January 2009

Delray Beach senator wants new sex-ed policy in Florida schools

January 29, 2009, Sun Sentinel/Orlando Sentinel

A South Florida senator wants Florida public schools to ditch the wait-until-marriage message that's long been the basis of many sex-education classes.

Instead, state Sen. Ted Deutch, D- Delray Beach, has filed legislation that would require schools to teach students about condoms and other contraceptive methods starting in the sixth grade.

Letter to the Editor: Teach What Works

Abstinence-only programs are ineffective and put our youth at risk.

A study of some of the strongest abstinence-only programs by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health provided further evidence.

The study showed that teenagers who pledge to remain abstinent until marriage were just as likely to engage in sexual activity as those who do not make this pledge.

Even more alarming, those who made "virginity pledges" were significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control.

Letter to the Editor: Keep Teens Healthy

Miami Herald, January 8, 2009

Re: the Jan. 7 story U.S. teen birth rates end 14-year drop:

Amid the news that teen birth rates rose after a 14-year decline, Planned Parenthood again calls on elected officials to support the Healthy Teens Act. This common-sense legislation will help ensure that teens receive the information they need to protect themselves against unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS.

Teen birth rates up in 26 states

The newest and most detailed data on teen birth rates shows significant increases in 26 states and represents most regions of the USA.

"To see 26 states with statistically significant increases is fairly remarkable," says Paul Sutton, a demographer with the National Center for Health Statistics, which released the data Wednesday. "We're seeing increases in both the number of teens having births and also the rate at which they are having births. Both of them are going up."

CDC: Mississippi has highest teen birth rate

ATLANTA -- Mississippi now has the nation's highest teen birth rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, a new federal report says.

Mississippi's rate was more than 60 percent higher than the national average in 2006, according to new state statistics released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The teen birth rate for that year in Texas and New Mexico was more than 50 percent higher.

Sexually spread diseases on rise

ATLANTA - Sexually spread diseases, for years on the decline, are on the rise, with reported chlamydia cases setting a record, government health officials said Tuesday.