Posted on 03/10/2002 9:07:26 AM PST by Happygal
SYPHILIS infection statistics have soared in Great Britain, reaching levels not seen since troops returned home from the Second World War.
Gonorrhoea is back to the high levels which prevailed before the Aids campaign. And cases of chlamydia have more than doubled between 1995 and 2000. In fact, the incidence of all three diseases has more than doubled in that time, but chlamydia is of particular concern as it can cause infertility in women but as it generally occurs without any discernible symptoms regularly goes untreated.
These are figures provided by specialist clinics, and show 1.5 million Britons with a sexually transmitted disease (STD). The true figure is estimated to be 10 times higher if undetected cases and those treated by local GPs were included.
Dr James Bingham, consultant in genito-urinary medicine at Guy's and St Thomas's hospitals in London, says, "We're clearly not winning. There have been three outbreaks of syphilis in north London, Brighton and Manchester, where the infection is not under control yet."
The real, rather than merely prophesied, epidemic of STDs has now arrived.
Nor are we insulated in Ireland. Britain may be a trend-setter, but figures shortly to be released by the National Disease Surveillance Centre in Dublin, show a serious rise in the same diseases, with cases of chlamydia in particular soaring six-fold over the past five years, particularly among those under 30.
Again, the official figures are considered to be only the tip of the iceberg.
Some might argue that consenting adults can live with this. We have, after all, changed our minds considerably on casual sex. So it could be said that an increased level of sexually transmitted disease is the price we're apparently prepared to pay for our liberalism.
Certainly the escalating abuse of alcohol amongst our youth marks a breathtaking level of risk-taking. Sex without a head which can think is, by definition, not safe. It would seem reasonable to presume that anyone with a titter of wit would know that serial monogamy, the current moral norm, is no solution to the problem of sexually transmitted disease, when relationships are measured in months rather than years.
And society in recent years has been bombarded with sex education, Aids campaigns, and disease statistics. It seems, therefore, that our behaviour is wilful, that we are merely reaping what we deliberately sow.
Several things stay the hand of such a dismissive stance.
We've handed the younger generations a world which says that modern medicine can conquer all.
Medication, operations and organ replacement all offer a responsibility-free medical panacea, so we can drink, over-eat, and indulge in the politically correct notion that screening of asylum-seekers is not acceptable, even when we know they come from countries where health services are so poor that infectious illnesses such as hepatitis are endemic.
Gone are notions of public health. Forgotten are the Fifties, when tuberculosis stalked the land, mass screening was the norm, isolation insisted upon, social stigmatising seen as sensible self-protection.
We've done far more than abuse antibiotics through over-use. We've debased all thoughts of self-help, common sense and basic care when it comes to our health. How then can we be surprised when our youth are less than frantic about sexually transmitted disease?
Experts in Great Britain who also now face increases in their already alarmingly high rates of teenage pregnancies are pointing an accusing finger at the sex education message society has decided to send to kids. We've chosen to equate safe sex almost exclusively with condoms; made the promise that science, like medicine, can absolve the individual from sexual responsibility.
A booklet being distributed by British health authorities to all 13-year-olds contains a highlighted box which says: "Fact: Only condoms provide all-in-one protection against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV."
This, of course, is not true. The industry's own statistics say that the failure rate of condoms can be as high as 15 per cent in terms of preventing pregnancy.
And, of course, young people in particular tend to make mistakes when they use them. As one expert put it: "For those regularly active between the ages of 15 and 20, there is a one-in-six chance of getting pregnant when using a condom; the same odds as Russian roulette."
Nor do condoms automatically protect against STDs. Condom Effectiveness for STD Prevention, a report from the Medical Institute an American non-profit organisation, which draws on information from the National Institutes for Health in the US states, "While consistent use of condoms reduces the yearly risk of contracting HIV for both sexes and reduces the risk of transmission of gonorrhoea from women to men, there is no clear evidence that condoms reduce the risk of other STDs, including chlamydia in women."
There is also abstinence, which protects best of all. But it's not fashionable. Instead, we send our kids out into a precarious world with false notions of safety, carelessly ignoring the reality of young sex, which is passionate, unplanned, and increasingly influenced by alcohol.
And we do more. Because sex education, without the firm message of preferred abstinence, is effectively permission.
So true. I have no kids. Reason: infertility. Cause? An STD I contracted before marriage.
Dabbling in casual sex WILL get you burned. It's the "hot stove" lesson I just HAD to learn the hard way.
Most people these days do not think about future consequences, not only for themselves, but for the person who might marry them later in life.
Eh, first I heard of it, but that doesn't mean it's not true! *L* To tell you the truth, that wouldn't surprise me at all! *L*
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Not exactly. For 35 years younger generations have been handed the message sex can do it all.
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