FC: Bush administration deleted sex ed info from .gov site

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[This is a risk of having the government "do" science or give advice about 
sex education... It politicizes what should be objective, neutral, and very 
important advice. --Declan]

---

> New York Times
>
> November 26, 2002
> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/26/national/26ABST.html
>
> Critics Say Government Deleted Web Site Material to Push Abstinence
> By ADAM CLYMER
>
> WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 - Information on condom use, the relation between
> abortion and breast cancer and ways to reduce sex among teenagers has been
> removed from government Web sites, prompting critics to accuse the
> Department of Health and Human Services of censoring medical information
> in order to promote a philosophy of sexual abstinence.
>
> Over the last year, the department has quietly expunged information on how
> using condoms protects against AIDS, how abortion does not increase the
> risk of breast cancer and how to run programs proven to reduce teenage
> sexual activity. The posting that found no link between abortion and
> breast cancer was removed from the department's Web site last June, after
> Representative Christopher H. Smith, a New Jersey Republican who is
> co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, wrote a letter of protest to
> Secretary Tommy Thompson calling the research cited by the National Cancer
> Institute "scientifically inaccurate and misleading to the public."
>
> The removal of the information has set off protests from other members of
> Congress, mainly Democrats, and has prompted a number of liberal health
> advocacy groups to accuse the department of bowing to pressure from social
> conservatives.
>
> The controversy began drawing attention late last month, when
> Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat, and other members
> of Congress wrote to Mr. Thompson protesting the removal of the material.
> Bill Pierce, the department's deputy assistant secretary for media
> affairs, said that in all three cases the removals were made so that
> material could be rewritten with newer scientific information. He also
> said the decisions to remove material had been made by the Centers for
> Disease Control and Prevention or the National Institutes of Health
> without any urging from the department's headquarters.
[...]




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