"Many American

youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years

that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested

positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff

analysis has found.

Those and other assertions are examples of the "false, misleading, or distorted

information" in the programs' teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the

curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

"
...

"Nonpartisan researchers have been unable to document measurable benefits of the abstinence-only

model. Columbia University researchers found that although teenagers who take "virginity pledges" may wait longer to

initiate sexual activity, 88 percent eventually have premarital sex.

Bill Smith, vice president of public

policy at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, a comprehensive sex education group

that also receives federal funding, said the Waxman report underscored the need for closer monitoring of what he

called the "shame-based, fear-based, medically inaccurate messages" being disseminated with tax money. He said the

danger of abstinence education lies in the omission of useful medical

information."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Dec1.html