The recent report from the Administration for Children and Families defends abstinence-only programs by attacking comprehensive sexuality education.

By William Smith, SIECUS.

Senator Tom Coburn must have felt like a champ last week.  He released his own missive on the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), claiming in the title of the document that the CDC's "wasteful" spending indicated a "CDC Off Center." The 114 pages of that report have consumed more paper and staff time in its creation than it is worth.  Until the CDC comes fully into line with Dr. Coburn's vision of fiscal restraint and public health strained through an ideological sieve, such diatribes make for amusing reading.  I was pleased to see that yours truly made the cut when Coburn retold the story of how I got booted from a peer-reviewed panel at the national STD conference. I was tossed out because I was actually going to question the public health rationale for abstinence-only-until-marri age programs--of course, that's not exactly how Coburn told the story. Amusingly, the CDC ended up picking up the last minute tab for the goofs brought in to replace me--of course the report didn't mention that.