December 2004

Letters to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

In August the CDC invited comments on its proposed education initiatives. Elizabethe Payne drafted and signed the letter for NEAC; Bruce Garner sent a personal letter.

To Whom It May Concern at the CDC,

Thank you for the opportunity to express our response to the CDC initiative to remove safe sex education from federally funded AIDS Education programs and to present abstinence-only education in its stead. The National Episcopal AIDS Coalition wishes to state our strong opposition to this initiative by the CDC.

I have been involved in Christian HIV/AIDS Education programs since 1988, and I feel that this initiative is the greatest blow to HIV/AIDS education in the past 20 years of the epidemic.

The Episcopal Church has responded to the HIV/AIDS crisis by repeatedly calling for comprehensive AIDS Education in schools and through public discourse, as well as in the churches, to promote abstinence or monogamy as well as candid and complete instruction regarding disease prevention measures, such as use of condoms in sexual intercourse. The General Convention of the Episcopal Church, our Church’s governing body and the only body that can speak for the whole Church, has spoken to issues of the pandemic at every General Convention since 1988, and has passed a series of resolutions on HIV/AIDS Education addressing both abstinence and disease prevention measures, which are attached below.

AIDS does not ask anything new of us in our walk with Christ, rather it confronts us with becoming more fully the kind of people Christ called us to be in our Baptismal Covenant. In that Covenant, Episcopalians affirm that they will, with God’s help, seek and serve Christ in all persons, love neighbor as self, strive for peace and justice on earth, and respect the dignity of every human being. We strongly believe that an honest and open HIV Education program, presenting ALL the facts about transmission and ALL that is known about prevention of that transmission is an act of respect and love for ALL children of God. We are not in a position to judge which of those children to protect from infection. As “just say no” campaigns have taught us in the past, not all people will respond to a message of abstinence, and those people who are not abstinent from the actions that transmit HIV are no less worthy of God’s love and forgiveness, and no less worthy of a long and healthy life. Our Lord reached out to ANYONE IN NEED, and so we believe that we must reach out to all people with information about HIV/AIDS, including those who are unable or unwilling to be abstinent.

We at the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition believe that the CDC decision to present abstinence only HIV/AIDS Education is ßawed on many levels, and will lead to an increase in infection rates. Please note our dissent.

Elizabethe C. Payne, Ph.D.

Ladies/Gentlemen,

I have been involved in HIV/AIDS prevention education for the last twenty (20) years. During the early years of the epidemic, we didn’t really know all we needed to know and a lot of what we tried to convey was by trial and error. Unfortunately, the most effective form of prevention education seemed to be attending the funerals of dozens of friends over the course of years. While it may be an effective educational tool, it is not what I would wish upon anyone.

The reason I share this information with you is that the changes you are proposing in HIV/AIDS education will essentially take us back twenty years and leave deaths and funerals as the primary means of education about this virus and its impact. Twenty years ago, we didn’t know what to do to prevent the spread of the virus because we were not completely sure what effectively transmitted it. Now we do know. We know very well that the avoidance of certain activities will prevent the spread of HIV. For example, we know that the consistent use of condoms will prevent the spread of HIV in a sexual situation. We also know that using new or properly cleaned needles will prevent the spread of HIV in intravenous drug use situations.

Certainly, abstinence is an effective mechanism for preventing the spread of HIV but it is NOT the only mechanism. Abstinence must be provided as one means of HIV prevention. But it must NOT be touted as the ONLY means of HIV prevention because to do so is to perpetuate a lie. We must have enough integrity to teach other prevention mechanisms to those who will not or can not abstain from sexual activities or intravenous drug use. It is our place and certainly the place of the CDC to provide scientific and medical reasoning and evidence, NOT moral and/or religious proscriptions.

When I teach young people in my church about HIV prevention I tell them that their model is what we refer to as our baptismal covenant—something we reaffirm every time someone is baptized. That covenant includes two very pertinent and important promises: Will you respect the dignity of every human being? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Having reminded them of these promises, I go on to explain to them what that means in a practical sense. It may mean sexual abstinence. It may mean using condoms or avoiding risky sexual behavior. It may mean abstaining from using injection drugs, shared piercing or tattoo needles, etc. It may mean learning how to clean the implements used in the process of injecting drugs. Or it may mean making sure that needles used for piercings and tattoos are sterile and clean.

The bottom line in these situations is to insure that these young people know a) what causes the transmission of HIV and b) how to prevent that transmission. Time and experience have taught me that we gain nothing if we lecture or preach to young people about things they will ultimately decide for themselves. Time and experience have also taught me that they see through attempts to manipulate them through guilt or even religion. In summary, we are morally obligated to provide them with the scientific and medical information and work with them to make responsible choices and decisions.

Teaching them to “just say no” is ludicrous. If that worked we would no longer have unwed teen pregnancies, STDs, or drug use. It is not our place nor that of the government to tell them what to do or not to do. It is our place to provide them with the facts they need to make responsible decisions.

I urge you to abandon these proposed changes and return to teaching HIV prevention education that is based on medical and scientific information rather than scare tactics.

You perhaps will find it helpful to know that the comments you are reading come from a Bible-believing, born-again Christian who is very active in his faith community and in faith-based prevention education activities. The faith I profess includes the concept that God gave us brains with which to reason and think and decide….decide based on all the facts, not some scare tactic designed to derail the thought process.

You may also find it helpful to know that I have been living with HIV for over twenty-two (22) years. I have been practicing “safer sex” continuously since 1985. Unfortunately, I should have begun that process three years sooner. Perhaps if the CDC and other government agencies had made an effort to determine the cause and subsequent prevention methods earlier in the epidemic instead of playing politics, I might not be infected. That, as they say, is water under the bridge. I have no regretsÑexcept for not raising a major issue with the Department of Health and Human Services over their partisan political positions that endangered the health of the citizens of the United States. I urge you not to create a situation that results in the same debacle some twenty years later.

Bruce Garner