Right-wingers controlling CDC?

Organizers for a federal panel say the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were forced by House Republican Mark Souder (R-IN) to add abstinence-only proponents to a panel to be held at the National STD Prevention Conference.

From the CentreDaily.com:

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., who chairs the House subcommittee on drug policy, questioned the balance of the original panel, which focused on the failure of abstinence-until-marriage programs. In e-mail to Health and Human Services officials, his office asked whether the CDC was "clear about the controversial nature of this session and its obvious anti-abstinence objective."

Last week the title of the panel was changed and two members were replaced. One of them was a Penn State student who was going to talk about how abstinence programs were tied to rising STD rates.

[snip]

Scientists have complained about increasing government interference. Last year, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration officials told coordinators of a conference on suicide prevention to remove the words gay, lesbian and bisexual from its program and add a session on faith-based suicide prevention.

This was the first time, conference organizers said, that a single politician had so clearly interfered and achieved such dramatic results. The concern, they said, was that studies on sexual behavior would not be made public if they jarred with the administration's views on abstinence and other public-health issues.

"At the CDC, they're beside themselves," said Jonathan Zenilman, president of the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association and conference organizer. "These people aren't scientists; they haven't written anything. The only reason they're here is because of political pressure from the administration."

[snip]

Coburn spokesman John Hart questioned why the CDC would present data that contradict the administration's policy. [emphasis mine]

"I'm not suggesting that their views shouldn't be debated," he said, "but should federally funded tax dollars be used to do that?"

The new panel is titled "Public Health Strategies of Abstinence Programs for Youth."

Uh, Mr. Hart? How about because the Centers for Disease Control are supposed to be a politically-neutral agency, concerned with the public health and ways to improve said public health, not a megaphone for the administration?

Personally, I dislike abstinence-only education. It's unrealistic.

Teenagers will have sex. I'd prefer they didn't, (I'd certainly prefer mine didn't!) but the reality is – as George Michael sang when I was in high school: "Sex is natural, sex is fun."

Teenagers, like adults, enjoy doing things that are fun and make them feel good. They especially like doing things they know their parents wouldn't approve of. We have to acknowledge that while abstinence-only programs may keep some teenagers from having sex before they marry, it will not stop all, or even the majority of them.

Everyone on both sides of this issue have good intentions. We want to protect our children and other children. However, the abstinence-only crowd feels that the only way to protect them is to tout 'abstinence' while leaving them ignorant about the dangers of failing to remain abstinent.