May 4, 2007
RUBBER BULL
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This does not qualify as sex ed. |
"Condoms don't hack it. Passing them out is futile."
"Condoms do not prevent pregnancy, STDs or AIDS; they only delay them."
Relying on condoms is like playing "the insane game of Russian Roulette."
These are just some of the outrageous statements unearthed by Columbia University's John Santelli, MD, MPH, whose evaluation of sex-ed curricula serves as the basis for a scathing letter sent from prominent youth advocates to Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt.
According to the tragicomic letter, cosigned by the American Civil Liberties Union, Advocates for Youth, and Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), three federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula, Me, My World, My Future; Sexuality, Commitment & Family; and Why kNOw, along with HHS' own 4parents.gov Web site and pamphlet, Parents, Speak Up!, all violate federal law requiring certain educational materials to contain medically accurate information about condom effectiveness. The groups called on HHS to remedy the violations or face a legal challenge from the ACLU. They also sent along Santelli's damning declaration regarding the programs in question.
The damage done
"The tragedy is not simply the waste of taxpayer dollars, it is the damage done to the young people who have been on the receiving end of distorted, inaccurate information about condoms and birth control," says James Wagoner, President of Advocates for Youth. "The government has been promoting ignorance in the era of AIDS, and that's not just bad public health policy, that's bad ethics." Santelli, who is Chair of Columbia's Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, reiterates the importance of teaching youth the truth: "The evidence is clear: When used properly condoms are highly effective."
Housing Works' outreach coordinator Johnny Guaylupo, who got HIV as a teenager and has collaborated with SEICUS and Advocates for Youth, applauded the letter. "Sometimes you have to threaten legal action to get anything done," he says. "It was always obvious that these programs are ineffective and give false information about condoms."
Today's action comes after the release earlier this month of a federally commissioned study showing that, notwithstanding the $176 million federal funds currently poured into them annually, abstinence-only-until-marriage programs don't work. The study looked at several federally funded programs and found that teens who participated in them were just as likely to have sex as teens who did not participate. The youth HIV-prevention community is buzzing about the study. "They're so happy to have this as ammunition," Guaylupo says.
Currently, no federal funds are dedicated to supporting sexuality education programs that both teach abstinence and include complete and medically accurate information about how to use contraceptives effectively, despite evidence that these programs can delay sexual activity and increase contraceptive use among teens.
Today's letter notes that in October 2006, the Government Accountability Office informed HHS that its federally funded programs are bound by the Public Health Service Act, which requires medically accurate information about condom effectiveness in certain educational materials. The letter discusses several other instances in which problems with federal abstinence-only programs have been brought to HHS's attention to little or no avail.