Pacific Institute for Women's Health

The New York Times
July 11, 2004

Experts in Sex Field Say Conservatives Interfere With Health and Research

By MIREYA NAVARRO

*Note: Cynthia Gomez, co-director of the Center for Aids Prevention Studies
at the University of California in San Francisco and a member of the Pacific Institute's Board of Directors, is quoted in this article.

For years, Advocates for Youth, a Washington-based
organization devoted to adolescent sexual health, says, it
received government grants without much trouble. Then last
year it was subjected to three federal reviews.

James Wagoner, the president of Advocates for Youth, said
the reviews were prompted by concerns among some members of
Congress that his group was using public funds to lobby
against programs that promoted sexual abstinence before
marriage. Although that was not the case, Mr. Wagoner said,
the government officials made their point.

"For 20 years, it was about health and science, and now we
have a political ideological approach," he said. "Never
have we experienced a climate of intimidation and
censorship as we have today."

Mr. Wagoner is among the professionals in sex-related
fields who have started speaking out against what they say
is growing interference from conservatives in and out of
government with their work in research, education and
disease prevention.

A result, these professionals say, has been reduced
financing for some programs and an overall chilling effect
on the field, with college professors avoiding certain
topics in their human sexuality classes and researchers
steering clear of terms like sex workers in the title of
grant applications for fear of drawing attention to
themselves.

"Programs almost have to hide what they do," said Richard
Parker, a professor at the Mailman School of Public Health
at Columbia University. "We have a major challenge ahead of
ourselves."

Professor Parker is also a co-chairman of the International
Working Group on Sexuality and Social Policy, an
association of researchers and other professionals, which
released a report two weeks ago citing examples of what it
called sex policing under the Bush administration. The
report cited, for example, changes in factual information
about sex education and H.I.V. transmission on government
Web sites as well as questioning by members of Congress
about research grants approved by the National Institutes
of Health.

Conservative members of Congress and groups defend the new
scrutiny, saying some research on sexuality is frivolous
and a waste of taxpayer money.

When Representative Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of
Pennsylvania, wanted to stop the National Institutes of
Health from spending $1.5 million on studies he said were
wasteful and unnecessary, he pointed to what he described
as research on the sexual habits of transgender American
Indians and "people's reaction to being aroused when
they're in different moods."

The spending had been vigorously opposed by the Traditional
Values Coalition, a group that represents churches
primarily. Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the
coalition, said her group's intention was to challenge
research grants that "don't pass the straight-face test."

"There's an arrogance in the scientific community that they
know better than the average American," Ms. Lafferty said.

Mr. Toomey's effort to cancel the grants through
legislation failed in a House vote last July.

Though many professionals in the sexuality field are
reluctant to speak out for fear their government financing
will be affected, some have started denouncing what they
regard as attacks on science and public health.

In May, the American Association of Sex Educators,
Counselors and Therapists called the Bush administration's
increased financing of abstinence-only programs at the
expense of comprehensive sex education a violation of
children's human rights.

"Over 40 percent of 15-year-olds are sexually active and
they're not getting information on how to protect
themselves from pregnancy and diseases," Barnaby B.
Barratt, the association's president, said in an interview.

In June, Nils Daulaire, the president of the Global Health
Council, an international group of health care
professionals, denounced the Bush administration's decision
this year to drop $367,000 in financing for the council's
annual conference, which he said was the first time the
federal government had withheld sponsorship in more than 30
years.

Mr. Daulaire said in a recent speech in Washington, "It's
time to say to those who would stifle debate and dialogue,
and to those in power who would allow them to prevail, Have
you no shame?"

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human
Services, Bill Pierce, said the government pulled the
financing because the council could not demonstrate that
the money would not go to lobbying efforts, which he said
would be an illegal use of federal money.

But Mr. Daulaire said that anti-abortion groups had
objected to the participation of speakers from the
International Planned Parenthood Federation and other
groups that back abortion rights.

Mr. Wagoner, who said there was no reliable evidence that
abstinence-only programs work, said his Advocates for Youth
organization had to cut programs in black colleges and
among gay, lesbian and transgender young people that sought
to prevent H.I.V. infections and other sexually transmitted
diseases and suicides.

Mr. Wagoner's group was not the only one to face new
reviews. Last year, the Center for Aids Prevention Studies
at the University of California in San Francisco was among
four grant applicants for which Republican members of
Congress sought unsuccessfully to rescind financing after
it had already been approved.

One of the center's studies proposed to look at drug use
and other risky behavior among female Asian sex workers at
massage parlors in San Francisco to develop culturally
appropriate efforts to prevent drug abuse and H.I.V.

"We were amazed that there would be an interference with
critical science that's trying to save people's lives,"
said Cynthia A. Gomez, a co-director of the center.

The additional scrutiny is also affecting government
agencies. Last February, a stinging critique of the
administration's use of scientific information by the Union
of Concerned Scientists included a testimonial from
Margaret Scarlett, an epidemiologist who left the federal
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2001 after 15
years with the agency because of what she called "an
unheard-of level of micromanagement in the programmatic and
scientific activities of the C.D.C."

In an interview, Ms. Scarlett, who now works as a private
health consultant in Atlanta, said she was disturbed by the
trends in the agency to promote condoms as ineffective in
preventing disease, to omit information about contraception
on Web sites and to oppose new financing for comprehensive
sex education programs.

But Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the centers, denied any
bias, saying that the agency's decisions were guided by
honesty and ethics. "Scientific integrity is really
important here," Mr. Skinner said.

Several House members who have questioned certain grants,
like Mr. Toomey, Joe Pitts, Republican of Pennsylvania, and
Mark Souder, Republican of Indiana, did not return calls,
with their aides saying the congressmen were too busy to
comment.

Some professionals in the sex field noted that not all the
news was bad. There is still increasing government
financing on sexuality, some said, and access to
information about sex is at an all-time high because of the
Internet. Still, some see long-term damage for the study of
sexuality.

"The next generation of researchers is not going to pick
this topic," Professor Parker of Columbia said. "Students
basically say they're afraid of being a target and not
having the possibility of career advancement if they choose
to go into this area."