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July
11, 2005
We’ve all seen
it. The television commercial where a magic pill is sold, the cure to
some terrible medical problem. The lady smiles. The man takes her
hand gingerly. The sun sets, leaving a warm glow in the air just as
the announcer lowers his voice. As an afterthought, he remembers to
tell us, “Valipuck may cause drowsiness, nausea, limping,
coughing, gagging, financial ruin, blindness, skin rot or death.
Consult your physician.”
Magazines are
luckier. They have the whole back page of Valipuck’s ad to
describe in the smallest font possible why the medicine they are
selling to cure you could possibly leave you worse off than you were.
This is the age
of medical liability, where undisclosed side effects of drugs can
include financial ruin for drug companies. One gets the feeling they
are rushing to make the list of terrible possibilities longer than a
person has time to read…just so you won’t.
There is only
one serious exception to the “tell them everything” rule used by drug
companies. Without any compromising “fine print” disclosures, condoms
are pushed on us from every possible angle, promising us unqualified
“protection” from every consequence of sexual promiscuity.
On June 1, NBC
and WB networks announced they would be running a series of four
commercials “touting the importance of condom use in the prevention of
HIV and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).” Their message is the
all-encompassing promise we have come to expect from condom pushers,
“Other than abstinence there is only one way to protect yourself. Use
a condom every time.”
Jim Daniels,
vice president of marketing for Trojan, assures us his “respectful and
tasteful” ads will get out an “important health message.” So, Jim,
what about the fine print? What about the medically accurate truth
about condoms?
One month after
Jim’s tasteful ads, the Kaiser Family Foundation filled out the
missing information on condoms. “According to a 2004 World Health
Organization bulletin and a 2001 NIH report, individual studies have
demonstrated that condom use reduces the risk of infection for:
-
Gonorrhea by
39% to 62% in women and 49% to 75% in men;
-
Chlamydia by
29% to 90% in women and 33% in men;
-
Genital herpes
by 30% to 92% in women and less in men, though no numbers were
given;
-
Trichomoniasis
by 30% in women and significantly less in men, though no numbers
were given;
-
Syphillis by
40% to 60% in both sexes;
-
Pelvic
inflammatory disease by 55%; and
-
Genital ulcers
by 18% to 23% in both sexes.”
Wow! With odds
like these, who needs enemies? Any way you slice it, the flip side of
these numbers is clear evidence of the serious risk for contracting
life-changing diseases even when using a condom. And this is even
before disclosing that there is no evidence that condoms prevent
infection by human papillomavirus, the cause of over 97% of cervical
cancer cases.
Giving teens a
choice between abstinence and condoms is like giving a five-year-old a
choice between a pea shooter and a six-shooter loaded with four live
bullets.
Jim, speaking
for Trojan, tells his potential customers that they have two choices,
abstinence or condoms. He lays the two options out in either/or
fashion as “protection”.
But there is
only one way for Jim…or anyone…to promote condoms as “protection” in
the same sentence with abstinence. Just shut the door and push the
medically accurate facts under the carpet, behind the wall, and into
the round filing cabinet.
While drug
companies heap their medically accurate facts on us, it will take an
act of Congress to get the same disclosure on condoms…literally an act
of Congress. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) is one of many who are
insisting that condom packaging labels be revised to tell the full
truth about condoms and their failure to provide the level of
“protection” promised by advertisers.
Meanwhile,
opponents to this labeling change are running full speed away from
full disclosure, saying it “might undermine the public’s confidence in
condoms.” If we weren’t in the midst of an epidemic of STDs we might
be laughing at a surprising irony: for the most part, opponents to
medically accurate information on condoms are the same people who
support laws requiring medically accurate information in sex
education.
Any way you add
it up, this is a formula for selling the people a lie. It has worked
for thirty years, but it won’t work forever. Eventually, truth always
comes to light. Just ask the makers of the Pinto and cigarette
industry CEOs. Truth is only one class action lawsuit away from the
surface.
Securing
medically accurate information on condoms is not a battle for the
coward. In Congress, in classrooms, and in the courts…we are in debt
to those who have the courage to lead the fight. Thanks to them, no
matter what it takes to make it happen, the truth about condoms is on
its way.
February 14, 2005
All the Condoms in the World
April 30, 2004
Condoms: A Failure to Protect
See Archives
for past editorials.
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