ConnectivCorp, New York, said last week that former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders would serve on the advisory board to the company's upcoming site, SexHealth.com.
Scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of this year, SexHealth.com will feature a broad range of content on sexual health, including sexual dysfunction, sexually transmitted diseases, and sexuality and aging.
The site will provide sexual health content for consumers and will host advertising for pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers. Consumers will be able to e-mail sexual health questions to the site's staff, who will refer them to site sponsors for further information and service.
To staff the site, ConnectivCorp reassembled the team who worked on the now-defunct Sexual Health Magazine. Elders served as a member of the advisory board to that publication, and she and her fellow board members also have been recruited for SexHealth.com.
“I call them the A-Team,” said Robert Miller, president/CEO of ConnectivCorp. “We've got the most definitive information on the subject.”
Whether Elders will contribute content to the site has not been decided. The company hopes the former surgeon general will be “involved in the substantive aspects of the site,” Miller said.
Elders held the position of surgeon general from Sept. 8, 1993 to Dec. 31, 1994. President Clinton forced her to resign after she made controversial remarks to a United Nations AIDS conference about school-age sex education classes.
The former surgeon general's controversial image did not affect ConnectivCorp's decision to involve her in an advisory role for the site's development, Miller said. Elders is a certified pediatric endocrinologist and currently serves as a professor of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas, according to the U.S. Office of the Surgeon General.
“She's a legend in this area,” Miller said. “We brought her over because of her experience and integrity.”
SexHealth.com will not be the first e-healthcare site to use the fame of a former surgeon general to help further its development. C. Everett Koop, who served as surgeon general from 1981 to 1989, remains chairman of the struggling drkoop.com, which he founded.
