Chicago ? It’s just a little bit of wording on a condom packet — so small that Justin Kleinman hadn’t noticed it until he squinted to read it recently.

“This is completely pointless,” the 24-year-old Chicagoan said of the warning telling him that, while condoms can help prevent the spread of some sexually transmitted diseases, there are no guarantees.

Even so, that tiny bit of print is at the center of a raging debate now that President Bush has asked the Food and Drug Administration to modify the current warning to include information about human papillomavirus, commonly called HPV or genital warts.

On one side are scientists who believe that condoms should be promoted as a crucial line of defense against several STDs and cervical cancer. On the other are groups that advocate waiting for sex until marriage, and who see the dangers of HPV as an argument for their cause.

“The lack of information getting to the American public regarding this disease is beyond comprehension,” said Linda Klepacki, manager of the abstinence policy department at Focus on the Family, a Colorado-based organization.

She and others point to research showing that condoms don’t necessarily prevent the spread of HPV, in part because it may be found on parts of the body the latex devices don’t cover. Abstinence is the best way to prevent the disease, she argues.

But scientists who study HPV worry that abstinence groups are dismissing important information to promote their own values.

“I want to be polite. But it appalls me when I see scientific and medical studies being manipulated for a different agenda,” said Tom Broker. He’s a professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and president of the International Papillomavirus Society, a coalition of experts who study HPV.

The focus, Broker said, should be on the fact that condoms have been shown to reduce the risk of cervical cancer, which is caused by HPV and which can be detected and treated if women get regular PAP smears. (The federal Centers for Disease Control issued a recent report to Congress that included the same conclusion.)

Broker also said research had shown that HPV transmission is less likely when a person does not have other STDs, such as HIV, gonorrhea and chlamydia, which condoms have been shown to combat.

Officials at the FDA concede that boiling down a “very extensive and complicated” body of scientific literature on HPV and into a few words on a condom label is no easy task.

“It must be medically accurate and at the same time, be clear and understandable for, like, my 17-year-old when he goes out on Saturday night,” said Dr. Dan Schultz, director of the FDA’s Office of Device Evaluation. He expects to issue recommendations on an HPV warning by the end of the year.