Statement Regarding Santelli Attack on Curriculum

April 27, 2007

WARNING: A war between medical references and medical opinions has turned to a campaign against materials used to reach young teens with a message of "embracing good health."

The attacks will continue until everyone marches to the beat of their drum, which leaves no freedom to tell the story in a way that 12-14 year olds will understand. Who are they? They are promoters of risky behaviors who mistakenly think promising contraceptive and birth control services will “protect” teens from devastating consequences.

They are politically motivated considering the timing. The Santelli's report against abstinence education is more than a year old and has been refuted as being extremely flawed yet it’s repeated, why? Might it be because his employer (Guttmacher) and contraceptive education collaborators want abstinence funding to be killed by Congress?

Teen-Aid will seek freedom from medical error. All the medical materials are medically referenced and written by a medical doctor. Teen-Aid materials will seek to free teens from all the negative consequences of premarital sexual activity.

Teen-Aid is always in process of updating information and will fix anything truly in error however; these criticisms are based on misinformation because the conclusions are incorrect. Please read the Santelli report by the Medical Institute http://www.medinstitute.org/includes/downloads/antellirevised.pdf.

Teen-Aid issues a challenge for the same level of dissection of contraceptive/comprehensive programs including program effectiveness in reducing STI’s, sexual activity, the use of medical referencing, parental and community involvement and attention to the long and short term emotional, social and financial consequences to children impacted by their lessons.

For more thoughts on this issue click here.

LeAnna Benn

(509) 482-2868

www.teen-aid.org

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