Teen-Agers Get Bad Advice : ‘Dr. Ruth’ Sex Book Goofs

A publisher has issued a recall of Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s book on sexual information for teen-agers because a chapter on avoiding pregnancy mistakenly tells girls they are least fertile when actually they are most fertile.

The erroneous sentence in Chapter 10 of “First Love: A Young People’s Guide to Sexual Information,” which Westheimer co-wrote with Nathan Kravetz, reads: “The safe times are the week before and the week of ovulation.”

The sentence should have said unsafe.

Warner Books said it was asking dealers to return whatever is left of the 115,000-book first printing of the book by the guru of “good sex” who is best known to radio and television audiences simply as “Dr. Ruth.”

“We also are encouraging consumers to return the books,” said a spokeswoman for the publisher.