TAX on over-the-counter contraceptives, such as condoms and the morning-after pill, should be abolished in efforts to cut unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, Government advisers said yesterday.

The Independent Advisory Group for Sexual Health and HIV said that VAT on all such contraceptives should be axed in order to promote consistent use.

Some Illinois lawmakers and government officials are criticizing the distribution of free flavored condoms by the state health department, saying the "exotic" condoms hamper efforts to promote abstinence, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday that the government should review federally funded sexual abstinence programs, under fire from Democrats who say they contain false and misleading medical information.

Sex kills all the time, particularly here in Africa. But prudishness can be just as lethal. President Bush is focusing his program against AIDS in Africa on sexual abstinence and marital fidelity, relegating condoms to a distant third. It?s the kind of well-meaning policy that bubbles up out of a White House prayer meeting but that will mean a lot of unnecessary deaths on the ground in Africa.

California assemblyman Paul Koretz last week introduced a bill that would permit nonprofit and public health care organizations to distribute condoms in state prisons to help reduce HIV and sexually transmitted disease transmissions. Condoms are currently permitted only in Los Angeles County and San Francisco County jails in the state.

Last year, when a profound schism erupted between the American scientific community and the Bush administration, a key point of contention concerned the alteration of sexual health information on several government Web sites. A National Cancer Institute fact sheet temporarily suggested the possibility of a link between abortion and breast cancer (scientists say with near unanimity that there isn't one). A statement explaining why educating teens about how to use condoms does not increase sexual activity was deleted from a Centers for Disease Control fact sheet. And so forth.

A California law granting domestic partners nearly identical legal rights as married couples does not conflict with a voter-approved ban on gay marriage, a state appeals court ruled.

California's domestic partner law represents the nation's most sweeping recognition of domestic partner rights short of Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legalized, and Vermont, which recognizes civil unions for gay couples. It grants registered couples virtually every spousal right under state law except the ability to file joint income taxes.

Perhaps the Bush administration has forgotten what it's like to be a teenager. The administration's idea of a good parental-child sex chat is outlined on government Web site 4parents.gov. This site advises parents to emphasize abstinence as the only way for students to completely protect themselves, and also features a questionable chart listing common STDs and the effectiveness of condoms.

Coming soon to a cinema, Laundromat or nail salon near you: free condoms, if city officials get their way. "We can stop the HIV epidemic with the tools that we have today," Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said yesterday. "We know that condoms prevent HIV - let's get them out everywhere."

Roger Yeomas, a football player and honor-roll student at Godby High School, is a study in self-confidence.

Despite a culture steeped in sex, he's comfortable with his choice: It's OK to be a virgin.

"There's peer pressure out there, but there's nothing wrong with what I believe," said Yeomas, 18. "I don't want to be one of these young men running around with children or a sexually transmitted disease."

ISN SECURITY WATCH (05/06/05) - The head of Brazil?s anti-AIDS program, Pedro Chequer, sent a letter to the US government last week declining an offer of US$40 million in AIDS assistance, because the aid was conditional on condemning prostitution.
Prostitution is legal in Brazil and the Brazilian Health Ministry said the clause condemning prostitution had not been part of the original agreement on AIDS assistance, but was added later by the administration of US President George Bush.

Government-funded researchers tested anti-HIV drugs on hundreds of foster children over the past two decades, often without providing them a basic protection afforded in federal law and required by some states, an Associated Press review has found. The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, spanned the country. It was most widespread in the 1990s as foster care agencies sought treatments for their HIV-infected children that weren't yet available in the marketplace. The practice ensured that foster children--mostly poor or minority--received care from world-class researchers at government expense, slowing their rate of death and extending their lives. But it also exposed a vulnerable population to the risks of medical research and drugs that were known to have serious side effects in adults and for which the safety for children was unknown.

When Scott Kellerman, recently appointed by New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg as Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of HIV/AIDS Services (NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene) said recently in the New York Post, "We need to cover this city in latex" ... it was no surprise that Ansell Healthcare was able and willing to meet the challenge.

Building off an almost 30 year history in the Public Health Sector to help promote safer sex, Ansell Healthcare was well positioned to assist Scott Kellerman and the city of New York in their renewed efforts to educate the citizens on the importance of protection against sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. Health advocates say condoms should be given to Tennessee prison inmates to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

But state officials argue they don't see a problem justifying such a need and that the move would actually promote sexual activity.

It is difficult to understand how the Louisiana House of Representatives would eliminate, without discussion or debate, the state's cheapest activity to prevent a terminal and tragic but preventable disease.

But that's what happened when lawmakers adopted an amendment to the state budget offered by Rep. Gary Beard, R-Baton Rouge. It forbids the Office of Public Health from using federal dollars to buy and distribute condoms.

A Chinese company is honoring ex-president Bill Clinton by naming a new line of condoms after him -- along with a companion line of condoms that will be named after his ex-girl-toy, Monica Lewinsky.

According to the NewsMax Internet site, Britain's Sky News reported last week that the Guangzhou Haokian Bio-science company has registered their names as trademarks for the contraceptives.

The Food and Drug Administration is halting all imports of Ansell-brand condoms made at the company's Thailand manufacturing plant after two lots of condoms failed to meet FDA safety standards.

Ansell was barred from exporting condoms from its Thailand plant to the United States on Friday after the products failed to meet rigorous safety standards during a random inspection.

The company subjects its condoms to internal water and electronic tests to ensure their quality, but the US Food & Drug Administration's even stricter examination revealed flaws.

More Massachusetts teenagers who are sexually active are using condoms, according to a state survey released yesterday, 11 years after a landmark court ruling said schools could make them available to students.

The state survey, given to 3,500 teenagers in 51 high schools last year, shows that condom use has increased steadily since the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that schools could hand out condoms without parental consent.

New federal rules designed to get people off the Medicaid rolls and give senior citizens Medicare prescription drug coverage are causing confusion and may make getting medications more difficult for HIV-positive people.

The new rules, known as Medicare Part D, go into effect January 1. People who need the coverage, and their case managers, are scrambling to choose from HMO-like plans before then. Anyone not enrolled in a program by January 1 will be automatically enrolled in one by Medicare, whether or not that program is right for them.

Various speakers and panellists, including Nelson Mandela's wife Graca Machel, who addressed delegates at the 2008 International Public Television (Input) Conference in Johannesburg, have launched a persuasive call to the media worldwide to play a critical role in combating HIV/Aids, which continues to wipe entire communities. "It is clear that with the digital developments the media can help spread a powerful message out there to make a difference," Dali Mpofu, SABC CEO and chairperson of Global Media Aids Initiative (GMAI), said.