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New CDC Guidlines
Thank you very much for the heads up, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
twistedchick
Enraged does not do justice to how I feel at this moment. My hands are shaking, my head is pounding, and I am quite literally seeing the world through a haze of red.
Here's the LA Weekly article. And here's the page with the new CDC guidlines.
The long and short of it?
"These new regs require the censoring of any “content” — including “pamphlets, brochures, fliers, curricula,” “audiovisual materials” and “pictorials (for example, posters and similar educational materials using photographs, slides, drawings or paintings),” as well as “advertising” and Web-based info. They require all such “content” to eliminate anything even vaguely “sexually suggestive” or “obscene” — like teaching how to use a condom correctly by putting it on a dildo, or even a cucumber. And they demand that all such materials include information on the “lack of effectiveness of condom use” in preventing the spread of HIV and other STDs — in other words, the Bush administration wants AIDS fighters to tell people: Condoms don’t work. This demented exigency flies in the face of every competent medical body’s judgment that, in the absence of an HIV-preventing vaccine, the condom is the single most effective tool available to protect someone from getting or spreading the AIDS virus.
Moreover, the CDC will now take the decisions on which AIDS-fighting educational materials actually work away from those on the frontlines of the combat against the epidemic, and hand them over to political appointees."
The deadline for public comment on the new rules is August 16. Email your comments to HIVComments@cdc.gov or fax them to 404-639-3125.)
I've already sent my comment in, and am now searching for pen and paper. That, and asked Bear-cub to please tell us when her school covers Sex-Ed, so that the family can fill in the gaps on that front. She's already been told the basics, but I want to make sure that safe sex is something engraved onto her neurons by the time she becomes sexually active.
Anger is a very mild way indeed to describe my current feelings.
twistedchickEnraged does not do justice to how I feel at this moment. My hands are shaking, my head is pounding, and I am quite literally seeing the world through a haze of red.
Here's the LA Weekly article. And here's the page with the new CDC guidlines.
The long and short of it?
"These new regs require the censoring of any “content” — including “pamphlets, brochures, fliers, curricula,” “audiovisual materials” and “pictorials (for example, posters and similar educational materials using photographs, slides, drawings or paintings),” as well as “advertising” and Web-based info. They require all such “content” to eliminate anything even vaguely “sexually suggestive” or “obscene” — like teaching how to use a condom correctly by putting it on a dildo, or even a cucumber. And they demand that all such materials include information on the “lack of effectiveness of condom use” in preventing the spread of HIV and other STDs — in other words, the Bush administration wants AIDS fighters to tell people: Condoms don’t work. This demented exigency flies in the face of every competent medical body’s judgment that, in the absence of an HIV-preventing vaccine, the condom is the single most effective tool available to protect someone from getting or spreading the AIDS virus.
Moreover, the CDC will now take the decisions on which AIDS-fighting educational materials actually work away from those on the frontlines of the combat against the epidemic, and hand them over to political appointees."
The deadline for public comment on the new rules is August 16. Email your comments to HIVComments@cdc.gov or fax them to 404-639-3125.)
I've already sent my comment in, and am now searching for pen and paper. That, and asked Bear-cub to please tell us when her school covers Sex-Ed, so that the family can fill in the gaps on that front. She's already been told the basics, but I want to make sure that safe sex is something engraved onto her neurons by the time she becomes sexually active.
Anger is a very mild way indeed to describe my current feelings.
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A. Written materials (e.g., pamphlets, brochures, curricula,
fliers), audiovisual materials (e.g., motion pictures and videotapes),
pictorials (e.g., posters and similar educational materials using
photographs, slides, drawings, or paintings) and marketing,
advertising, Web site-based HIV/AIDS educational materials,
questionnaires or survey instruments should use terms, descriptors, or
displays necessary for the intended audience to understand dangerous
behaviors and explain practices that eliminate or reduce the risk of
HIV transmission.
B. Written materials, audiovisual materials, pictorials, and
marketing, advertising, Web site-based HIV/AIDS educational materials,
questionnaires or survey instruments should be reviewed by a Program
Review Panel established by State, territorial or local education
agencies, consistent with the provisions of section 2500(b),(c), and
(d) of the Public Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. section 300ee(b), (c),
and (d), as follows:
``SEC. 2500. USE OF FUNDS.
(b) Contents of Programs.--All programs of education and
information receiving funds under this title shall include
information about the harmful effects of promiscuous sexual activity
and intravenous substance abuse, and the benefits of abstaining from
such activities.
(c) Limitation.--None of the funds appropriated to carry out
this title may be used to provide education or information designed
to promote or encourage, directly, homosexual or heterosexual sexual
activity or intravenous substance abuse.
(d) Construction.--Subsection (c) may not be construed to
restrict the ability of an educational program that includes the
information required in subsection (b) to provide accurate
information about various means to reduce an individual's risk of
exposure to, or to transmission of, the etiologic agent for acquired
immune deficiency syndrome, provided that any informational
materials used are not obscene.''
C. Educational sessions should not include activities in which
attendees
[[Page 33828]]
participate in sexually suggestive physical contact or actual sexual
practices.
D. Program Review Panels must ensure that the title of materials
developed and submitted for review reflects the content of the activity
or program.
E. When HIV materials include a discussion of condoms, the
materials must comply with section 317P of the Public Health Service
Act, 42 U.S.C. section 247b-17, which states in pertinent part:
``educational materials * * * that are specifically designed to
address STDs * * * shall contain medically accurate information
regarding the effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of condoms in
preventing the STD the materials are designed to address.''
F. Messages provided to young people in schools and in other
settings should be guided by principles contained in ``Guidelines for
Effect School Health Education to Prevent the Spread of AIDS'' http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/sexualbehaviors/guidelines/guidelines.htm
.
Which says they can't engage in sexual contact or sexually suggestive physical contact... not the same thing at all.
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Just when we thought it couldn't get any stupider.
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AAMOF, I've been discussing several different versions of 'the basics' with her since she was eight. I'm not thrilled that I seem to be the only adult in the household who is comfortable discussing sex with her, but I am happy that I at least am able to do so.