New AIDS Ads Explicitly Urge Use of Condoms

Federal health officials unveiled a new and potentially controversial television and radio AIDS-education campaign Tuesday that for the first time explicitly promotes condom use to reduce the risk of AIDS transmission.

The public service announcements, aimed at young people from 18 to 25, are much franker than previous government-sponsored ads, which have only hinted at condom use and were widely ridiculed as naive and simplistic.

In the dozen years since the epidemic began, an intense national debate has arisen over how best to educate the public about ways to prevent transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Chief among the issues is whether information must be graphic to be effective and whether recommending the use of condoms would send an implicit message sanctioning sexual activity, especially among young people.

AIDS-policy and grass-roots service organizations have long argued that only explicit material could get the critical information across. Conservative groups and the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush believed, however, that the government should only sponsor messages stressing sexual abstinence.

“What we have lacked until now is the political will, because we have been too timid to talk openly about the prevention tools at our disposal,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, who introduced the campaign at a press conference with Kristine M. Gebbie, the Administration’s AIDS policy coordinator, and Dr. David Satcher, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One TV ad, for example, shows the silhouette of a couple about to engage in sex. The camera pulls away from the bed to a chest of drawers where a condom suddenly emerges. It jumps to the floor, moves across the room and scurries up the side of the bed. A voice then says: “It would be nice if latex condoms were automatic. But since they’re not, using them should be.”

Another features a man and woman kissing and giggling. She asks: “Did you bring it?” He replies: “Uh-oh. I forgot it.” She responds: “Then, forget it.” A voice says: “Next time don’t forget it, and every time make it part of the relationship. A latex condom, used consistently and correctly, prevents the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and may save your life.”

While the ads do not actually show how to use a condom, they go further than earlier federally sponsored spots--among them one ad that met with widespread derision for suggesting condom use by showing a young man carefully pulling a sock over his foot.

“We’ve gone beyond the sock,” Gebbie said.

Shalala said that the major broadcast and cable networks had pledged to air the ads. ABC-TV had been scheduled to show one of them Tuesday night in prime time.

A department official said that the broadcast time was donated--the spots are public service announcements--and the ads cost “less than $1 million” to produce.

Although conservative groups have expressed some concern about the ads, the campaign has generally been praised by most AIDS organizations and medical groups, including the mainstream American Medical Assn., religious and community-based organizations.

“Explicit messages, including advice on condom use, are appropriate in prevention material,” said Dr. M. Roy Schwarz, the AMA’s senior vice president for medical education and science. “The AMA encourages broadcasters and health educators to embrace this campaign and those who are sexually active to heed its message.”

Dan Bross, executive director of AIDS Action Council, called the ads “a significant break from the past” and said that he hopes the campaign marks a “fresh start” for the federally sponsored AIDS prevention program.

But Gary Bauer, a White House domestic policy aide during the Reagan Administration and now head of the conservative Family Research Council, questioned the Administration’s motives for pushing the new approach.

“Is there an American who tunes into prime-time TV who hasn’t already gotten the message about condoms?” he said. “I think there is another political agenda here. I think it is more about pushing the envelope on explicitness of sexual matters during prime-time TV than concern about the disease.

“I would urge the CDC to have the courage to be creative in telling Americans that abstinence outside of marriage is the best way to prevent transmission.”

The general secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops/U.S. Catholic Conference decried the ad campaign as “promoting a dangerous myth.”

“The advertisements promote promiscuity and a false sense of security, which put at risk the very lives of those most likely to be influenced by them,” Msgr. Robert N. Lynch said in a statement. “It is irresponsible to present condoms as the answer to the AIDS threat or to suggest that they are a sure safeguard against HIV transmission. . . . Neither is true.”

Lynch said that the public would best be served “by a campaign promoting a responsible attitude toward sexuality as the most serious of human interactions, not a casual recreation.”

While some of the ads do urge young people to abstain from sex, they also recommend that those who are sexually active use latex condoms.

“Young people need to know that the surest way to prevent AIDS is to refrain from having sex, but we also need to be realistic,” Shalala said.

She cited CDC figures showing that 86% of young men and 77% of young women reported having engaged in sexual intercourse by the time they reached 20.

Furthermore, of the 12 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases annually, two-thirds occur in people younger than 25, said CDC Director Satcher.

“These numbers cause great concern because the behaviors that put people at risk for (sexually transmitted diseases) are the same behaviors that put them at risk for HIV,” he said.

Dr. James W. Curran, CDC’s associate director for HIV/AIDS, said that a recent study of couples where one partner was infected and the other was not showed not a single case of infection after two years among 123 couples “who used latex condoms correctly and consistently.”