The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
May 19, 2006

In a chilling reprise of recent assaults on scientific integrity, participants at a recent national conference on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases did not hear a panel entitled: "Are Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs a Threat to Public Health?"

Instead, they heard "Public Health Strategies of Abstinence Programs for Youth." The speakers at the conference, which was sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were also changed to remove a critic of abstinence-only education programs in favor of two proponents, one of whom states online that his goal is to "serve the Lord through medical missions and the preaching of the Gospel."

Once again, politicians have knee-capped scientists. The program change at the conference reportedly occurred as a result of pressure from U.S. Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.), an outspoken opponent of contraception and comprehensive sex education, who claimed that the program lacked "balance," a complaint highly reminiscent of the call for evolution to be "balanced" in the classroom by teaching intelligent design.

It should probably come as no surprise that the government censored a critic of abstinence-only sex ed. After all, abstinence-only education is itself a form of government censorship, by which certain facts -- about contraception, sexually transmitted disease, same-sex relationships and abortion -- are simply suppressed or distorted to fit an ideological agenda: the view that only married people should be sexually active.

It's not the first time ideology about sex trumps knowledge. Just last year, Health and Human Services officials tried to remove the words "gay" and "lesbian," from the title of a panel on suicide prevention, even though the purpose of the panel was to address the well-documented fact that gay and lesbian youth face an elevated suicide risk.

This trampling of the scientific process is disturbing on numerous levels.

First, it represents a gross intrusion of politics into what should be a professional assessment about who is most qualified to present information on a particular topic. Second, the notion of "balance" assumes that both sides in the debate over abstinence are equally valid scientifically, which is a questionable assumption.

As with intelligent design, the scientific community has long since reached consensus, but certain politicians don't like the conclusion. A lengthy trial before a federal judge a few months ago presumably disposed of the claim that intelligent design competes scientifically with evolution, for purposes of determining the content of public education. But whether the opponents of evolution will be any more satisfied with the determination of a federal court than they were with the views of paleontologists, evolutionary biologists and other specialists, remains to be seen.

Instead of addressing the question of whether abstinence education poses a public health threat as a medical and scientific question, politicians devoted to the cause of abstinence decided to stack the deck, change the question and predetermine the answer. The participants were rejected and selected based on their viewpoint rather than their expertise. The predictable result would be a "he said, she said" session that sheds considerably more heat than light.

The notion of "balance" is appealing in the abstract, but it has specific meaning at a scientific conference, where an invitation to speak has long been premised on whether a scientist's findings have withstood the scrutiny of the peer review process. Invoking "balance" in this situation, then, is merely a political ploy, a smokescreen for suppressing or diluting unwanted voices, regardless of the truth they may convey. And, even worse, it is an outright assault on the public's right to valid and reliable scientific information.

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