Condom Nation

An award-winning history of the U.S. Public Health Service’s haphazard efforts to educate Americans about sex for more than a century. Since launching its first sex ed program during World War I, the Public Health Service has dominated federal sex education efforts. Alexandra M. Lord draws on medical research, news reports, the expansive records of the Public Health Service, and interviews with former surgeons general to examine these efforts, from early initiatives through the administration of George W. Bush. Giving equal voice to many groups in America—middle class, working class, black, white, urban, rural, Christian and non-Christian, scientist and theologian—Lord explores how federal officials struggled to create sex education programs that balanced cultural and public health concerns. She details how the Public Health Service left an indelible mark on federally and privately funded sex education programs through partnerships and initiatives with community organizations, public schools, foundations, corporations, and religious groups. With engaging and insightful analysis, Lord explains how tensions among these organizations exacerbated existing controversies about sexual behavior. She also discusses why the Public Health Service’s promotional tactics sometimes fueled public fears about the federal government’s goals in promoting, or not promoting, sex education. Award for the Public Understanding of Science, 2010, British Medical Association’s Board of Science First Prize, Popular Medicine, British Medical Association 2010 Book Awards

Condom Nation uncovers the contradictions contained in many AIDS Prevention programs used in U.S. schools and asks: Is Sex Ed based on sound science, or on blind assumptions? Condom Nation describes a world of latex solutions, in which fact has been replaced by slogans and careful evaluation by unquestioned dogma. A disturbing, thoughtful book every parent should read. -- A fascinating book...which catalogs the failures of sex education in the schools, -- Suzanne Fields, syndicated columnist -- Examines the failure of the present 'politically correct attitudes' toward sexual activity... uses concepts from evolutionary psychology to buttress (its) moral stand... clear, easy to understand, -- Choice, American Library Association

In MTV and Teen Pregnancy: Critical Essays on 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom, contributors from a variety of backgrounds and expertise offer potent essays about the MTV programs 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom, and Teen Mom 2. Divided into four parts, each section tackles the controversial representation of teen pregnancy from a different discipline. Part One explores gendered social norms and the shows’ representations of teenage motherhood. Part Two prompts readers to consider the intersections of race, class, gender, and the social and cultural power structures often glossed over in these programs. Part Three turns its attention to teenage fathers, and Part Four draws from TVs representations of reality to discuss the impact these shows may have on the viewing audience. As the debates about these shows continue, this collection provides a valuable critical discourse to be used both inside and outside the classroom.

The United States’ health care system stands out for its strict division of policies dealing with public health and individual medicine. Seeking to explain how this division came to be, what alternative paths might have been taken, and how this shapes the contemporary landscape, Daniel Sledge offers nothing less than a reinterpretation of the making of modern American health policy in Health Divided. Where previous scholars have focused on failed attempts to adopt national health insurance, Sledge demonstrates that the development of health policy cannot be properly understood without considering the connections between public health policy and policies dealing with individual medicine. His work shows how the distinct politics of the formative years of health policy—and the presence of debilitating diseases in the American South—led to outcomes that have fundamentally shaped modern policies and disputes. Until the end of the nineteenth century, health care in the United States was seen as a local issue, with the sole exception being the government’s role in providing care to seamen and immigrants. Then, as Health Divided reveals, the health problems that plagued the American South in the early twentieth century, from malaria to hookworm and pellagra, along with the political power of the southern Democrats during the New Deal, fueled the emergence of national intervention in public health work. At the same time, divisions among policymakers, as well as the resistance of the American Medical Association, led to federal inaction in the realm of individual medical services—setting the stage for the growth of employer-sponsored health insurance. The vision of those who built the institutions that became the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was, we see here, far more expansive and innovative than has previously been realized—and it came surprisingly close to succeeding. Exploring the history behind its failure, and tracing the inextricable links between public health and national health policy, this book provides a valuable new perspective on the origins of America’s disjointed health care system.

In this thought-provoking portrait of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the world’s largest HIV/AIDS medical care provider, award-winning journalist Patrick Range McDonald reveals the nonprofit’s unlikely rise from a feisty grassroots organization during the 1980s AIDS crisis in Los Angeles to its position today as an aggressive, global leader in the ongoing fight to control HIV and AIDS. This riveting story highlights the motivations behind AHF’s life-saving efforts, its battles against (and alliances with) governments and various political establishments, and its work today to provide free HIV treatment and prevention services to vulnerable, lower-income people in more than thirty countries. With unrestricted, insider access, McDonald follows AHF for a year as it clashes with the Obama administration, the state of Nevada, and the World Health Organization. He interviews AHF’s key players, including firebrand president Michael Weinstein, and he travels to AHF outposts around the globe, from Miami to Uganda, Cambodia to Russia, Estonia to South Africa. Along the way, McDonald discovers that AHF is a passionate, smart, and tenacious “people power” organization that brings hope and change to nearly all corners of the world. Beyond its work as a highly effective global AIDS organization, the AHF story also provides a blueprint for every kind of righteous rebel who wants to make the world a better place.

Locay breaks the misconceptions and offers a broad spectrum of conservative thought. (Christian)

Extraordinary medical benefits are available to those who follow the Bible's teachings. The authors deal with stress, sex, anger, circumcision, tobacco, and more.