Washington funds false sex lessons
The Bush administration is funding sexual health projects that teach children that HIV can be contracted through sweat and tears, touching genitals can result in pregnancy, and that a 43-day-old fetus is a thinking person.
There are more than 100 abstinence programmes, involving several million children aged nine to 18, and running in 25 states since 1999. They are funded by the federal government to the tune of $170m, twice the amount when George Bush came to power.
The money goes to religious, civic and medical organisations as grants. To qualify they may only talk about types of contraception in terms of their failure rates, not about how to use them, or the possible benefits.
The survey was conducted by the staff of congressman Henry Waxman of California, a longstanding Democratic critic of the Republican administration's approach to sex education. His team concentrated on the 13 programmes that are most widely used, and found only two of them were accurate.
"It is absolutely vital that the health education provided to America's youth be scientifically and medically accurate," Mr Waxman said. "The abstinence-only programmes reviewed in this report fail to meet this standard."
Other "facts" include that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, half the gay male teenagers in the US have tested positive for HIV, and condoms fail to prevent transmission of HIV in 31% of incidences of heterosexual intercourse. US government figures contradict all of these assertions.
Mr Waxman told the Washington Post: "I don't think we ought to lie to our children about science. Something is seriously wrong when federal tax dollars are being used to mislead kids about basic health facts."
full story
There are more than 100 abstinence programmes, involving several million children aged nine to 18, and running in 25 states since 1999. They are funded by the federal government to the tune of $170m, twice the amount when George Bush came to power.
The money goes to religious, civic and medical organisations as grants. To qualify they may only talk about types of contraception in terms of their failure rates, not about how to use them, or the possible benefits.
The survey was conducted by the staff of congressman Henry Waxman of California, a longstanding Democratic critic of the Republican administration's approach to sex education. His team concentrated on the 13 programmes that are most widely used, and found only two of them were accurate.
"It is absolutely vital that the health education provided to America's youth be scientifically and medically accurate," Mr Waxman said. "The abstinence-only programmes reviewed in this report fail to meet this standard."
Other "facts" include that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, half the gay male teenagers in the US have tested positive for HIV, and condoms fail to prevent transmission of HIV in 31% of incidences of heterosexual intercourse. US government figures contradict all of these assertions.
Mr Waxman told the Washington Post: "I don't think we ought to lie to our children about science. Something is seriously wrong when federal tax dollars are being used to mislead kids about basic health facts."
full story
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