Since the Bush administration already uses tax dollars to subsidize public school curricula that teaches kids that HIV can be spread through sweat and tears, I guess it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that the same administration would create a website with bogus information about sexual health. It’s par for the course with this gang.
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.
If we’re the “reality-based community,” I think it’s fair to call the right the “wish-based community.” The administration is filled with officials who really want abstinence to work, so they say it does, whether it’s bolstered by facts or not. They want homosexuality to be a “choice,” so they say it is. They want teens to believe that those “who question their gender or relationships are at increased risk for depression, suicide or other problems,” so it becomes fact. The want to believe that young people will have more sex if they have access to contraception, so they insist it’s true.
With a virtual army of medical and behavioral experts on its payroll, [Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.)] 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.
See what I mean?