15 Morningside Road, Edinburgh EH10 4DP, Tel: 0131 447 6394 or 0774 298 4459
London - 12 November 2003
Organisers: House of Commons MPs
SCHB participant: Mr Philip Boydell
The consultation was chaired by Jim Dobbin MP and Andrew Selous MP at Westminster. It took the form of four seminars and a large-scale discussion after the talks.
The first seminar was led by Professor Michael Adler of the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London. He discussed the trends in sexual health in the UK and the increasing rates of STI’s including Chlamydia and HIV. He noted the need to provide more resources towards reducing the STI figures and that at present sexual health was sadly not an NHS priority.
Dr Trevor Stammers of St George’s Hospital Medical School gave a seminar on abstinence programs and the evidence for the effectiveness of these approaches that is emerging from the United States. He highlighted the need to encourage abstinence as the only sure way of reducing STI figures in the UK, and that the current safe sex contraception strategy is unlikely to have a significant impact in improving sexual health.
Dr David Paton discussed the evidence for the effectiveness of family planning clinics using Economic approaches. The findings are that family planning does not reduce underage conceptions. He concluded that increasing access to abortion’s and family planning is likely to increase teenage pregnancy. In the case of increasing the use of emergency contraception he noted the significant lack of evidence that it decreases teenage pregnancy. Dr Paton called on the Government to look more carefully at the evidence-base for the effectiveness of approaches to sexual health that are currently being proposed before proceeding.
Dr Daniel Low-Beer provided the last talk on the evidence for why Uganda had so successfully reduced its HIV prevalence rate while other countries have continued to struggle to stem the tide of this deadly disease. He cited the major role of a broad-based community response to the crisis, the limited role of condoms and the vital importance of behaviour change in reducing HIV. He noted that addressing the underlying risk behaviour itself was a major factor behind Uganda’s decline in HIV. This change was through what was known as the ABC approach, with A being for Abstinence, B for Be Faithful (Monogamy) and C for Condom use if A and B don’t happen.
All these talks provided the backdrop for a lively debate about the effectiveness of sex education and condoms in preventing poor sexual health, the lack of evidence-base for current approaches, and the evidence for the possible effectiveness of abstinence approaches in the UK.