{"id":4189,"date":"2003-04-30T11:34:08","date_gmt":"2003-04-30T11:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4189"},"modified":"2003-04-30T11:34:08","modified_gmt":"2003-04-30T11:34:08","slug":"medical-information-on-federal-websites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4189","title":{"rendered":"medical information on federal websites"},"content":{"rendered":"

My blog <\/b>is listed as "exemplary" on the blog<\/p>\n

of Dr. John Gøtze<\/a>, a Danish guy. At the risk of appearing to<\/p>\n

logroll, I would heartily endorse "Gotzeblogged" (as he calls<\/p>\n

his blog) for providing relatively technical (yet accessible) information<\/p>\n

relevant to e-democracy and e-government.<\/p>\n

There has been a lot of controversy about specific cases in which medical<\/p>\n

information was changed on government websites,<\/b> allegedly because<\/p>\n

of the political or moral biases of the incumbent administration. I have<\/p>\n

some thoughts about what to do about this problem—if it is a problem.<\/p>\n

For now, here are the relevant facts, as far as I can tell:<\/p>\n

\n

In 2002, various agencies of the United States Government removed information<\/p>\n

about condom use and abortion from their Websites, allegedly because<\/p>\n

elected politicians favored sexual abstinence before marriage and opposed<\/p>\n

abortion on moral or religious grounds. The National Cancer Institute<\/p>\n

(NCI) had posted information denying a link between abortion and breast<\/p>\n

cancer, but Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) objected, calling this denial "scientifically<\/p>\n

inaccurate and misleading to the public." The NCI Website was then<\/p>\n

changed to say (for a time) that the evidence was "inconclusive,"<\/p>\n

until a scientific review panel required the Website to reinstate its<\/p>\n

original language. Likewise, the Website of the Center<\/p>\n

for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a> removed its positive assessment<\/p>\n

of condoms’ role in preventing the transmission of disease and removed<\/p>\n

citations of evidence showing that education about condoms did not lead<\/p>\n

to earlier or more sexual activity. After the removal of these statements<\/p>\n

was criticized, some similar material reappeared online with the following<\/p>\n

text added in bold: "The surest way to avoid transmission of sexually<\/p>\n

transmitted diseases is to abstain from sexual intercourse, or to be<\/p>\n

in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has<\/p>\n

been tested and you know is uninfected." <\/p>\n

This last sentence is literally true. However, critics disagree with<\/p>\n

the strategy and motives that they see lying behind such statements.<\/p>\n

Participants in this controversy divide into two camps. Some believe<\/p>\n

that it is the responsibility of public health professionals to reduce<\/p>\n

the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, especially HIV\/AIDS. Private,<\/p>\n

voluntary behavior that does not transmit such diseases—or otherwise<\/p>\n

increase morbidity and mortality—is not the business of medicine.<\/p>\n

For this group, it seems best to advocate condom-use aggressively. Universal<\/p>\n

condom-use is a more realistic goal than universal abstinence, and condoms<\/p>\n

generally prevent the spread of disease. Caveats about the effectiveness<\/p>\n

of condoms, like the one in bold on the revised website, may have the<\/p>\n

effect of discouraging condom use. As Representative Waxman wrote in<\/p>\n

an official complaint, the website was "carefully edited to deny<\/p>\n

the public important information about the role condoms play in reducing<\/p>\n

sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies." <\/p>\n

Another group, however, believes that there are two<\/i> evils to<\/p>\n

be minimized: (1) the transmission of dangerous disease, and (2) pre-<\/p>\n

or extra-marital sex, which is bad in itself. Ed Vitagliano, who represents<\/p>\n

the conservative American Family Association, said, "Science shows<\/p>\n

that condoms are not 100 percent effective, and offer no protection<\/p>\n

for certain sexually transmitted diseases like the human papilloma virus<\/p>\n

and to a lesser extent chlamydia and herpes …. We fall on the side<\/p>\n

of safety, encouraging children to wait until marriage, not only<\/p>\n

for moral reasons<\/i>, but also for scientific reasons" (emphasis<\/p>\n

added). For this group, it makes sense to advocate abstinence, since<\/p>\n

this is a good in itself as well as a means to avoid spreading various<\/p>\n

diseases. Wholehearted, public advocacy of condom-use may strike such<\/p>\n

people as tacit support for non-marital sex. They disliked the website<\/p>\n

that was written under the Clinton Administration, seeing it as morally<\/p>\n

biased in favor of promiscuity. The other side in the debate, however,<\/p>\n

saw the revised text as morally biased in the opposite direction, and<\/p>\n

the conflict led to the current text, which still offends some observers.<\/p>\n

Sources: Robert B. Bluey "HHS Defends Its Advice<\/p>\n

About Condoms, Abortion," www.cnsnews.com, December 27, 2002; Adam<\/p>\n

Clymer, "Critics Say Government Deleted Sexual Material From Web<\/p>\n

Sites to Push Abstinence," The New York Times, November 26, 2002,<\/p>\n

p. A18; Lawrence M. Krauss, "The Citizen-Scientist’s Obligation<\/p>\n

to Stand Up for Standards," The New York Times, April 22, 2003,<\/p>\n

p. D3; Adam Clymer, "U.S. Revises Sex Information, and Fight Goes<\/p>\n

On," The New York Times, December 27, 2002, p. A15.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My blog is listed as "exemplary" on the blog of Dr. John Gøtze, a Danish guy. At the risk of appearing to logroll, I would heartily endorse "Gotzeblogged" (as he calls his blog) for providing relatively technical (yet accessible) information relevant to e-democracy and e-government. There has been a lot of controversy about specific cases […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet-and-public-issues"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}