Abstinence Ed Works …

FOXNEWS.COM, June 14 — Abstinence education works, according to a preliminary study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Teens who participated in abstinence programs had an increased awareness of the potential consequences of sexual activity before marriage, thought more highly of abstinent behaviors, and had less favorable opinions about sexual activity before marriage than did students who were not in abstinence programs.

The study, prepared by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., is part of a five-year study that tracks participants in four abstinence programs. An examination of how abstinence education affects behavior is expected next year.

… Knocking Abstinence Doesn't

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, June 16 — A study that concluded that young people who make pledges of abstinence were at equal risk for sexually transmitted disease and more likely to engage in anal and oral sex has been criticized as “deliberately” misleading and “inaccurate.”

The Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector and Dr. Kirk Johnson re-examined the data and claims as presented by professors Peter Bearman and Hanna Bruckner in the Journal of Adolescent Health, and concluded “Bearman and Bruckner's conclusions were inaccurate. … Moreover, in crucial respects they deliberately misled the press and public.”

Caution Urged on Embryo Claims

THE LANCET, June — Calling it “sensationalist,” the prestigious British medical journal has denounced media claims that cures for diseases from embryo stem cells are just around the corner.

In an editorial, “Stem-cell research: hope and hype,” The Lancet warned “no safe and effective stem-cell therapy will be widely available for at least a decade, and possibly longer.”

The editors mentioned that, in contrast, dozens of diseases are currently giving way to experimental treatments derived with adult stem cells, including several forms of cancer that are routinely treated using the patient's own stem cells derived from his blood or bone marrow.

The Lancet quoted Neil Scolding, a British neurology researcher at the University of Bristol saying, “What is unarguable is that the human embryo is alive and is human, and intentionally ending the life of one human being for the potential benefit of others [i.e., for research] is not territory to which mainstream clinical researchers have hitherto sought claim — or which ethically conscious objectors could ever concede.”