Print edition: 
A panel of research experts commissioned by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently examined 83 studies of sex education. The data the experts reviewed and the recommendations they released seem to fly in more directions than yesterday's newspaper caught up in a Kansas wind.
On the one hand, the panel said that comprehensive sex-ed programs are effective across the board. But two panel members issued a minority opinion saying that data they reviewed shows comprehensive sex-ed programs in schools had no significant impact on teen condom use, pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.
Likewise, the panel said there's insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of abstinence education programs, despite statistical evidence that such programs did significantly reduce teen sexual activity, on average, for about one year. These positive results came from 10 different studies, all of which met standards of research quality in order to be included in the CDC review.
Finally, the panel concluded that comprehensive sex-ed programs are effective at reducing sexually transmitted diseases, yet the effect appeared to come from just two programs operating in community health clinics — with no significant STD effect for programs in schools.
In other words, recommendations from the panel don't seem to match important findings from the data.
The danger in all this is that condom and contraception proponents will use these recommendations to advance their agenda, despite conflicting details lurking just beneath the surface. What cannot be hidden is the fact that teen pregnancy and STD rates remain at catastrophic levels (1 of 4 teen girls has an STD), even though comprehensive sex-ed programs dominate the educational landscape with more than a 4-to-1 funding advantage.
Here in Kansas we're working to provide parents and kids with scientifically accurate, evidence-based information on why abstinence from sexual activity not only reduces physical and emotional damage but eliminates it. Because the study of abstinence education is so new, there is a limited, but growing, body of evidence that teens are responding to the abstinence message by making the healthy choice to avoid sexual activity and other risky behavior.
SANDY PICKERT
Executive director
Abstinence Education Inc.
Wichita
