More From the Fundamentalists - Update

12:54 a.m. Monday - for an excellent post on fundamentalists and sex, take a look at Echidne .


Earlier today, I posted about the GOP and contraception.

Here's even more - they're continuing to pressure the CDC.

I lifted this from 365Gay but it applies regardless of gender. The fundamentalists don't seem to care how many kids die as long as they can promote their hateful agenda.

(Washington) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has bowed to pressure from a Republican congressman to include two abstinence-only proponents to a federal panel on STDs, bypassing the scientific approval process according to a published report.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind) the chair of the House subcommittee on drug policy accused the CDC of including only opponents of abstinence programs on the panel to be held Tuesday at the National STD Prevention Conference in Jacksonville, Fla.

In e-mail to Health and Human Services officials, obtained by the Inquirer, Souder's office asked whether the CDC was "clear about the controversial nature of this session and its obvious anti-abstinence objective."

"It was clear that there was not a scintilla of something positive about the abstinence education method," Michelle Gress, an aide to Souder told the paper.

Critics of congressional interference at the CDC said they were concerned that scientific studies on sexual behavior would not be made public if they conflicted with the administration's pro abstinence stand.

Jonathan Zenilman, president of the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association and conference organizer said that the two pro-abstinence people added to the panel are not scientists.

"These people aren't scientists; they haven't written anything," he told the Inquirer. "The only reason they're here is because of political pressure from the administration."

Two make room for the abstinence proponents the CDC dropped two researchers from the panel - one a Penn State scientist who had prepared a discussion paper on how abstinence programs were tied to rising STD rates.

Earlier this year the Society of Adolescent Medicine, in one of the most exhaustive reviews to date of government-funded abstinence-only programs, rejected current administration policy that promotes abstinence as the only sexual health prevention strategy for young people in the United States and abroad. (story)

This not the first time political pressure has been used to promote the administration's health policies.

Last year the Bush administration told a federally funded conference on LGBT suicide to remove the words "gay," "lesbian," "bisexual" and "transgender" from its material. (story)

The conference was organized by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center of Newton, Mass with funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

It was originally titled "Suicide Prevention Among Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender Individuals."

The SAMHSA the title be changed to "sexual orientation" to avoid angering Christian conservatives.

©365Gay.com 2006