Proponents of comprehensive sex education accused the Bush administration yesterday of waging a widespread campaign of disinformation and intimidation that is hampering AIDS prevention work across the country.

The activists said several government audits, aggressive promotion of abstinence-only programs and a retreat from earlier prevention efforts may put young people and minorities at increased risk of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

"Whenever AIDS educators are repressed and harassed and kept from doing their jobs, the epidemic is the big winner," said Joanne Csete, director of HIV/AIDS programs at Human Rights Watch. "Whenever moral judgmentalism and squeamishness are judged by politicians to be more important than preventing a life-threatening catastrophe, the epidemic is the winner."

The accusations are part of an intensifying debate that is occurring as Congress considers President Bush's request to increase abstinence-only funding to $135 million. Administration officials, while arguing that abstinence is the only guaranteed protection, denied there is any effort to single out liberal organizations that promote "safe sex" through contraceptive use.

"We believe young people across the board should abstain until marriage," said Claude Allen, deputy secretary of health and human services. If that fails, "fidelity is the next-safest protection against contraction of disease," followed by condom use.

In several instances, federal health officials said they are conducting investigations at the behest of lawmakers. The lawmakers have complained about federally funded groups that distribute explicit sexual materials, play down the importance of faith and heckled Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson at an international AIDS conference in Barcelona.

"We are obligated under law to follow through," Allen said.

Thompson has, however, expanded a review of the San Francisco-based Stop AIDS Project to "all department-funded HIV/AIDS activities." He also has authorized a new audit of HIV-related projects at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just months after a $1 million review was completed.

Allen said the review ordered by Thompson focuses more on management performance than any single group receiving federal money. The administration's primary goal, he said, is to find "the best science to resolve and address the issue of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases."

Critics disputed that, pointing to the lack of evidence in support of abstinence-until-marriage programs.

By teaching young people about abstinence and not condoms, federal health officials are "censoring and distorting potentially lifesaving information about how to prevent HIV/AIDS," said Rebecca Schiefler, an HIV/AIDS researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Schiefler recently issued a case study of Texas abstinence programs. She concluded that abstinence-only programs replace "complete, accurate and uncensored health information" with advice that "flies in the face of medical recommendations."

Gregg Consalves, a spokesman for the Gay Men's Health Crisis, said investing heavily in abstinence-only while capping sex education programs runs counter to the expert advice of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine and the CDC. Both institutions have issued reports concluding that a "broad range of options" must be used when tackling teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, he said.

"We don't see how the CDC is going to meet its goal of reducing HIV infections by 50 percent by 2005," he said.

Others complain that HHS is driven more by conservative ideology than science. They noted that the CDC has removed condom information sheets and "Programs That Work" sex education summaries from its Web site.

"The research didn't become less valid; the data wasn't outdated," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, which offers AIDS services to young people in the U.S. and abroad. "What occurred was clearly a political move."

Most nettlesome, he said, is that HHS has refused to investigate abstinence-only programs despite a federal court ruling that found the state of Louisiana had illegally used its federal abstinence money to promote religion.

"In Louisiana, you have abstinence-only grantees violating federal law by crossing the line dividing church and state, and there are no follow-up audits," he said.

One federal auditor scrutinizing the books of a District AIDS group for gay men counseled an employee on the sin of homosexuality, writing relevant Bible passages on her business card, according to internal documents.

"This situation came to our attention and is being handled," said HHS spokesman William Pierce.

About a dozen Republican House members have asked Thompson to investigate Advocates for Youth, Planned Parenthood and Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States for possibly misusing federal money to lobby.

Telephone calls to the CDC and top AIDS advisers at the White House and HHS were not returned yesterday.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

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