A new study says abstinence-only education programs don’t work. Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine has already responded by cutting off funding for abstinence-only sex education, but a talk with the organization that sponsored the study reveals a different side to the story.

The study, sponsored by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, analyzed 115 programs, 8 of which were abstinence programs. According to the Campaign’s press release, the real news is that sex education programs show positive effects on teenage sexual behavior.

“The press has decided to focus on one narrow finding in the report, which is this focus on abstinence. And at present, there is not strong evidence that abstinence programs work,” Bill Albert, Deputy Director of the Campaign, told WoW. “It is not fair to assume that all abstinence programs do not work.”

Albert said abstinence-only programs are new, not necessarily ineffective. Comprehensive sex education programs have been around longer, Albert said, and research fifteen to twenty years ago would have found that “most comprehensive programs don’t work either.”

Abstinence programs have only received funding since the 1996 Welfare Reform Bill, and according to Victoria Huber, Executive Director of the National Abstinence Education Association, they already show progress.

“It has taken other programs at least a generation … before they start to demonstrate any positive results, and abstinence programs already show they are very effective,” Huber told WoW.

So, if experts acknowledge the study’s limitations and early evidence suggests abstinence programs can work, what’s up with the press? Huber says they seem to have a singular mission—to take pot shots at abstinence education.

“They’re not looking at the research that is out there,” said Huber. “It seems like we continue to see narrow special interest groups who, for some reason, don’t want teens to abstain from sex.”