1 in 4 Teenage Girls Has Sexually Transmitted Disease

From my local newspaper: At least 1 in 4 teen girls has sex-related disease Results of federal study startle experts Associated Press, Journal Sentinel staff Posted: March 11, 2008 At least one in four teenage American girls has a sexually transmitted disease, suggests a first-of-its-kind federal study that startled some adolescent-health experts. Some doctors said the numbers might be a reflection of both abstinence-only sex education and teens' own sense of invulnerability. Because some sexually transmitted infections can cause infertility and cancer, U.S. health officials called for better screening, vaccination and prevention. Only about half of the girls in the study acknowledged having sex. Some teens define sex as only intercourse, yet other types of intimate behavior, including oral sex, can spread some diseases. Among those who admitted having sex, the rate was even more disturbing - 40% had an STD. High rates of sexually transmitted disease continue to be problematic for Milwaukee, which led the nation in the number of new chlamydia cases reported in 2005, according to a report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in October. The city is planning to add more managers and outreach workers to its STD/HIV clinics this year. Among Wisconsin high school students surveyed in 2007, 44.6% reported ever having sex, while 32.9% reported having sex with one or more partners in the past three months, according to a state report. Of those who recently had sex, 61.4% said that they used a condom. The same report found that 9,628 teens ages 15 to 19 were infected with either chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis or genital herpes in 2006. The majority of the cases were in Milwaukee County, where nearly 80% of cases occurred within 10 city ZIP codes - 53206, 53210, 53205, 53212, 53218, 53216, 53208, 53209, 53225, 53224. Responding to the federal report released Tuesday, Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Montefiore Medical Center's Children's Hospital in New York, said: "This is pretty shocking." [Say WHAT? "Pretty" shocking? It's a full-blown outrageous scandal that every thinking person in this damned city should be on their rooftops screaming about this at the top of their bloody lungs!] "To talk about abstinence is not a bad thing," but teen girls - and boys, too - need to be informed about how to protect themselves if they do have sex, she added. Ellen Kruger, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, agreed, saying that teens need to hear the dual message that STDs can be prevented by abstinence and condoms. The overall STD rate among the 838 girls in the study was 26%, which translates to more than 3 million girls nationwide, researchers with the CDC found. They released the results at an STD prevention conference in Chicago. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the study shows that "the national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure, and teenage girls are paying the real price." Similar claims were made last year when the government announced the teen birth rate rose between 2005 and 2006, the first increase in 15 years. The new study by CDC researcher Sara Forhan relied on slightly older data. It is an analysis of nationally representative records on girls ages 14 to 19 who participated in a 2003-'04 government health survey. The teens were tested for four infections: human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer and affected 18% of girls studied; chlamydia, which affected 4%; trichomoniasis, 2.5%; and genital herpes, 2%. John Douglas, director of the CDC's division of STD prevention, said the results are the first to examine the combined national prevalence of common sexually transmitted diseases among adolescent girls. He said the data, now a few years old, likely reflect current prevalence rates. Disease rates were significantly higher among black girls; nearly half had at least one STD, vs. 20% among whites. Kawanza Newson of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report from Milwaukee. *********************************************************************************** Instead of teaching our girls about sex, we've wasted $1.5 billion dollars on touting "sexual abstinence." Well, guess what - it hasn't worked! Take your heads out of the sand, people. The amount of ignorance among teenagers and late pre-teens about sex and its consequences is staggering! Young girls - too young - are having sex - unprotected sex, whether you like it or not. Get over your religious phobias and get out of denial. Face the facts! This study cannot be denied - and its starkly horrifying information should not be downplayed and buried on page 23 of the "local" section of the newspaper! Girls get pregnant; they get venereal diseases; they get AIDS. The boys and men who are having unprotected sex with these girls are infected themselves and passing along the diseases to multiple parnters. And what happens to the babies to whom the young mothers pass these diseases on - the article doesn't even talk about that! What about the staggering cost to our society of so many young lives wasted? 1 in 4 teenaged girls in the United States has a sexually transmitted disease - VD. Among certain populations, the figure is a staggering 40%. In the age of antibiotics and condoms - it seems to me we've got a higher VD infection rate than we had in the Middle Ages! The impact has been disproportionately felt in 0ur black and Latino communities. How do we teach our beautiful young women to have respect for themselves and to give themselves a chance to discover their full potential? How do we remedy this horrible situation? I won't mince words. Bring back REAL sex education in the schools, for one thing, because for sure our girls aren't learning what they need to know about at home! (Probably their parents don't know themselves!) Separate boys from girls and really TEACH them the nitty gritty facts about the consequences of unprotected sex and the price paid (and it will be paid, one way or another). Teach the girls how to have self-respect - teach them how to play chess. What, you say? Chess? But it's been proven over and over and over again that chess, at low cost, teaches our young ones to develop critical thinking skills, independent thought, creativity, self-reliance, confidence, courage, judgment and - self-respect. A young girl needs all of these things today, and most of all, self-respect, to navigate a world that has totally turned its back on them - "the experts were 'startled'?". Oh please!