{"id":751,"date":"1975-05-22T02:01:46","date_gmt":"1975-05-22T02:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/?p=751"},"modified":"2016-07-21T23:54:07","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T04:54:07","slug":"hew-stops-condom-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/?p=751","title":{"rendered":"HEW Stops Condom Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<body><h1 class=\"ocr\"><a id=\"post-751-bookmark0\"><\/a>HEW Stops Condom Program<\/h1>\n<h6 class=\"ocr\">By W. H. MARSHNER<\/h6>\n<p class=\"info\">\n  THE WANDERER<br>\n(Special to <em>The Wanderer<\/em>)<br>\nMay 22, 1975\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  WASHINGTON, C.C. \u2014 The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) has quietly terminated a program that mailed unsolicited sex information and \u201ccondom stamps\u201d in unmarked envelopes to teen-age boys.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  These stamps, subsidized with the taxpayers\u2019 money, read as follows: \u201cCondom information service: worth $1 on purchase of one dozen condoms. \u2026 Write brand name here.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  In other words, HEW was setting up shop as the world\u2019s largest drugstore and at the same time drumming up business by offering what was supposed to become the Green Stamps of the sexual revolution.\n<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\n  Only the \u201ctarget population\u201d wasn\u2019t buying. During the two years the program was in operation (at a cost of about $100,000), more than 43,000 boys, aged 14 and up, received the unsolicited mail. But only 254 \u201ccondom stamps\u201d were ever redeemed. In other words, for every package of a dozen condoms sold through the mail under this program, the cost to the taxpayer was $400.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  As usual, however, the abysmal failure of the program was not the government\u2019s reason for discontinuing it. Rather, according to Diana Altman, a project director for Population Services, Inc., the North Carolina firm which operated the program, HEW\u2019s chief worry was that sending unsolicited sex information and \u201ccondom stamps\u201d through the mail might be declared illegal (invasion of privacy). A few of the recipients had in fact requested the U.S. Postal Service to order the firm to stop sending the offensive material to their homes.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The now defunct program began as part of the War on Poverty. It was intended to reach boys in \u201clow income\u201d families. It got under way in 1971 with a grant of $47,000 from the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). Cleveland and Philadelphia were selected as the target cities for a mailing to 31,243 boys.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Here is how Population Services, Inc. (PSI), decided which boys should get the offer. The Cleveland Community Action Agency (another federally-funded, \u201canti-poverty\u201d operation) keeps a list of the local teen-age boys whom it believes to be \u201csexually active.\u201d This snoop list was turned over to PSI. Next, PSI went to a commercial direct-mail firm which provides mailing lists to businesses that sell children\u2019s educational products. PSI went down the lists, marking all the addresses which fell within \u201cpoverty areas.\u201d A very similar procedure was followed in Philadelphia.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  After the first year, OEO, provided $50,573 to continue the program through July, 1973. In this second year of operation, about 12,000 pieces of mail were sent out, and only 60 \u201ccondom stamps\u201d were redeemed.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  PSI\u2019s application for renewed funding was turned down last year, when the programs formerly managed by the dismantled OEO were shifted over to HEW.\n<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/WM-1975-5-22-2-OCR.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Click here for PDF<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HEW Stops Condom Program By W. H. MARSHNER THE WANDERER (Special to The Wanderer) May 22, 1975 WASHINGTON, C.C. \u2014 The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) has quietly terminated a program that mailed unsolicited sex information and \u201ccondom stamps\u201d in unmarked envelopes to teen-age boys. These stamps, subsidized with the taxpayers\u2019 money, read &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/?p=751\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;HEW Stops Condom Program&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[165,302,304,305,90,92],"class_list":["post-751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wanderer","tag-hew","tag-office-of-economic-opportunity","tag-population-services-incorporated","tag-poverty","tag-sex","tag-sex-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":760,"href":"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}