Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 5, 1994 TAG: 9401050052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The ads include radio spots by Anthony Kiedis, lead singer of the rock group Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Jason Alexander, who plays George on NBC's "Seinfeld" - and a computer-animated condom package that in a television ad tiptoes past a cat and hops onto bed between a clinching couple.
"It would be nice if latex condoms were automatic. But since they're not, using them should be," an announcer says.
The campaign, which cost $800,000 to produce, is the latest installment of the "America Responds to AIDS" campaign developed in the late 1980s by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala said all four TV networks - ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox Television - have agreed to broadcast the ads. ABC was scheduled to air the first on Tuesday night. Only Fox agreed not to restrict when the ads are shown, she said.
Shalala said that an explicit AIDS education campaign, targeting 18- to 25-year-olds, should have begun long ago.
"What we have lacked until now is the political will," she said, "because we have been too timid to talk openly about the prevention tools at our disposal."
Kristine Gebbie, the national AIDS policy coordinator, said the Clinton administration urgently wants to tell young adults, "You can protect yourself from sexual transmission of HIV. One option is to refrain from sexual activity and that's the most sure option."
But holding up condom packets, Gebbie continued: "If you do choose to be sexually active, use one of these, use a latex condom, consistently and correctly, every time you have sex."
CDC Director Dr. David Satcher said the campaign is based on "irrefutable scientific evidence that latex condoms are highly effective at preventing the spread of HIV - in fact, they are 99 percent effective - but only when we use them correctly and consistently."
He said the Clinton administration would not let political, cultural and religious sensitivities prevent health officials from trying to slow the spread of the epidemic, which by September had infected 339,250 people and claimed more than 200,000 lives.
CDC statistics show that AIDS is the leading cause of death for men between 25 and 44, and the fourth-leading cause of death for women in that age group. Doctors say people become infected a decade before they die, which is why public health officials are determined get their point across to young people.
"Studies tell us young people are more sexually active than ever before," Shalala said. "And they are not taking proper precautions. One in four young adults has been infected with a sexually transmitted disease."
by CNB