Panel Finds Misinformation in White House Web Site on Teenagers
Negative Messages About Gays, Sex, Single Parents Criticized, as Well as
Lack of Information on Alcohol

By Ceci Connolly

http://tinyurl.com/9dhab

A government Web site intended to help parents and teenagers make "smart
choices about their health and future" includes inaccurate or misleading
information that may alienate some families or prompt riskier behavior,
according to a team of medical experts who reviewed the material.

Three physicians and a child psychologist analyzed the Bush
administration's 4Parents.gov Web site and concluded it made many
incorrect assertions about condoms, sexual orientation, single-parent
households and the dangers of oral sex.

They also found omissions of information that could go a long way toward
raising healthy young adults, such as warning against the dangers of
drinking alcohol.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a frequent administration critic who
solicited the analyses, said the site is the latest example of "the
distortion of scientific information" in favor of a conservative
ideology focused predominantly on promoting abstinence-until-marriage
programs.

"A federally-funded website should present the facts as they are, not as
you might wish them to be," Waxman wrote to Health and Human Services
Secretary Mike Leavitt. "It is wrong -- and ultimately self-defeating --
to sacrifice scientific accuracy in an effort to frighten teens and
their parents."

Laurence Steinberg, a child psychologist at Temple University in
Philadelphia and author of "The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting,"
complimented the site's information on eating disorders and some other
topics. But Steinberg, one of the reviewers, said he was disturbed by
negative messages about gays and single parents, and alarmed that the
material was virtually silent on the dangers of drinking alcohol.

"If your concern really is to provide parents with information they can
use to help raise healthy teenagers, there is a whole list of topics
that need to be covered," he said. "Risky sexual behavior is just one of
them, and frankly it's not even the most important one."

With a virtual army of medical and behavioral experts on its payroll,
Waxman questioned why the Department of Health and Human Services paid
the National Physicians Center for Family Resources $46,000 to develop
the site. The group, which bills itself as a nonprofit focused on child
welfare, is known for promoting a study by board member Joel Brind
suggesting a link between abortion and breast cancer, assertions the
administration first embraced but later withdrew from its Web sites.

In an e-mail, HHS spokesman Daniel Morales said officials had not
reviewed Waxman's letter. The administration often hires outside
contractors to design Web sites, he added.

"The purpose of the Web site is to equip parents with the resources they
need to talk to their youth about sex and relationships; encourage their
teens to remain abstinent from unhealthy risk behaviors; and to take an
active role in the sexual health of their teens," he said.

John Whiffen, an orthopedic surgeon and chairman of the physicians
center, said he is open to suggested changes and plans to add more
information to the site, on alcohol and tobacco use, for example.

But he vigorously defended the site's emphasis on abstinence-only
education and the failure rates of various contraceptives.

"The majority of parents in the United States would prefer their
children don't have sex in high school," he said. "In the areas of sex
before marriage, there is a great deal of misinformation out there and a
great deal of misunderstanding."

John Santelli, a physician at Columbia University and a former division
chief at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, agreed there
are problems of misinformation in the field of sexual health. But
Santelli, one of the specialists who reviewed the site, pointed the
finger at 4Parents.gov.

Contrary to statements on the Web site, "there is little evidence that
oral sex has increased over time or that this behavior has become
widespread among 12 and 13 year olds," he wrote. And he complained that
the Web site's approach is based on the fallacy "that young people . . .
engage in sexual intercourse because they have access to condoms."

---
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Panel Finds Misinformation in White House Web Site on Teenagers
Negative Messages About Gays, Sex, Single Parents Criticized, as Well as
Lack of Information on Alcohol

By Ceci Connolly

http://tinyurl.com/9dhab

A government Web site intended to help parents and teenagers make "smart
choices about their health and future" includes inaccurate or misleading
information that may alienate some families or prompt riskier behavior,
according to a team of medical experts who reviewed the material.

Panel Finds Misinformation in White House Web Site on Teenagers
Negative Messages About Gays, Sex, Single Parents Criticized, as Well as
Lack of Information on Alcohol

By Ceci Connolly

http://tinyurl.com/9dhab

A government Web site intended to help parents and teenagers make "smart
choices about their health and future" includes inaccurate or misleading
information that may alienate some families or prompt riskier behavior,
according to a team of medical experts who reviewed the material.

Three physicians and a child psychologist analyzed the Bush
administration's 4Parents.gov Web site and concluded it made many
incorrect assertions about condoms, sexual orientation, single-parent
households and the dangers of oral sex.

They also found omissions of information that could go a long way toward
raising healthy young adults, such as warning against the dangers of
drinking alcohol.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a frequent administration critic who
solicited the analyses, said the site is the latest example of "the
distortion of scientific information" in favor of a conservative
ideology focused predominantly on promoting abstinence-until-marriage
programs.

"A federally-funded website should present the facts as they are, not as
you might wish them to be," Waxman wrote to Health and Human Services
Secretary Mike Leavitt. "It is wrong -- and ultimately self-defeating --
to sacrifice scientific accuracy in an effort to frighten teens and
their parents."

Laurence Steinberg, a child psychologist at Temple University in
Philadelphia and author of "The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting,"
complimented the site's information on eating disorders and some other
topics. But Steinberg, one of the reviewers, said he was disturbed by
negative messages about gays and single parents, and alarmed that the
material was virtually silent on the dangers of drinking alcohol.

"If your concern really is to provide parents with information they can
use to help raise healthy teenagers, there is a whole list of topics
that need to be covered," he said. "Risky sexual behavior is just one of
them, and frankly it's not even the most important one."

With a virtual army of medical and behavioral experts on its payroll,
Waxman questioned why the Department of Health and Human Services paid
the National Physicians Center for Family Resources $46,000 to develop
the site. The group, which bills itself as a nonprofit focused on child
welfare, is known for promoting a study by board member Joel Brind
suggesting a link between abortion and breast cancer, assertions the
administration first embraced but later withdrew from its Web sites.

In an e-mail, HHS spokesman Daniel Morales said officials had not
reviewed Waxman's letter. The administration often hires outside
contractors to design Web sites, he added.

"The purpose of the Web site is to equip parents with the resources they
need to talk to their youth about sex and relationships; encourage their
teens to remain abstinent from unhealthy risk behaviors; and to take an
active role in the sexual health of their teens," he said.

John Whiffen, an orthopedic surgeon and chairman of the physicians
center, said he is open to suggested changes and plans to add more
information to the site, on alcohol and tobacco use, for example.

But he vigorously defended the site's emphasis on abstinence-only
education and the failure rates of various contraceptives.

"The majority of parents in the United States would prefer their
children don't have sex in high school," he said. "In the areas of sex
before marriage, there is a great deal of misinformation out there and a
great deal of misunderstanding."

John Santelli, a physician at Columbia University and a former division
chief at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, agreed there
are problems of misinformation in the field of sexual health. But
Santelli, one of the specialists who reviewed the site, pointed the
finger at 4Parents.gov.

Contrary to statements on the Web site, "there is little evidence that
oral sex has increased over time or that this behavior has become
widespread among 12 and 13 year olds," he wrote. And he complained that
the Web site's approach is based on the fallacy "that young people . . .
engage in sexual intercourse because they have access to condoms."

---
http://www.ElmerFudd.US/ http://www.notserver.com/
http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
http://www.rightard.org/ http://www.thedarkwind.org/