In other words, the federal and state governments have spent
more than $1.5 billion over the past 10 years on programs that
simply do not work. A copy of the full report is available at
www.mathematica-mpr.com/welfare/abstinence.asp. The 10-year
study confirms the findings made by the Institute of Medicine,
the nation's premier public-health authority, which called
abstinence-only-until-marriage "poor fiscal and public-health
policy" and urged Congress to repeal the funding. Additionally,
the leading public health organizations, including the American
Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for Adolescent Medicine, and
the American Medical Association, all support a comprehensive
sex-education approach. What teens need and parents want is
medically accurate, comprehensive sex education programs that
include abstinence, birth control and sexually transmitted
disease prevention information. Seventy-six percent of voters
surveyed by Harris Interactive in July agreed with the
statement: "For teenagers, prevention star