It's a sad state of affairs...

So today in my interviewing class we had a lecture on how to talk to patients on issues of sexuality. The interviewing class is meant as a course to teach students the art of talking to patients and present models for discussing various sensitive topics having to do with a patient's health and life quality. Before the lecture began, the following 'disclaimer' was displayed for all of us to see. It is a message from the Attorney General of the United States. It might as well could have come from communist China:

" The Attorney General of the United States has reviewed the content of this lecture. This material is deemed to be undermining of the values of the United States. The government does not sanction dissemination of sexually explicit information. Only information that deals with abstinence until marriage [man+ woman] will be tolerated."
(bold typeface added for emphasis)


I am appalled, shocked, digusted, to say the least. Mind you, this type of information is to be disseminated to health care providers (or in our case, potential health care providers) so that we may know how to deal with patients in the real world. These broad, sweeping edicts issued from on high to prevent access to life saving information (check it out for yourself; try to go find information on sexuality/sexual health on government websites...the information is scant, if any exists) is greatly demoralizing. Thankfully, health care providers in the real world ignores pretty much all of this. I don't think anybody grounded in the real world could.

To say that the material undermines the values of the United States beckons the question: what are the values of the United States nowadays? Do we live in George Orwell's 1984, or am I still in the nation that embraces freedom of information and embrace of dialogue and reason?

I don't think I want to know.