Sex Ed Works

Via Steve Benen, this story:

Teenagers who have had formal sex education are far more likely to put off having sex, contradicting earlier studies on the effectiveness of such programs, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

They found teenage boys who had sex education in school were 71 percent less likely to have intercourse before age 15, and teen girls who had sex education were 59 percent less likely to have sex before age 15.

Sex education also increased the likelihood that teen boys would use contraceptives the first time they had sex, according to the study by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

“Sex education seems to be working,” Trisha Mueller, an epidemiologist with the CDC who led the study, said in a statement. “It seems to be especially effective for populations that are usually at high risk.”

Mueller’s team looked at a 2002 national survey of 2,019 teens aged 15 to 19.

Like this is a surprise. Well, to the administration and the remaining indignant 30%, it is. Or maybe not. They’ll insist results are flawed, because one thing is obvious… political hacks with communications backgrounds in the White House know a heck of a lot more than folks at the Centers for Disease Control about this sort of thing. Today is Friday, right before a few holidays…. I smell some firings in the air at the CDC.