{"id":4578,"date":"2005-06-30T10:55:46","date_gmt":"2005-06-30T14:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4578.html"},"modified":"2005-06-30T10:55:46","modified_gmt":"2005-06-30T14:55:46","slug":"coburn-wants-warning-labels-on-condoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/coburn-wants-warning-labels-on-condoms\/","title":{"rendered":"Coburn wants warning labels — on condoms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listening to most of the political rhetoric in the Senate, you’d think Dems are solely responsible for blocking qualified Bush nominees for a variety of posts. This conveniently overlooks the fact that Sens. Richard C. Shelby and Jeff Sessions, both Republicans from Alabama, blocked<\/a> confirmation of a top Army official; Trent Lott blocked<\/a> a Senate vote on Bush’s nominee to head a base closing commission; and Sam Brownback is blocking<\/a> a Bush nominee for a diplomatic post in Europe.<\/p>\n

But for the really entertaining Republican obstructionism, look no further than Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn, who’s put a hold on Bush’s choice to be commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. You’ll never guess why<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Coburn spokesman John Hart said the senator’s June 15 hold on Lester Crawford’s nomination as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration is an attempt to encourage Mr. Crawford obey a 2000 law Mr. Coburn sponsored when he was a congressman. It requires the FDA to change condom labels to give more information on their “effectiveness or lack of the effectiveness in preventing STDs.”<\/p>\n

Mr. Hart said FDA officials recently have said they will have a draft of the language soon. FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza said she could not discuss policy issues.<\/p>\n

Currently the FDA requires condom packages to state: “If used properly, latex condoms will help to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV infection (AIDS) and many other sexually transmitted diseases.” Many brands state condoms are highly effective in preventing pregnancy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This message, endorsed by health experts as sound advice, is counter to the far-right’s political agenda, so Coburn wants it changed in order to raise doubts with the public about the effectiveness of condoms.
\n
\nNot surprisingly, the medical and scientific communities are not amused.<\/p>\n

“[Condoms] do not provide 100 percent protection, but for people who are sexually active, they are the best and the only method we have for preventing these diseases,” said Heather Boonstra, a public-policy official with the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group affiliated with Planned Parenthood that researches reproductive health issues.<\/p>\n

Miss Boonstra said that Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, who is a doctor, and the abstinence-promoting Medical Institute for Sexual Health are “manipulating [NIH] data to drive home their own anti-condom, anti-contraceptive message.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Boonstra was referring to a 2001 NIH expert panel, convened at Coburn’s request, which reviewed published studies on contraception. The panel found that condoms cut transmission of AIDS and gonorrhea significantly, in some cases up to 100%, but also found contradictory studies on effectiveness on preventing other sexually-transmitted diseases. Coburn, in turn, is using the NIH report to argue that consumers should be warned about condoms’ alleged shortcomings.<\/p>\n

Amazingly, some suspect Coburn of being overly influenced by a rigid conservative ideology.<\/p>\n

James Trussell, who serves on the board of the Guttmacher Institute and is director of Princeton University’s Office of Population Research, said there is “absolutely incontrovertible evidence” that condoms reduce transmission of the most serious sexually transmitted disease, AIDS.<\/p>\n

“To my mind, everything else is gravy,” Mr. Trussell said. “All of this is ideologically motivated. What they’re really concerned about is people who are not married having sex.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listening to most of the political rhetoric in the Senate, you’d think Dems are solely responsible for blocking qualified Bush nominees for a variety of posts. This conveniently overlooks the fact that Sens. Richard C. Shelby and Jeff Sessions, both Republicans from Alabama, blocked confirmation of a top Army official; Trent Lott blocked a Senate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}