The Department of Health, Education and Welfare does a great deal of Big Brothering of our citizens from the cradle through schools to the grave, in sickness and in health. When cross-examined by Senators about the controversial HEW anti-smoking program, the then HEW Secretary-designate Patricia Harris said firmly, “The Government has a duty to warn Americans about the danger of smoking.”
The Food and Drug Administration and the Fair Trade Commission are johnnies-on-the-spot to force businesses to stop selling any product that contains any ingredient that may be even indirectly harmful, or which displays misleading advertising. Consumer groups, environmental groups, and public interest law firms are constantly on the lookout for companies to sue on the ground that they have marketed a product which may have caused any harm to anyone.
So why are none of these powerful departments or groups doing anything to protect people from the epidemic of Herpes Simplex II (also called Herpes Type 2), a new venereal disease now plaguing five million Americans and for which there is no cure. There are 300,000 new cases of this disease every year.
Those afflicted with Herpes Simplex II have fluid-filled blisters or sores that break and scab in the genital areas, and sometimes on the buttocks and thighs. The blisters may be intensely painful and accompanied by swollen lymph glands, fever, aching muscles, and a sick feeling.
Even though the blisters dry up and disappear, they return later because the virus is still present. Unless medical science discovers a cure in the future, those afflicted will suffer from this disease to their graves. Women who have Herpes Simplex II run a risk of harm to their unborn child and should have Pap smears twice a year.
Herpes Simplex II is highly contagious and, like all venereal diseases, there is only one way to catch it. It is a dreadful punishment for promiscuous conduct which hits two to ten days after exposure.
The prevalence of this incurable disease should give those afflicted with it a legal cause of action for damages against the indecent magazines which advocate a lifestyle of sexual promiscuity without warning their readers of the permanent harm that might result. A court or jury could reasonably conclude that these magazines are guilty of grave negligence in not appropriately warning about Herpes Simplex II.
Such a holding would make the magazine publishers liable for monetary damages in conduct promoted by them to any purchaser or subscriber who contracts the disease after indulging in the magazines. An argument might also be made that the corporations which advertise in these indecent magazines bear some responsibility for the contents which their advertisements pay for.
In lawsuits involving responsibility for airplane crashes, plaintiffs sue every possible contributor to the crashes, such as the airline, the airplane manufacturer, the engine manufacturer, etc.
If cigarette ‘companies are required to print a notice on every package and adver- tisement warning that use of their product “is dangerous to your health” (because it might result in cancer or heart disease), then publishers of indecent magazines should be required to carry notices which say: “Warning: The immoral sexual relations advocated, stimulated, or encouraged by the articles, pictures, or letters in this magazine may result in a painful and permanent disease called Herpes Simplex II for which there is no cure.”
Serious injury from smoking cigarettes usually requires at least 20 years of heavy usage. The serious, permanent injury of Herpes Simplex II can result from a single imitation of the immoral lifestyle advocated in indecent magazines so widely available on newsstands everywhere.
Today’s widespread adultery and fornication can’t all be blamed on the profitable pornographic magazines. Some of it is caused by the new “sexuality education” in the schools, which is taught in the framework of “situation ethics”: that it is socially and morally acceptable to be “sexually active” if you feel comfortable about it.
If sex education students aren’t taught that such a lifestyle, even if comfortable, may result in a very uncomfortable, incurable lifetime disease, students and their parents should have a legal cause of action against the schools, the teachers, and the textbook publishers.
