AIDS-Prevention Grants Scrutinized

Sexually explicit workshops that receive government AIDS-prevention funding will undergo federal scrutiny after an audit conducted by the Inspector General of the Health and Human Services Department, Janet Rehnquist, found some workshops promote sexual activity and meet the legal standard for obscenity.

A workshop called "Booty Call" run by San Francisco AIDS groups, and funded in part by the nearly $400 million federal budget for AIDS prevention, was found to include material on the taboos of erotic sex along with information on avoiding injury and disease. "Booty Call," as well as a program called "Great Sex Workshop," both run by the Stop AIDS Project, included information that "could be viewed as directly promoting sexual activity," as being obscene, Rehnquist said.

Tommy Thompson, the health and human service secretary said that Rehnquist will investigate all AIDS-prevention grants and that his office will review separately all AIDS/HIV programs run by his department, including a 1.8 billion federally funded program for medical treatment of low-income people with AIDS.

Rehnquist's report, obtained by the Associated Press, reviewed $698,000 in AIDS-prevention funding by the CDC. The CDC's guidelines for prevention programs state that material used cannot promote sexual activity or intravenous substance abuse, and cannot be obscene under standards set forth by the Supreme Court in 1973 in Miller v. California.

Officials at the Stop AIDS project had no immediate comment. However, the course outline for "Booty Call" indicates the workshop "discusses the harmful effects of promiscuous activity" but "nevertheless appears to focus equally on, and possibly to promote, sexual activity," according to Rehnquist.

Rehnquist said that a local review committee as required by the CDC also did not approve the San Francisco programs. Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., chairman of a House Government Reform subcommittee, had asked for the investigation.

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