|
Published: July 2, 2007
“Alarmingly high and rising”
Huge increases in prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases prompts $1.3 million ad campaign in Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County plans to use “guerilla marketing tactics” to combat the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Media, such as graffiti murals, sidewalk art, printed drink coasters, and mirror stickers will join billboards and posters to encourage frequent testing for syphilis, Chlamydia, and gonorrhea.
The messages will be in English and Spanish, since the campaign’s target is young African-American women and Latinas, as well as homosexual and bisexual men. Sexually transmitted disease rates in Los Angeles County are “alarmingly high and rising," said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Public Health Director and County Health Officer, according to a June 26 PRNewswire report. "Last year alone, nearly 18,000 cases of Chlamydia and gonorrhea were recorded among African American and Latina women younger than 25 years of age in LA County. Gay and bi-sexual men represented at least 1,000 cases of syphilis in 2006.”
Homosexual and bisexual men accounted for over two-thirds of the roughly 1,200 syphilis cases in the county, reported the June 26 Los Angeles Times. The rate of the disease among these groups increased by 365% between 2001 and 2005. As for Latinas and black women, they accounted for 67% of the 30,000 reported Chlamydia cases and 65% of reported gonorrhea cases in the county.
 Since 2002, the county has had a “Stop the Sores” campaign, featuring a red syphilis cartoon sore named Phil. The campaign ads portrayed Phil in the company of homosexuals, facilitating multiple liaisons to spread the disease. Critics have said the campaign has been less effective than a similar San Francisco campaign that features a cartoon penis. This campaign is now going to Santa Clara County, said the June Bay Area Reporter, and will be replaced in San Francisco with the “Buck Syphilis” campaign, which, it seems, has no cartoon character to promote it.
A dramatic rise in syphilis cases in 2005 induced the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to dedicate $1.3 million on its new campaign. About half of the budgeted money is going for advertising. The new campaign is “sexier” than the Phil the sore campaign, AIDS Project Los Angeles’ executive director, Craig Thompson, told the Times. One poster shows a man standing in front of shower with a bath towel around his waist and the words, “Check Yourself: Don’t Assume You’re Coming Off Clean.”
A campaign Internet ad -- “I know that hooking up can have a downside” -- features a young black woman and gives information on how to detect a sexually transmitted disease. And it provides this advice: “If you have sex, limit the number of people you have sex with. Remember that each time you have sex with somebody, you can catch something.” The ad recommends the use of condoms. “Using a condom correctly every time you have sex will help keep you from getting pregnant, and also help keep you from getting an STD,” the ad says.
The ad also gives this advice for those who test positive for a sexually transmitted disease: “Don’t have sex until you know you are cured.”
Posted Monday, July 02, 2007 4:41 AM By stlouisix
There is a known cure for STDs requiring no expenditures whatsoever. It is called OBEDIENCE to God's Law giving to man out of God's unconditional love for man's salvation, in particular, obedience to the Natural Law of God which is a participation is God's Eternal Law. Pity this seminal Catholic truth is not preached from Catholic pulpits, and by Catholics in public forums. Reference the following from The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 1992 in regard to the inappropriateness of the Church's remaining neutral when it comes to matters involving the common good. "The Church has the responsibility to promote the public morality of the ENTIRE civil society on the basis of fundamental moral values, not simply to protect herself from the application of harmful laws (cf. no. 17)."
|
Posted Monday, July 02, 2007 9:46 AM By William Keevers
"OBEDIENCE" will also entail our conveying the truth with LOVE. On Saturday there was a first of its kind, Sidewalk Counseling Workshop in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael, at which numerous expert speakers emphasized how we help women with non-judgemental compassion. Among the nearly 90 members of the audience were about 10 abortion-facility "escorts" who have taken upon themselves the mission of keeping pro-lifers from offering to women in crisis pregnancies materials and counseling offering alternatives to abortion. We could never have any hope of reaching either the abortion facility clients or the facility "escorts" without obedience, not only to the law of TRUTH, but of LOVE. Pope Benedict XVI says that love without truth is impotent; what then is truth without love?
|
Posted Monday, July 02, 2007 10:20 AM By Peter
These so called guerilla tactics have already been used for many years by those encouraging and promoting the culture of death through the use of catchy phrases like safe sex. The alarmingly high epidemic STD rates quoted in this California Catholic Daily story clearly show that this so called safe sex approach via use of codoms has proven a disaster. Chastity and abstinence until marriage between a husband and wife, and faithfullness after marriage proclaimed by the Catholic Church instituted by Jesus Christ for over 2,000 years through the proclamation of the Gospel teachings, is truly the only safe sex that will ever work. A perfect example to prove this point is Uganda and its former President and First Lady who encouraged and promoted the approach of chastity and abstinence before marriage, and faithfullness after marriage, in Uganda because of the devestation of the HIV and Aids epidemic in Uganda that was getting totally out of control and decimating the populations of their country. This approach proved so successful that the incidence of HIV and Aids rates and deaths declined by a three to one margin after several years of the implimentation of this chastity and abstinence before marriage, and faithfullness after marriage approach was encouraged and promoted thoughout Uganda. Due to improper usesage, defects and a false sense of security, the safe sex condom mentality has a one in five or twenty per cent failure rate according to statistics in Africa and other parts of the world that literally encouage someone to play Russian Roulette with their life and someone else's life as well. My prayers are with everyone that is suffering from an STD. May a God of Love use this Cross in your life to seek your conversion and redemption that will always lead all of you to his eternal heavenly kingdom.
|
Posted Monday, July 02, 2007 7:21 PM By Dale
This is a no-brainer. The traditional Catholic/Protestant teaching regarding the reservation of "intimate" relations to married couples who are committed to a loving, life-long, monogamous relationship is the only way that human sexuality makes any sense and has any depth!
|
Posted Tuesday, July 03, 2007 9:16 PM By PatMD
Dale: Your comments are among the most intelligent that have been posted on this website yet! Thank you!
|
Posted Sunday, July 29, 2007 2:46 PM By ES
Dale, will you ever answer your 5 open questions? (1) We are still waiting for your evidence of your Opus Dei friend's report that the Pope was BLACKMAILED into freeing the Mass a tiny bit. What was the basis of the blackmail? Where is your evidence? (2) Please explain how an entirely vernacular "Mass" is consistent with "Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites." VATICAN II's CONSTITUTION ON THE SACRED LITURGY SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM §36. 1. (3) In what thread on this blog have you EXPLICITLY CONDEMNED the abuse, the abusers, or the enablers. (4) Please also QUOTE BY NAME who in "Walking the Labyrinth" made "hysterical condemnations of... all priests, all of the current bishops." (5) Is it a reasonable position to state: "Ms. Engels nor anyone else [sic] can provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt." In your own words you state NO EVIDENCE WILL SATISFY YOU. IS THAT REASONABLE?
|
© California Catholic Daily 2007. All Rights Reserved.
|