{"id":433,"date":"2004-04-02T17:20:40","date_gmt":"2004-04-02T21:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/benadida\/2004\/04\/02\/partial-truth-in-advertising-and-the"},"modified":"2004-04-02T17:20:40","modified_gmt":"2004-04-02T21:20:40","slug":"partial-truth-in-advertising-and-the-condom-wrapper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ben\/2004\/04\/02\/partial-truth-in-advertising-and-the-condom-wrapper\/","title":{"rendered":"Partial Truth In Advertising and the Condom Wrapper"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Bush administration wants to add warnings to condom wrappers indicating that condoms may not prevent Human Papillomavirus (HPV)<\/a>. Needless to say, health experts are having a very hard time trying to fit a scientifically correct version of that complicated viewpoint on a condom wrapper. Yes, condoms don’t prevent HPV per se. So let’s ignore all the research showing that condoms are highly effective at preventing all sorts of sexually-transmitted diseases, including those which can make the effects of HPV far worse. Let’s also imagine that such a warning would indeed convince people to abstain from sex entirely, instead of disastrously leading to more unprotected sex.<\/p>\n

Bush wants truth in advertising. So, even if a remedy is effective against a number of problems, we must take extra care to point out all of the problems against which it isn’t<\/b> effective. In fact, since the Bush policy is abstinence first, it seems that whatever the benefits<\/b> of a remedy may be, one must first worry about its risks.<\/p>\n

Let’s further explore Bush’s “Condom Wrapper” view of the world:<\/p>\n