The past decade has seen a relentless demand for placing sexual abstinence-only programs at the forefront of HIV prevention. Most notably is the official US HIV prevention policy for the ABC approach – Abstinence until marriage; advising those who are sexually active to Be faithful to one partner; and finally, urging Condom use, especially for those who have more than one sexual partner.Despite repeated reviews of carefully controlled behavioral intervention trials, HIV prevention science has been ignored for the sake of conservative political agendas. For example, Underhill and colleagues identified 13 carefully controlled intervention trials that enrolled nearly16,000 US youths. "Compared with various controls, no programme affected incidence of unprotected vaginal sex, number of partners, condom use, or sexual initiation. One trial observed adverse effects at short term follow-up (sexually transmitted infections, frequency of sex) and long term follow-up (sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy) compared with usual care, but findings were offset by trials with non-significant results. Another trial observed a protective effect on incidence of vaginal sex compared with usual care, but this was limited to short term follow-up and countered by trials with non-significant findings.”
