Bill and Melinda Gates made headlines around the world when they spoke this week at the opening of the International AIDS Conference in Toronto. They urged quicker progress toward the next big breakthrough, including practical methods to prevent HIV transmission such as microbicides for women.

Amid the flurry of news were striking comments by Bill Gates that abstinence programs have limited usefulness. That view is a sharp contrast to the Bush administration and Congress, which require organizations they fund to spend at least a third of their prevention dollars on programs that promote sexual abstinence.

Gates' comments prompted this response, ahem, from the government.