Researchers Warned About AIDS Grants

winksmith writes "The NYTimes (free registration, etc.) is reporting that scientists researching STD's (including AIDS) must be careful in the wording of reports and particularly of grant requests. many have been verbally warned that phrases like: "sex workers," "men who sleep with men," "anal sex" and "needle exchange," may cause the government to withhold grant money."

Comments

Re:Why the Government Dislikes Those Phrases

[Anonymous Coward]

Qualification: I'm a teenager infected with HIV.

Your logic is flawed. People don't make these decisions "to put themselves at risk" in a vaccum. As a sophemore in high school my biology teacher (the most respected teacher in the school) took it upon himself to convince us that condoms didn't work and that abstinance was the only choice. He used pseudo-scienctific terms and charts and graphics to convince us that condoms were incappable of blocking the virus. This was only a few years ago.

When I started becoming sexually active (and kids do, there's no denying it), I was completely under the impression that the use of a condom was futile unless attempting to prevent pregnancy.

Social research is imporantant in preventing this sort of FUD from being spread around.