Minister Boljurova stated that she was forced to pull out the book after furious letters written by angry parents of high school students. The Kyrgyz-language newspaper Agym published some of the letters complaining that the book deals with such topics as pregnancy, sex, sexually transmitted diseases, etc., in a too open and immoral way, offending traditional Kyrgyz sensibilities. In their letters, parents express their concern that information in the book is presented in such an open way that it will encourage early sexual activity among adolescents.

This turn of events has come as a surprise for the authors of the book as they have received lots of thankful letters from different educational establishments for the publication of the book. The author of the book Boris Shapiro, the head of the National AIDS Centre, does not agree with the accusations saying that the book was not aimed to encourage and stimulate sexual activity among teenagers. He expressed his regrets about the withdrawal of the book. There is no convenient substitute to replace Healthy Living except for the biology book with one chapter on sex education, mostly dedicated to health and hygiene. In addition, school teachers especially in rural areas blush and try to gloss over this chapter as quick as possible.

In an interview to Interfax, Shapiro pointed out the rapidly growing numbers of drug addicts and HIV-infected people, 20 percent of whom are aged 15-24. In such an alarming situation, it is very dangerous and irresponsible to leave children without an official systematic sex education book. Taking into account the conservative nature and cultural taboos in discussing sex issues, such a book is vitally important to protect young people from pregnancy and STDs, including HIV. In a questionnaire conducted by RFE/RL, teenagers said that the book was very helpful as it provided the information that “they felt unable to bring up with their parents and that their parents were too shy to discuss with them”.

Many experts condemn the decision of the education minister and say that continual conservatism, ignorance and denial of proper sex education will not stop young people from practicing sex but it will lead to the increase of HIV cases from 432 officially registered to several thousands. Shapiro said he suspects that the whole case against him and the co-authors of the book was started because of a $18 million UN grant to the organization headed by him. He is sure that the case was initiated by someone who wants to take his position as the head of the AIDS centre and get full control of the grant money.