Condom Cover-Up

by Jerry Gramckow

They called a meeting for supporters of medically inaccurate sex education and no one showed up. Can’t imagine why. So, next they held a reception for proponents of fear-based sex education. Empty room.

In a July 2002 speech, Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt stated that first on her federation’s five-point agenda for the 21st century is to codify “medically accurate” sexuality education. “We can harness our power to advance our agenda by working together with one vision, one goal, one set of issues, one message spoken by many voices,” Feldt stated.¹

Planned Parenthood has been behind numerous efforts to introduce and pass so-called “medically accurate” sex education bills at the federal level and in many states—in some states where the bills have failed, they have been introduced again and again.

Speaking before the California State Assembly in 1999, Katherine Kneer, CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said, “Despite overwhelming public support for responsible sex education, we continue to find some school districts in California adopting medically inaccurate and fear-based sex education curricula that endanger young people.”²

By labeling their version of sex education “medically accurate” and their opposition’s version inaccurate and “fear based,” Planned Parenthood and friends had captured the strategic high ground in the cultural war of words. After all, what parents would want their kids to learn a fear-based and medically inaccurate form of sex education?

However, with the recent (but long-delayed) government admission that condoms are not effective in preventing the spread of human papillomavirus (HPV),³ the medical accuracy mantra is boomeranging back at the “safe-sex” crowd. Now, the same people and organizations that have regularly rolled out bills and initiatives requiring “medical accuracy” in sex education are demanding that the latest and most accurate condom studies be concealed.

Every year 5.5 million Americans contract HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that can lead to cervical, penile and anal cancer. In fact, several studies have concluded that HPV is the leading (some say only) cause of cervical cancer.

So why do Planned Parenthood and other “safe sex” promoters want to hide these medically accurate facts? Quite simply, because they fear that exposure to the truth about HPV will lead to an erosion of public confidence in condoms—and condom promotion is, after all, the foundation for “safe sex.”

History of the HPV/condom cover-up

When Congressman Tom Coburn (R-OK) introduced the Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Act in 1999, “safe-sex” advocates quickly went on the defensive. Julie Scott, field representative for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) stated, “HPV should not be singled out. Just as you should not single out HIV.”

ACOG continued to encourage condom use for HPV prevention, despite the fact that the National Cancer Institute had concluded, “Condoms are ineffective against HPV….”⁴

In 2000, ACOG boasted it “worked closely with the Senate to ensure that the HPV provisions were not included in the Senate [version of Coburn’s] bill.”⁵

To address the Senate opposition, Rep. Coburn sent a letter to Senator Tom Harkin “clarify[ing] any confusion” about his HPV proposal. Coburn’s letter responded to a CongressDaily article that claimed the provision “requires a warning label on condoms stating that they do not protect against the spread of HPV.” Senator Harkin had called such a label a “sticking point” for the bill. Coburn explained that the bill’s language did not call for a warning label; instead the provision “merely states that the FDA must ensure that the existing condom labels are ‘medically accurate and not misleading.’” Coburn added, “It also directs the CDC to conduct studies to determine the prevalence of HPV and develop HPV prevention and education programs for the public and health care providers.”⁶

On July 31, 2000, Lifestyle condoms claimed in a press release about its new “succulent flavors” condoms that, “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the proper and consistent use of latex condoms is the most effective way to prevent the spread of such diseases as HIV, AIDS and HPV.”⁷ In response to the Lifestyle press release, the Physicians Consortium wrote the following as part of a letter to Ansell Healthcare (parent company of Lifestyle condoms):

Your publicity campaign for LifeStyle condoms has all the appearances of ignoring science for the sake of selling a product. For years the public health community and condom industry have been reluctant to disclose the truth about the inability of condoms to prevent the spread of HPV, and to a lesser degree, chlamydia and herpes genitalis—type 2.
Please send us any documentation from the CDC that supports your public statements. Absent such documentation, we can only consider your promotional activities to be an irresponsible threat to the health of millions of women.⁸

In her reply to the Physicians Consortium, Ansell’s regional director wrote the following: “Our public relations firm prepared the release and mistakenly included HPV among the diseases for which latex condoms provide protection [emphasis added].”⁹

Three days after the letter to the Physicians Consortium, Lifestyle Condoms issued another press release with no direct reference to condoms as being protective against HPV, instead implying that condoms make sex “safe and responsible,” but not openly correcting its error in the previous press release. The Physicians Consortium followed with letters to Ansell and to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) making clear that Lifestyle’s amended press release did nothing to erase the misinformation of the first release.¹⁰

Deborah Wolf, at the FDA’s Office of Compliance Center for Devices and Radiological Health then wrote in a November 17, 2000, letter to Ansell, “Ansell’s second press release does not adequately correct the misinterpretation created by the first press release.”¹¹

In December 2000, the Physicians Consortium filed a Freedom of Information Act Request with the Department of Health and Human Services, calling for “Any and all additional correspondence and guidance provided to said condom manufacturers dealing with issues of implementation, correspondence from condom manufacturers and any and all industry trade groups, and any and all correspondence between federal agencies relating to said guidance.”¹²

In a February 2001 letter to Congressman Coburn, the FDA stated that Ansell/Lifestyle’s removal of the HPV reference from its press release (without directly acknowledging its earlier misstatement) was an “appropriate” revision.

In July of 2001 the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report the agencies had sat on for a year. “Scientific Evidence on Condom Effectiveness for Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Prevention” reported that condoms are approximately 85 percent effective in preventing the spread of HIV and somewhat effective in preventing female-to-male transmission of gonorrhea.

Beyond that, the top public health specialists in the nation concluded in the report that evidence is insufficient to cite condoms as being effective in preventing the spread of any of the other 25 or more STDs. Regarding HPV, “the Panel concluded that there was no epidemiologic evidence that condom use reduced the risk of HPV infection.…”

Even with a Capitol building press conference calling for the resignation of CDC Director Jeffrey P. Koplan, this landmark report got little mainstream media attention.

The silence persists

The CDC released its HPV report (the one saying it cannot recommend condoms as a primary prevention method against HPV transmission) on February 4, 2004. Nearly four weeks later, among major media outlets, only The Washington Times had reported on the CDC finding and its report to Congress.

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