On March 11, the White House hosted an event to mark National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. The event was livestreamed from whitehouse.gov and is archived on YouTube:

I have written before about the unique nature of conferences concerning sexually-transmitted infections, but I didn’t expect to hear the same frank talk at a White House event. But why not? Why should a health professional be shy about asking the audience, as Gina Brown did, “When a woman stands up, which way does her vagina point?” The answer may surprise you and if you turn the volume up on your speakers you can hear someone in the audience say, “Oh!” Later in her talk, Dr. Brown urged the audience to Google “female condom” so they can better understand the challenges people face in trying to use it. Yes, a clinician from the National Institutes of Health urged people to Google something because she thought it would be the quickest path to understanding it. Continue reading →