Experts Say Gov't Parenting Website Lacks Alcohol Info

A parenting website set up by the Bush administration is being criticized by a panel of doctors and psychologists, who contend, among other things, that the site gives inadequate attention to youth alcohol use.

The Washington Post reported July 14 that the www.4parents.gov website was reviewed at the request of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). The panel found that the site included a number of incorrect statements about condom use, sexual orientation, and single-parent households, and also gave short shrift to the problem of alcohol use.

The site is designed to help parents and teens make "smart choices about their health and future." It includes a section on "Risky Behaviors" that references "sex, drugs, smoking, and other high-risk behaviors," but not alcohol; alcohol is discussed briefly under a section called "high-risk highs."

Temple University child psychologist Laurence Steinberg said the site did a good job on some topics, like eating disorders, but didn't give proper attention to alcohol while focusing too much on sex. "If your concern really is to provide parents with information they can use to help raise healthy teenagers, there is a whole list of topics that need to be covered," Steinberg said. "Risky sexual behavior is just one of them, and frankly it's not even the most important one."

"A federally-funded website should present the facts as they are, not as you might wish them to be," Waxman wrote to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Mike Leavitt. "It is wrong -- and ultimately self-defeating -- to sacrifice scientific accuracy in an effort to frighten teens and their parents."

HHS paid the National Physicians Center for Family Resources to develop the site; John Whiffen, the center's chairman, said he would consider adding more information about alcohol and tobacco but defended the site's emphasis on abstinence in addressing teen sex problems.