safe sex

Newsweek is reporting this morning that the Senate's version of the Health Insurance Reform bill will feature a restoration of funding for abstinence education.

"Their provision would restore a program called Title V, which, since the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, has allocated a yearly $50 million in grants to abstinence-only education programs. Obama let the program lapse in June, leaving some abstinence-only groups in dire straits. So in September, Sen. Orrin Hatch offered an amendment to restore Title V via heath-care reform, which (much to the outrage of liberal groups) just squeaked through the Senate Finance Committee with a 12–11 vote. A similar amendment, offered in the House by Rep. Terry Lee from Nebraska, died in committee.

The American Medical Association reported this summer that Abstinence Only Education programs not only don't work, but they could also be the cause of the spike in teen birth rates in 2006.

"This report stated that these abstinence programs resulted in "no delay of initiating sexual activity, no reduction in the number of sexual partners and no increase in abstinence," according to Stuart Gitlow, MD. . .

"The AMA believes that federal funding should support sex education programs, which include condom use, abstinence and other methods of contraception."

Its quite simply nonsense for federal funds to be given to programs we have proven don't work and can result in the increase in sexually transmitted diseases to our nation's youth. Last year, ABC News reported that 1 in 4 teen girls now has an STD.

When will conservative US Senate members put right-wing ideology aside and allow young people to have the facts about protecting themselves and their own health?

The Guttmacher Institute has a report on a new study of contraceptive usage among various age groups of women. And guess what?! Turns out that whole abstinence only education that wasn't preventing teen pregnancies is now also helping spread sexual transmitted diseases like Syphilis.

After declines in teen pregnancy in the 90's and early 2000's - knocked up rates went up.

According to the report:

"Sexually active 15-19-year-olds are more likely than their 20-49-year-old counterparts to use contraceptives inconsistently and, on average, experience a 25% higher rate of contraceptive failure."

Last week Forbes had a similar piece with disturbing data

"About one-third of adolescents hadn't received instruction on methods of birth control before age 18. In 2004, there were about 745,000 pregnancies among females younger than age 20. This included an estimated 16,000 pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14."

And if that isn't unfortunate enough syphilis cases in 15 to 24 year old males and females have increased in the last few years. And about a million young people 10-24 have it or chlamydia or gonorrhea.

• "Nearly one-quarter of females aged 15 to 19, and 45 percent of females aged 20 to 24 had a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection during 2003-2004.
• From 1997 to 2006, rates of AIDS cases among males among males aged 15 to 24 increased.
• In 2006, the majority of new diagnoses of HIV infection among young people occurred among males and those aged 20 to 24.
• From 2004 to 2006, about 100,000 females aged 10 to 24 visited a hospital emergency department for nonfatal sexual assault, including 30,000 females aged 10 to 14."

I think its obvious that whatever policy that happened in the 90's influenced the decrease in teen pregnancies and rate of STDs and obviously one could deduce that the thing that changed in say... 2000 was probably a contributing factor to a sudden increase....?

Access to proper information is key and education is the silver bullet to stopping STDs and unwanted pregnancy. For the slew of organizations out there that think telling kids "just say no" is a great model, I think its obviously not working.

As another way of showing my dedication to 1100 Torches, I wanted to report on an important blog post my friend Don sent me.

Advocates for Youth has been championing a great cause - that we zero out Abstinence Only programs and instead begin mandating comprehensive sex education be taught in public schools. The 2010 Budget Blueprint, AFY reports, only includes a section under Health and Human Services for preventing Teen Pregnancy.

"Prevents Teen Pregnancy. The Budget supports State, community-based, and faith-based efforts to reduce teen pregnancy using evidence based models. The program will fund models that stress the importance of abstinence while providing medically-accurate and age-appropriate information to youth who have already become sexually active."

We've had years of programming that simply isn't working - and further, in 2007 we found out that the Bush Administration's HHS Department was fudging data and requiring the use of

"misleading" and "scientifically inaccurate" information in three curricula used by programs that receive federal abstinence-only funding."

At this point 17 states including California opted out of Abstinence Only Education refusing federal funds that mandate it be the only way if funding is accepted. The AP went further by reporting that "participation in the program is down 40 percent over two years. . . Arizona and Iowa recently announced they will pull out at the start of the upcoming fiscal year."

This means of the 28 states that accept the funding only $21million of the full $50 million allotted to states was actually being used because states just didn't believe in the program.

AFY goes further raising questions about the 2010 Budget because it says it will provide

“medically-accurate and age-appropriate information to youth who have already become sexually active.” Does this mean that those who haven’t had sex yet don’t get this sex education? How will “sexually active youth” be identified? Or what assumptions will go into deciding who receives these lessons?

Are the “model” programs that “stress the importance of abstinence” also required to provide the “medically-accurate and age-appropriate” components? Or are those “model” programs stressing abstinence the same “faith based efforts” that the previous Administration funded?

Will we see a parallel stream of funding that allows those ineffective, harmful abstinence-only programs that are rooted in simply telling kids that it is dangerous and immoral to have sex before marriage, while ignoring or misleading youth on the effectiveness of contraception?

And perhaps most concerning, there is no reference to “comprehensive sex education" AFY Blog

The points are well argued and raise an important issue that is necessary for the next HHS (whoever that might be) to take on as soon as possible. We must stop these reckless programs which consistently mislead and outright lie to young people who deserve to have the proper information and education to better arm themselves against health threats.

I'm reminded by the great opening West Wing scene which I lovingly refer to as the Religious Smackdown where the good Pastor says "Show the average teenage man a condom and his mind will turn to thoughts of lust." And Toby says "Show the average teenage male a lug wrench and his mind will turn...."

Fictional Surgeon General or not - condoms reduce teen pregnancy and HIV and AIDS. (pdf)

Roland Martin from CNN sits down with the Young Turks and talked about Sarah Palin and the importance of safe sex policies. Also addresses the color divide between the two conventions. Martin jokes that the GOP Convention has "about 12" African Americans in attendance at the conference. They also only have about 41 young people.

See the video here:

Really great retell of a situation Jackie Borchardt from Politics West recalls of her first evening of DNC08

""We need more young people like you," a California delegate said to me while I slurped a lemonade outside the convention hall.

I set the record straight: I'm not here for Democratic Party business. I'm a journalist here to learn about the relationship between the news media and politics.

Still, he said, the world needs more aware young people.
Message to other 23 year olds who might be walking around the Pepsi Center this week: you are carrying a lot of weight. Whether or not the "youth vote" exists, people are paying attention to the presence of youth in this convention."

She's right. There seems to be a powerful lip-service in the air, like all the politicians got the memo and talking points. Tonight's Gavel to Gavel featured a lot of conversation about things like college affordability and veterans - two big issues to young people care deeply about.

I wish someone would have passed the memo onto Hollywood because they were reluctant to discuss young voters further than to say they hoped young people voted. This was a direct contrast from the unbelievable appearencees today by Kerry Washington and Will.i.Am who both attended the DNC Youth Council's press avail to talk about service and outreach to young people.

Tonight, however than being with my "people" at a nice political youthy event, I braved the dark tedious night of standing outside the Rolling Stone/Trojan event geared toward conveying the importance of safe sex.

First to roll in was former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, who quite honestly, was the most on topic, well versed person I've seen address the issue of safe sex and comprehensive sex education. No surprise. She related the importance of safe sex to young people and answered my questions about the youth vote.

An hour later..... very few people who came through the door, and possibly two politicians total, Bill Mahr showed up. His interviews were all pre-set and he had no interests answering any questions about young voters or the youth movement. Given his prominence as a liberal media voice, you would think young voters would be something he would be considerably well versed on and eager to talk about. We should send him the memo.

Another hour a steady stream of celebs rolled through following an event for the Creative Coalition a truly unbelievable organization that helps better educate members of the creative community about issues that matter to their community.

Spike Lee was eager to tell young voters to VOTE, Alan Cummings waved a Michelle sign around, Susan Sarandon reminded us all that she has two young voters at home, but it was surprising the last two people who came by me who I'm sure you'll recognize who genuinely articulated their urgency for better health care.

I'll have the video uploaded soon, so you can hear more then. I did get some good video of the Trojan guy talking about the event as well as the Rolling Stone guy all who were well versed on topics about young people and safe sex practices.