Parental challenge to condoms rejected
GOP wants $75 million to support abstinence
Two-drug therapy works best for CMV
TPAC again fails to convene board
Clinton vetoes GOP welfare plan
SF warns crypto levels "cannot be considered safe"
Parental challenge to condoms rejected
Without comment or dissent, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a parental challenge to a school program that makes condoms freely available to junior and senior high students in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts program is similar to that in effect in Philadelphia high schools, where condoms and sexual health information are available to students on request through special school-based health clinics. The Philadelphia program is currently being challenged in state court by a Germantown group called Parents United for Better Schools.
The Philadelphia program allows parents to prohibit their children from participating, but does not seek specific approval from parents for their child to take part.
A group of students and parents in Falmouth had sued, claiming the program violates their constitutional rights to family privacy and their guaranteed liberties as parents to control the education and upbringing of their children. They also claimed the voluntary condom program, adopted in 1992 and covering grades seven through 12, violated their rights to freely exercise their religion.
The lawsuit said the program should require that the school notify the parents when a condom has been requested and should have a provision allowing parents to deny the condoms for their children. A judge dismissed the suit and the state Supreme Judicial Court upheld the dismissal in July.
"Although the program may offend the religious sensibilities of the plaintiffs, mere exposure at public schools to offensive programs does not amount to a violation (of their constitutional rights). Parents have no right to tailor public school programs to meet their individual religious or moral preferences," the state high court ruled.
Attorneys for a conservative group, the American Center for Law and Justice, acting on behalf of students and parents, asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. They said in their appeal that the ruling sets a "dangerous precedent" by allowing schools to help students defy parental wishes.
"The implications of this rationale are enormous. Public schools would be free to provide students with everything from cigarettes to syringes to soft porn to weapons instruction," they said.
But the Supreme Court sided with the school district, which argued that the program does not interfere with parental rights or liberties.
In recent years, groups representing conservative Christian parents have complained about public school programs that venture into controversial areas such as teen pregnancy, drug-abuse education and condom distribution.
But the outcome in the case from Massachusetts suggests the issue will be decided in battles before local school boards, rather than in the courts.
In the "condom availability" dispute, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the school policy on the grounds that students are not compelled to participate.
The Falmouth School Committee broached the idea of condom distribution to combat disease and pregnancy in 1991 in a series of public meetings.
The condom distribution program began in January 1992 but caused so much controversy school authorities put the issue to a vote the following May. Despite intense opposition, the program was approved by a majority of the voters in Falmouth.
At Lawrence Junior High School, students could request free condoms from the school nurse. But the students had to receive counseling before their requests would be honored, and the school nurse was also instructed to give students pamphlets on AIDS/HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
At Falmouth High School, students could get condoms free from the school nurse, or buy them for 75 cents in bathroom vending machines.
A group of students and their parents, some of whom live in nearby Mashpee, Mass., filed suit against the policy in state court.
The Mashpee residents pointed out that there is no high school in their town and their children must attend Falmouth High School, but they were not able to vote in the Falmouth election approving the condom program.
"Students attending Lawrence Junior High School range in age from 11 years to 16 years," the group told the Supreme Court in a brief. "Without parental knowledge or permission, and indeed despite express parental objections, the school nurse...may give these students condoms and instructions on the use of them."
The state's highest court said the program "is in all respects voluntary and in no way intrudes into the realm of constitutionally protected rights."
GOP wants $75 million to support abstinence
A provision in the GOP's welfare reform bill would provide the states with $75 million to teach youths "the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity" until they are married. The "abstinence education" funds are geared toward "those groups which are most likely to bear children out-of-wedlock."
According to the federal government, the programs would teach children that abstinence is the only "certain" method of avoiding pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and "other associated health problems." The measure says that "a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity," and sexual activity outside of marriage "is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects."
Two-drug therapy works best for CMV
A blinding eye infection that often strikes late-stage AIDS patients responds better to a combination of two drugs than to either drug alone, researchers have reported.
Daily intravenous doses of both foscarnet and ganciclovir is an effective treatment for flareups of the eye ailment known as cytomegalovirus, or CMV, retinitis, scientists reported in the journal Archives of Ophthalmology.
"This finding advances the treatment of a chronic, destructive eye infection that causes blindness if it is not controlled," Dr. Carl Kupfer, director of the National Eye Institute, said in a statement.
Patients who received both drugs were able to control the disease for an average of four months, while those who took either drug alone found the infection recurred in one to two months, the researchers said.
The drawbacks to the two-drug treatment include greater expense, the possibility of more difficult side effects and a longer course of treatment because the drugs must be administered
TPAC again fails to convene board
Only eleven -- out of 66 -- members of the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia AIDS Consortium, the area's Ryan White Title II Planning Council, showed up for an emergency board meeting this week, again delaying decisions which will determine the future of the organization.
The HIV+ Caucus had demanded the meeting after a board meeting scheduled for December was cancelled by the board's co-chairs, claiming that there would not be a quorum present. An informal poll of TPAC board members conducted by We The People at that time, however, indicated that a quorum would have been present at that meeting. Some board members who did show up at the earlier meeting speculated that other members were afraid to attend the meeting because of a protest sponsored by the Minority AIDS Coalition, opposing recent funding decisions made by a TPAC panel. According to some board members, the decisions of the panel do not reflect the priorities of the TPAC plan, nor the priorities set forth by the board for the allocation of the funds.
In addition to the allocations decisions, other motions set to come before the Board included a series of recommendations from TPAC's Strategic Planning Committee for the restructuring of the organization. The reorganization became necessary after the city's decision last year to remove the Ryan White Title I planning function from TPAC and shift decisions about funding priorities for most federal and city funds to the new Philadelphia Commission on HIV.
Decisions on TPAC restructuring must be made by the end of January, since the board at a previous meeting had suspended its bylaws concerning board elections only until the end of this month. If restructuring does not occur by then, the organization will have no legal board of directors.
In addition to the Strategic Planning Committee motions, two other motions were supposed to be considered which were put forth by ActionAIDS' Ennes Littrell and We The People's Joe Cronauer, both of whom serve on TPAC's board, which would call for TPAC to relinquish its role as Title II Planning Council effective the end of this fiscal year, but continue doing contract monitoring.
In place of this latest attempt of the TPAC board to meet, the board members who did show up held an informal discussion with legal counsel to determine options the corporation has to pursue, since the board refuses to meet, in order to meet its fiduciary responsibilities. As a result of the conversation it was decided that the officers of the board would contact all members to ascertain whether each member wanted to continue serving on the board, and if they wished to not serve then ask for the member's resignation. Members who wished to continue serving would be urged to attend the next meeting. In this way the number of directors needed to constitute a quorum could be lowered, hopefully resulting in a quorum being attained at the next meeting.
It was suggested by several board members present that a motion might be placed on the floor at the next meeting asking for the dissolution of TPAC. If there is not a quorum at the next meeting, some suggested that the only remaining remedy might then be through the courts. The next meeting of the TPAC Board of Directors is scheduled for Wednesday, January 24th from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at a location to be announced.
Clinton vetoes GOP welfare plan
As promised, President Clinton has vetoed a Republican plan to overhaul the nation's primary welfare programs and end the federal guarantee of aid to the poor.
Clinton complained in his veto message that the Republican bill "does too little to move people from welfare to work," but said he was willing to work with Congress on a new version "to enact real, bipartisan reform."
Clinton said he wanted a welfare reform plan that is motivated by the urgency of reform rather than by a "budget plan that is contrary to America's values."
"The current welfare system is broken and must be replaced, for the sake of the taxpayers who pay for it and the people who are trapped by it," he said in his veto message. But the legislation is "burdened with deep budget cuts and structural changes that fall short of real reform." Clinton called for Congress to address what he called shortcomings in the legislation, largely in the areas of work and child care.
Meanwhile, 1996's first week has been a nervous week for Medicaid watchers. Public word has been that Medicaid has been a principal issue in the budget negotiations going on between the President and Congressional Republicans, but the negotiators have not said much in public about how the Medicaid part of the negotiations might be going.
Private rumor is that the Medicaid negotiations have been serious indeed.
An indication of what might be at stake appears in an anxious editorial in the New York Times, entitled "A Medicaid Compromise." The editorial denounces block grants ("Eliminating Federal mandates is a bad idea because they protect the poor") and endorses the Administration's 'per capita cap' cost-limitation proposal, but it also recognizes the political force of the Republicans' fear that the Clinton approach "would continue excessively intrusive Federal rules."
"To address that objection," the editorial continues," Mr. Clinton could agree to waive layers of costly rules. He has already proposed wiping out Federal rules that tell states how much they must pay hospitals. He could go further and eliminate rules that tell states how much they must pay rural health centers and other Medicaid providers." Under the Clinton proposal, cost-based reimbursement for rural health clinics and federally-qualified health centers -- including health centers in Philadelphia at which many people with HIV/AIDS receive their care -- would end in 1998; other rate requirements would remain in effect.
"States also object to rules that force them to beg Washington's permission before they change local Medicaid programs. Mr. Clinton could address this problem by agreeing to let states do pretty much as they please -- as long as periodic reviews by Washington show that they have truly provided the federally mandated benefits to the federally designated categories of poor families.
The New York Times suggests these concessions not because they are wonderful in themselves, but because they might be politically necessary.
"President Clinton cannot simultaneously satisfy his need to preserve Federal poverty programs and the G.O.P.'s compulsion to end them. But rather than risk a budgetary showdown and the loss of any Federal presence, he could propose paring Washington's presence to its essence. Neither side wins everything. But the states gain control, and the poor remain at least minimally protected. That appears to be the best Mr. Clinton can do."
SF warns crypto levels "cannot be considered safe"
The San Francisco Department of Public Health has issued a press statement acknowledging that cryptosporidium, a parasite that kills people with immune disorders such as cancer and AIDS can be found in the San Francisco water supply, and that it cannot guarantee the safety of the San Francisco water supply.
According to the statement, "While the number of cysts in the in the San Francisco water supply is low, the presence of cysts at any level cannot be considered safe."
The DPH statement comes in the aftermath of a December, 1995 Health Commission resolution ordering the DPH to focus on steps to prevent waterborne transmission.
ACT UP Golden Gate attributed this success to months of pressure and its publication of internal city memoranda documenting unsafe cryptosporidium levels. "Once again, the facts triumphed over the failed policies of Dr. Mitch Katz and the AIDS office," commented ACT UP Golden Gate member Don Narbone. Doctor Mitch Katz, director of the city's AIDS office, has been the subject of intense community criticism due to his failure to accept the input of the AIDS and medical communities on many issues.
The Health Department also urged immunocompromised persons to take steps to prevent "oral contact with the feces of infected animals or persons," including contact occurring during sex. The city's continuing focus on gay sex practices angered members of ACT UP Golden Gate. ACT UP Golden Gate member Bill Thorne commented that "We've seen nothing thus far from Dr. Mitch Katz and the AIDS office but a preoccupation with oral-anal contact. It is unfortunate that AIDS office hasn't done anything that actually helps people with AIDS." The activist group renewed its call for crypto-free water to be provided to people with immune disorders.
ACT UP Golden Gate is not affiliated with ACT UP San Francisco. Back to Index for This Issue