Health Experts Criticize Changes in STD Panel [View All]

[MountainLaurel]

Once again, dogma trumps science. It's a scary world out there.

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Federal agencies ordered changes to a government-sponsored conference on prevention of sexually transmitted diseases after a congressman raised questions about the absence of speakers supporting abstinence programs, officials said yesterday.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the main organizer of the conference, dropped one speaker from a panel on abstinence being held today, added two others and changed the name of the session, officials said.

The decision was praised by supporters of abstinence programs and the congressman who raised questions about the panel, but it was condemned by public health experts as political meddling because the new presentations had not been approved through a scientific peer-review process.

The controversy involves the 2006 National STD Prevention Conference in Jacksonville, Fla., which began yesterday.

An aide to Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.), sent an e-mail April 26 to the Department of Health and Human Services raising questions about a panel titled "Are Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs a Threat to Public Health?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/08/AR2006050801445.html