warrants updating in light of current knowledge but it's hardly the case that it renders the page so hopelessly wrong that its presence would do more harm than its absence. It also says:
I'll bet that as of March 1, 2003 either the page is still missing in action, or that its replacement, far from merely updating spermicide info, features a noticeably pro-abstinence and anti-condom-effectiveness change in tone.
Posted by Zed on November 25 2002 14:56
I'll take that bet, actually. I think it's terribly paranoid to believe that the Bush bigwigs have the patience, anal-retentiveness, and in fact the power to cotrol/bother controlling the CDC's web page.
Note: 1, 2, 3, 4 still exist, and I didn't even bother checking beyond the HIV section.
Posted by Timprov on November 25 2002 16:22