Extra, Extra: STDs in the Media!

Alrighty, after searching though many, many videos I settled upon the video for my discussion on STDs in the media: South Park Season 5 Episode 7: Proper Condom Use.  

(This video contains strong language and other TV-MA situations and very explicit imagery, so be forewarned)

http://www.southparkzone.com/episodes/507/Proper-Condom-Use.html

Anyway, I'm not trying to be overly vulgar or immature in my selection of this particular video for this assignment; I genuinely believe that some of views it presents are valid and given South Park's large teenage/twenty-something audience, its views are a reasonable topic for discussion.

M'kay, through a series of rather disturbing events involving some borderline bestiality, the boys of South Park are found to be lacking in sexual education and after their parents awkwardly try and fail to explain things they decide that the schools should be the ones to teach their children.  Some of the teachers are unhappy with the decision claiming the children are too young at age 8-9, but proceed anyway.  

The clueless teachers resort to scare tactics to indoctrinate the children to use condoms.  After the students express interest in learning sex ed, the teacher retorts, "Fun?  You think this will be fun?  Well let's start with our first lesson shall we?  'Sexually transmitted diseases.'  Because unless you get boys to use condoms you can, and WILL, get an STD from them! [...] Gonorrhea, chylamidia, syphilis, HPV, HIV, Hepatitis B, C, the list goes on.  You think that sex is about fun and games and love?  WRONG!  Sex is about disease!"  After putting the fear of sex into the girls, they get hysterical and avoid the boys at all cost because they boys aren't wearing condoms at all times.  The boys then set out to buy some "Spartan minis" condoms to keep themselves safe from HIV and "studzes" (STDs). 

Things rapidly get out of hand with sex ed soon being taught to the kindergardeners and the boys and girls of the 4th grade having a "Road Warrior" style battle at the end to kill one another and prevent being infected by STDs.  The parents show up and things cool down and the part of the show where everyone learns their lesson commences.  The children realize that STDs can only be contracted from sexual contact and the teachers admonish the parents for not teaching sex to their children themselves: "Sex isn't something that should be taught in text books and diagrams.  Sex is emotional and spiritual; it needs to be taught by family."  

The video does use false information and scare tactics, but uses them satirically to drive home the point that many school sexual education programs resort to scare tactics to cause teens to fear sex and prevent them from having it all together and that many teachers are sometimes not properly educated on the subject of STDs.  The video also used the Kindergardeners to point out that sex education should be taught at an appropriate age saying that kids should be allowed to be kids for a while.  

I generally agree with these points.  Like with what children watch on TV or play in their video games, the parents should be the people primarily responsible for monitoring their children and teaching them the sensitive subject of sex.  School sex ed programs, while they can be useful and present good material, are there for when the parents screw up and the state has to parent their children for them.  A teacher at school should not be the first place a child learns sexual education.  

The media plays a huge role in teaching kids about sex and STDs.  A lot of children will give almost unblinking devotion to the television and conversely, barely keep their eyes open at school.  The problem is that because much of television and movies are fiction, it is hard to get a straight answer on sexual issues.  Some programs might give the honest truth about STDs others may stigmatize them.  Ideally, you hope for the former, but that just isn't going to happen all of the time.  Teens need to be taught proper sexual education at an early enough age so they can make informed decisions.  

A Heartfelt if Somewhat Belated Apology

http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/clintonp.htm

For this week's blog we were assigned to read an article from the CDC which was a transcript of President Clinton's apology to the men of the Tuskegee syphilis study.  

For those of you who don't know (and if you're reading this you probably should by now) the Tuskegee syphilis study was an experiment carried out on Black men from Macon County, Georgia who were previously infected with syphilis.  Initially when the study began in 1932, the plan was to test 5 counties for syphilis, catalogue the symptoms and treat the disease with the methods available at the time, which were quite toxic and not completely effective.  However, the project ran into budgetary problems and was altered.  Instead of treating the men, which would be to expensive, researchers would follow the untreated patients around, observe the progress and symptoms of the disease and when "endpoint" had been reached, perform an autopsy.  Almost 400 Black men infected with syphilis became guinea pigs for the 40 years the experiment lasted.  They were purposefully denied treatment, even when an inexpensive and very effective one in the form of penicillin became available in the late 1940s.  Furthermore, the men were often subjected to painful tests, such as spinal taps,  to investigate the progression of the disease.   

However, most find the most horrific aspect of this experiment to be the profound lack of ethics and basic human rights; the men were not even informed of the experiment being performed on them or even that they had syphilis.  The doctors completely abused the trust of the patients and lied to them, their families, and their community.  The men were simply told they had "bad blood" and allowed to carry on their lives while the disease progressed and while they could pass on the disease to their spouses.  

In the end, 28 men died of syphilis, another 100 died of complications due to the disease and many passed it on to their wives.  The study was finally brought to a screeching halt in 1972 when a reporter leaked the story to the press and national outrage ensued.

Flash forward 26 years and here we have the apology by President Clinton (why did it take 26 years?  Who knows, but things like this shouldn't fall out of public view so quickly after they happen, particularly since their effects are still being felt.)  In his apology from the government, Clinton describes the project and the various grievances that occurred within.  He follows this with a promise to never let such a gross ethical violation occur again and describes a 5 point plan to help America achieve these goals.  Among them he lists strengthening cooperation with local communities to restore trust among African Americans, setting up grants at the Tuskegee school for bioethics programs, and extending the charter of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission to October of 1999.  

I felt that President Clinton's apology was sincere and really wanted to take steps to prevent this from ever happening again.  And while regulations on informed consent and human rights in medical experiments have certainly been improved since the Tuskegee experiment, a sense of mistrust remains among the Black community, even now 36 years after the experiment and 10 years after the apology was issued.  Clearly, more needs to be done to restore trust in the government to these people.

Perhaps now that President Obama has taken office, the African American community can start to place some trust again in their government with comfort that they will not be abused or mislead into any harm.  

Small Pox Bioterrorism And YOU!

Well, I suppose I should get the ball rolling on this blog and talk about the potential use of smallpox as a bio terrorism weapon.  

The podcast gives a brief history of the use of smallpox as a biological weapon when it was used by the British to kill Native Americans with whom they were battling for control of a fort.  They handed the Natives blankets previously used by smallpox victims and, lacking any immunity toward the disease, the Native Americans rapidly succumbed to smallpox and it spread amongst their tribe.  

(This was also the basis of an episode of the hilariously un-politically correct South Park in which Native Americans want to demolish South Park to build a highway to their casino and gave the residents blankets used by Chinese people with SARS after they refused to leave.  The outbreak was resolved when the characters learned the "white people cure" to SARS: Robitussin, Sprite, and Chicken Noodle Soup.)  

More relevant today was the mention that the Soviet Union had been building up vast stores of smallpox during the Cold War.  The idea was that they could put a bunch of dried smallpox, which they had cultured from chicken embryos, into a ballistic missile and fire it at a major U.S. city.  Even more concerning today is the fact that smallpox has been eradicated and vaccines are no longer produced in great quantity and administered.  If such a weapon was used it would likely be very effective as most people would lake immunity to smallpox having never been exposed before and because vaccines most likely could not be produced and administered in great enough quantities before many millions of people are infected and/or killed.  

However, this does make me question a few things.  I assume that since this was during the Cold War, that a smallpox ballistic missile would most likely be a political weapon than a really practical one.  Sure it could be used to hit a city and kill many of it's inhabitants, but like nuclear weapons, this is mainly a deterrent weapon to threaten your enemy with in order to keep the from hitting you first in fear of retaliation.  It just seems like nuclear weapons would do the trick just fine.  I guess that's why you never heard of a biological arms race.

Though since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the main role that a smallpox weapon takes is as an agent of terrorism.  Yeah, it could kill a bunch of people, but if it can also scare the hell out of people without being used, it's a pretty effective weapon.  

Similarly, anthrax could be used as a biological weapon as well.  Due to public heath efforts, anthrax has mostly been eradicated in the developed world and is fairly rare elsewhere.  Since it too is not a major concern of most health care professionals, large quantities of vaccine are not available.  In the event of an attack, most people would probably be vulnerable, unable to get vaccinated in time.  Luckily, treatments are available in the form of antibiotics, but they must be administered quickly.  Again, large quantities may not be available.  

The best course of action if you're really afraid of these weapons would probably be to get vaccinated, otherwise, just try to think happy thoughts.