Review Ordered for Health Pamphlets

New Mexico Department of Health officials are asking personnel at the agency’s 57 health offices to pull printed materials that do not have an updated DOH logo until they can be reviewed and approved. Spokesperson Aimee Barabe said the request was made following news reports that a public health contractor in Roswell had tried to distribute a pamphlet containing graphic images of men engaging in sex acts.

Last month, the worker asked officials at a Job Corps Center in Roswell if she could distribute the pamphlets to persons age 16 or older. Entitled “Safer Sex Can Be Fun,” the brochure depicts oral sex and condom use through photos and drawings. It is intended for gay men, according to the California-based nonprofit that designed it. The center’s director denied the request and discarded the pamphlets; the health department fired the contract worker.

Health Secretary Catherine Torres took action Feb. 14 in response to the reports. “We felt that it was necessary to cull all of the materials for educational purposes from health offices statewide for review to make sure that something like this didn’t happen again,” said Barabe.

That same day, Maggi Gallaher, medical director of the department’s public health division, sent an e-mail to health offices saying that only materials that bear a DOH logo approved in early 2011 should be distributed. “All materials approved under prior administrations need to be approved by the current administration,” she wrote. Officials should “scour closets, storage areas, etc., to gather any and all outdated brochures, pamphlets” and other materials. The review process should be completed by late March, she said.

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