Bush administration censoring information on condoms because of ideology claim activists

Against a background of 45,000 new HIV infections in 2002, US AIDS activists have raised concern that information about condoms and reproductive health is being removed from US government websites because it does not fit in with the “abstinence only” approach favoured by the Bush administration.

In one particular case, information on a website of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) saying that “latex condoms are highly effective in preventing HIV trnamsission” was taken down “for updating” in July 2001 and has still to reappear. Officials at the CDC said the information on condoms was "potentially misleading" as it did not explain that condoms did not always provide protection against sexually transmitted infections, and an updated draft was being “reviewed” at CDC headquarters.

Democrat politician, Henry Waxman, a member of the US Congress for California expressed concern that “ideology and not science” lay behind the decision to remove information, and blamed those who, “want to stop sex education. It appears that those who want to urge abstinence-only as a policy, whether it's effective or not, don't want to suggest that other programs (sic) work, too."

There are also concerns that the National Cancer Institute removed information from its website which said that studies had found no link between abortion and breast cancer after a Republican Congress member, Christopher Smith, wrote to US Health and Human Services Secretary, Tommy Thompson to complain. Democrats and health advocacy groups have accused the Bush administration of caving in to pressure from its socially conservative supporters.

Anxiety that further moves will be taken against HIV prevention agencies has been created by the mid-term election results which gave control of the US congress to Republicans promising a conservative social agenda. As previously reported on aidsmap well established and respected organisations such as the Stop AIDS Project in San Francisco, which work with gay men’s sexual health, have been the subject of CDC investigations for "promoting sex." The UNAIDS report on the global HIV epidemic published yesterday (and reported on aidsmap) found that gay men account for substantial numbers of new HIV infections in many countries, the US included, and highlighted recent surveys suggesting increasing numbers of gay men are having unprotected sex.

Evidence of the effectiveness of past condom based HIV prevention campaigns has recently been published in the journal AIDS. The study suggests that US HIV prevention efforts in the 1980s and 1990s stopped between 200,000 and 1,500,000 additional cases of HIV and had been highly cost effective, saving approximately $11 billion as well as preventing loss of worker productivity and "pain and suffering."

In an unrelated campaign, HIV and development organisations are calling on the US to step up its response to both its own domestic HIV problem and the international epidemic. In particular activists want the Bush administration to spend at least $2.5 billion on international HIV programmes next year and introduce debt relief. Asia Russell of HealthGAP said, “Africa is dying and Asia is next, and here in the US there are more people with AIDS than ever,” adding “President Bush is failing to fund even his meager promises to fight global AIDS.”