August 15, 2007

Abstinence-Only Doesn’t Prevent HIV

A series of studies published in the August 4th issue of The British Medical Journal found that abstinence-only education in America is ineffective in preventing the spread of HIV.

The analysis, an overview of 13 studies, examined about 15,000 random Americans from fifth through eighth grade (and one group aged 18 to 21) and found that abstinence-only programs made no difference in how often participants got pregnant or engaged in high-risk activity. Seven of the 13 trials tracked sexually transmitted infections.