States Opting for Comprehensive anti-HIV Campaigns

Source: "Abstinence Programs Face Rejection: More States Opt to Turn Down the Federal Money Attached to That Kind of Sex Ed"
By Rob Stein, The Washington Post, December 16, 2007.

At least 14 states have either notified the federal government that they will no longer be requesting the funds or are not expected to apply, forgoing more than $15 million of the $50 million available. Four states had passed up the funding before this year. "Two other states -- Ohio and Washington -- have applied but stipulated they would use the money for comprehensive sex education, effectively making themselves ineligible, federal officials said." The WP says that this is due to the mounting evidence "that the approach is ineffective".

Comment: It doesn't take much evidence to convince me that sex education and contraceptive use combined with promotion of abstinence will be more effective than abstinence alone.

But the Bush administration's ideological approach to HIV makes it resistant to evidence based policy in anything having to do with human sex and reproduction." JAD