December 2004

Pennsylvania Youth Not Paying Attention

Health officials and advocates say, according to the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, that in Pennsylvania “lots of kids are having lots of sex,” but as one commentator said, because HIV and AIDS are not in the media as much, “they don’t think it applies to them.” At the same time, illicit drug use in the state has soared. However, public school sex education classes increasingly focus on abstinence as the only reliable means of prevention, and HIV/AIDS educators are allowed to mention illegal drug use only in the context of urging teens to avoid it.