CHICAGO -- It's just a little bit of wording on a condompacket -- so small that Justin Kleinman hadn't noticed it until hesquinted to read it recently.
''This is completely pointless,'' the 24-year-old Chicagoan saidof the warning telling him that, while condoms can help prevent thespread of some sexually transmitted diseases, there are noguarantees.
Even so, that tiny bit of print is at the center of a ragingdebate now that President Bush has asked the Food and DrugAdministration to modify the current warning to include informationabout human papillomavirus, commonly called HPV or genitalwarts.
On one side are scientists who believe that condoms should bepromoted as a crucial line of defense against several STDs andcervical cancer. On the other are groups that advocate waiting forsex until marriage, and who see the dangers of HPV as an argumentfor their cause.
''The lack of information getting to the American publicregarding this disease is beyond comprehension,'' said LindaKlepacki, manager of the abstinence policy department at Focus onthe Family, a Colorado-based organization.
She and others point to research showing that condoms don'tnecessarily prevent the spread of HPV, in part because it may befound on parts of the body the latex devices don't cover.Abstinence is the best way to prevent the disease, she argues.
Adding that information to a condom label would be ''truth inadvertising,'' said Libby Gray. She's the director of ProjectReality, an Illinois-based group that teaches public schoolstudents about abstinence -- and notes that most students shespeaks with have no idea what HPV is.
But scientists who study HPV worry that abstinence groups aredismissing important information to promote their own values.
''I want to be polite. But it appalls me when I see scientificand medical studies being manipulated for a different agenda,''said Tom Broker. He's a professor of biochemistry and moleculargenetics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and presidentof the International Papillomavirus Society, a coalition of expertswho study HPV.
The focus, Broker said, should be on the fact that condoms havebeen shown to reduce the risk of cervical cancer, which is causedby HPV and which can be detected and treated if women get regularPAP smears. (The federal Center for Disease Control issued a recentreport to Congress that included the same conclusion.)
Broker also said research has shown that HPV transmission isless likely when a person does not have other STDs, such as HIV,gonorrhea and chlamydia, which condoms have been shown tocombat.
Both he and Dr. Ward Cates, former head of the CDC's STD/HIVprevention group, agreed that teaching abstinence is a key topreventing the spread of disease.
But when someone becomes sexually active, they also believe that''condoms are the best imperfect way we have,'' said Cates, nowpresident of the Health Institute of Family Health International, anonprofit global health organization based in North Carolina.
Officials at the FDA concede that boiling down a ''veryextensive and complicated'' body of scientific literature on HPVand into a few words on a condom label is no easy task.
''It must be medically accurate and at the same time, be clearand understandable for, like, my 17-year-old when he goes out onSaturday night,'' said Dr. Dan Schultz, director of the FDA'sOffice of Device Evaluation. He expects to issue recommendations onan HPV warning by the end of the year.
Some young people, meanwhile, are frustrated that so muchattention is being paid to wording on a condom label.
''Honestly, getting people to use a protection at all is thebiggest step,'' said Jessica Keefe, a 21-year-old senior at theUniversity of Michigan. ''I know so many smart, well-educatedcollege students who don't use them -- even after years of sex ed.and university health programs.''
Marina Elbert, a 20-year-old junior at Rutgers University, saidshe's among those who'd be unlikely to read or heed a condompackage label.
''I'm a smoker, and I read the warning labels on my cigarettes,but I still smoke,'' she said. ''That's the same mentality thatteens might have toward condom labels.''
She'd rather get information from her doctor or books, magazinesand Web sites. To that end, the makers of such condom brands asTrojan and Durex have posted information on their Web sites aboutSTDs, as has retailer Condomania.com.
Kleinman, the 24-year-old Chicagoan, agrees that's a bettertactic than labeling: ''If the money can teach one kid in schoolthe dangers of sex -- even with a condom -- then it will have beenput to a lot more good than any fine-print label on a crumpledwrapper on the bed stand.''
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