President Bush is ready to name Dr. Tom Coburn, a former Oklahoma congressman, as the new co-director of the AIDS advisory council. This organization develops the administration's primary agenda on how to combat AIDS, and also influences Congress to pass legislation that can drastically change the government's current policy on preventing transmission of the disease. Unfortunately, Coburn is poised to set AIDS policy more than a decade behind by urging unmarried adults to refrain having sex.
Coburn wants to shift focus away from condom use and other preventative measures that he complains have incorrectly occupied the forefront of the government's agenda on AIDS. Where does he want its focus to shift? Although Coburn promises not to let his personal politics affect his role on the council, this assurance holds little water in the face of his congressional record.
On the House floor, Coburn established a hard-line reputation by emphasizing the unrealistic need to create abstinence-only sex-education programs that omit any pertinent information regarding contraceptives. He has accused the government of rejecting the idea of abstinence before marriage, which he advocated last week as "the only thing that's going to work."
Coburn's implication that wedlock is the only solution to prevent the transmission of AIDS underscores the primary flaw in his beliefs: a serious lack of realism. In the real world, marriage is by no means a fail-safe measure guaranteeing a sexual relationship that is free of venereal diseases. People are staying single much longer, often delaying marriage until their late twenties to early thirties - not to mention the fact that marriages don't always last. In effect, Coburn's policy implies that these people should not have sex until they are 30 or more, depending upon when they get married, an unlikely scenario at best.
AIDS is simply too grave a problem, and it can't be fought simply by using outmoded, politically-motivated methods. Instead, Coburn should place the emphasis on monogamy rather than marriage. Encouraging partners to focus on long-term relationships and to become knowledgeable of the relevant aspects of one another's sexual history as well as available contraceptives are the most realistic ways to prevent the spread of AIDS and other STDs.
And it's not just young adults that Coburn's agenda threatens to shut out. The age that teens first engage in sexual activity becomes progressively younger, and they often have the least knowledge about the ways particular STDs are transmitted. While shifting the focus from contraception to abstinence may prevent some teenagers from having sex, it will undoubtedly render others ill-equipped to handle the realities of becoming sexually active and result in a greater rate of STD infection and teen pregnancy, negating any positive value it may have.
Coburn has established credibility as an obstetrician, and integrity while a congressman by sticking to his vow to serve only for three terms. The problem is that his intentions are flawed, unrealistic, and threaten only to increase ignorance about a disease that has killed millions.
Of course, condoms and other contraceptives are not 100 percent effective, but ever since the early '90s, emphasis was placed on educating the public to practice safe sex, and the AIDS rate has since stabilized. But complacency is what makes people all the more susceptible. As long as there is no cure, safe-sex education should not be allowed to diminish.
