Faith-based medicine -- and reporting
On page F6 in the health section of Tuesday's New York Times is an aprox. 200 word article: "Abstinence-Only Programs Not Found to Prevent H.I.V.". I'd skimmed the main "A" section of the paper that gives international and national stories, and hadn't seen an article there. Surely this is bigger news, in a country that still practices abstinence-only health education, than the front page article devoted to Brooke Astors' passing?

Anyway, the facts reported in The Times are that a study was published in the August issue of the British Medical Journal comparing abstinance-only programs to various controls, including no treatment. Abstinence-only had no effect positive or negative towards STIs, pregnancy, unprotected sex, or the age of first sexual experience. I'll have to take a gander at the actual journal article to tease out what exactly their control groups included in addition to "no treatment" groups.

The lead author of the study is quoted in The Times as saying: "It appears that this evidence base is frequently neglected in debates over abstinence-based prevention". No kidding.