The building originally opened as a temperance hall in the 19th Century to encourage the area's mining community to come together, while promoting abstinence from alcohol.

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This is a dangerous autoimmune condition that can result in permanent intestinal damage and a range of other problems and unfortunately requires complete abstinence from gluten to remedy, something not easily accomplished.

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As in many other towns across the country, a temperance hall was set up in the 19th Century to encourage the area's mining community to come together, while also promoting abstinence from alcohol.

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As applied in other areas of public health, the benefits of harm reduction are well known: the idea is to reduce the health consequences of a substance or behavior without demanding complete abstinence from it.

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More seriously, though no one disputes that abstinence protects you from sexually transmitted diseases, many doubt the wisdom of promoting abstinence and nothing else.

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Still, as Tanya Somanader notes, this should help steer the conversation away from abstinence-only education.

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Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said there has been a shift in policy from abstinence to dependency.

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But for abstinence education advocates, the problems stem from not enough focus on refraining from sex until marriage.

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Infection rates have fallen from 15% to 5% but critics say this could now rise because the government is promoting abstinence, rather than safe sex.

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