Posted on 09/22/2007 11:06:15 AM PDT by wagglebee
Chances are historically high, young person, that if you screw around sexually nowadays well…you could very well be…screwed. As in, for life, with the “gift” that keeps on giving—namely, a Sexually Transmitted Disease.
FYI young dudes and dudettes: no matter what they tell you on the various TV commercials, these diverse and multitudinous sex plagues aren’t just a “little inconvenient” like a runny nose, halitosis or dandruff. They are devastating. The entrance of an STD into your B-O-D could equal one or more of the following: perpetual physical pain, public humiliation, chronic depression, infertility, increased chance of birth defects in your kids (if you can still have them), cervix, penile and anal cancer and/or an early and horrible visit from the Grim Reaper. Now, I know what most teenage crotch rockets and their aiding and abetting adult purveyors of the follow-your-little-head propaganda are thinking: “It could never happen to me. I’m special. That kind of stuff only happens to skanks like Courtney Love and Tommy Lee, and anyway, more than likely this is trumped-up parent/Bible Belt-inspired blather lathered up to make us keep our zippers in the upright and locked position.” The truth of the matter is that STDs are cranking in our culture like never before, and they are an equal opportunity infector. An estimated 19 million new cases occur each year with our teenage kids getting hammered with the lion’s share of this slop (teens now make up 25% of the 19 million new “victims” annually). Check out this smattering of factual 411 from Dr. Meg Meeker’s new book Your Kids at Risk: How Teen Sex Threatens Our Sons and Daughters: • This year, 8 to 10 million teens will contract an STD. • Nearly one out of four sexually active teens is living with a sexually transmitted disease at this moment. • Nearly 50% of African-American teenagers have genital herpes. • Although teenagers make up just 10% of the population, they acquire 25% of all STDs. • Herpes (specifically, herpes simplex virus type 2) has skyrocketed 500% in the past 20 years among white teenagers. • One in five children over the age of 12 tests positive for herpes type 2. • Nearly one out of ten teenage girls has chlamydia, and half of all new chlamydia cases are diagnosed in girls 15 to 19 years old. • STDs accounted for 87% of all cases reported of the top ten most frequently reported diseases in the United States in 1995. • This new epidemic is not just cursing those “poor inner city kids.” No, the viruses have solidly taken up residence in the suburbs. Yep, the reality is that every twenty-four hours 21,000 teens are slapped, saddled, infused and infected with some creepy, nasty and potentially deadly bug brought about by following the advice of our crass culture. It seems as if following the guidance of the sexual revolutionaries of the ‘60s, American Pie, Superbad, Paris and Pam has brought about a veritable venereal tsunami of which our teens are now drowning in the disease-laden wake. Imagine that. Who’d a thunk that going indiscriminately nuts with your ‘nads would end in anal warts, barrenness, a cauliflowered and inflamed penis, blown ovaries, ruined-for-life fallopian tubes, cervical cancer and a premature death? Wow. Who saw that comin’? Y’know, I thought we could do whatever we wanted to sexually and the god of these goof balls, the latex condom, would save us all, baby. It’s weird that with all the condoms in use today that STDs have not diminished but have rather skyrocketed. That’s freaky. We all had so much hope in that $1.00 thin sheath of lambskin. I guess the condom commandos didn’t figure on new STDs showing up and ruining their party. Yes, the industrious little venereal buggers of the 21st century have found a way around the pesky rubber. One polyurethane circumventor is the human papilloma virus (HPV). This dog is highly contagious and spreads via skin to skin contact as well as through secretions. Unless you get a HazMat suit you’re at risk now if you’re going to be a sexual player. Good luck. For this pain-dealer there is no medication, no treatment that will eliminate this virus and HPV is responsible for 99.7% of all cervical cancer and the deaths of 5,000 women each year. And most victims have no symptoms (just 1% develop genital warts) and no idea they have it until it solidly has them. Young person…let me ask you a blunt question: is getting off with whomever/whenever worth getting offed by an STD? Can’t you wait ‘til you find some non disease-riddled person you love and stick with them? Is the need so intense that potentially dying for the big “O” is cool with you? If so, you need to dial down and get focused. Love yourself a tad more. Get a vision. Find God. Play Yahtzee or something because your obsession could come around and bite you in the butt, literally. Here’s my last word for the teenager: Nobody on the abstinence side of the sex spectrum is trying to keep you from having fun. We’re just trying to keep you alive so that when you meet the right person and get married you can have a healthy sex life with no regrets, diseases, infertility or untimely death, that’s all. And yes, it’s come down to that. The sexual revolution is over, and we all lost. In this, your day, my young friend, there is a very real pay day for buying the BS our sex-obsessed culture is selling you. This is the hand you’ve been dealt. Be afraid. And finally for mom and dad: Get Dr. Meg Meeker’s new book Your Kids at Risk: How Teen Sex Threatens Our Sons and Daughters. This book is one of the most frightening and sobering books I’ve read lately. You will be chilled to the bone. If your GACF (Give a Crap Factor) is remotely engaged regarding your children then this book is a must-read. Be ready to be freaked out. Not only will Dr. Meeker sufficiently wake you up to the STD epidemic that is upon us, but she will simultaneously give you the wherewithal to help you help yours not be a part of the crotchal carnage. One other thing—and don’t tell anybody I told you to do this—but if you don’t have anything to do this weekend, why don’t you Google some STDs with your teen who might still be a little “iffy” about abstinence and check out the various photo galleries of the folks who followed the advice of our modern vice-meisters and played sexual roulette with their reproductive organs? It’s scary. Very scary. You will all be gobsmacked. It’s crude. It’s rude. It’s disgusting. But you know what…sometimes we need something that’ll just wake us the hell up.
Great point!
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When I was a teen a shot of penicillin would cure your ills and a week later you were back in the fight. Nowadays a single encounter could mean a death sentence. I have two daughters, 18 and 21, and to be honest, this scares the living crap out of me and my wife.
If you want to get Biblical about it, the astronomical increase of STD’s could very well be the next plague. One we have brought upon ourselves. You reap what you sow, and in this case it can be far worse than a case of the clap.
When I was a teen in the 50’s, Safe Sex meant my parents did not find out.
.....Bob
This is fantastic. Sad, of course, but really good to see in black and white.
Or run faster than her dad.
Just e-mailed this to my teenaged daughters...
bump
Good article and a perfect example of why FR should have a book reviews section.
The thing that bothers me is that a woman could have HPV, for example, and show no symptoms. I think I want any partner to donate blood before I go any further with her.
This is all a big SO WHAT if you’re a teen.
STD’s kill.
Smoking kills.
Drugs kill.
DWAI kills.
But it all happens to someone else, not me, right?
I am teen.
I am INVINCIBLE!!
We all been there and done that.
Eh. I don’t think this is the going to scare kids straight. It’s a little over the top. Lets face it the greatest risk teenagers face in the current age are fatalities due to auto accidents (whether because they or the person who was driving was drunk or just excessive speeding or other dangerous driving behaviors).
No teenager is going to be all that concerned that they could get AIDS.
I think people are better off on working to limit behaviors that can lead to teens making bad decisions (i.e. binge drinking).
See Books/Literature. I have it in my FR sidebar, though it only gets a new article every other day or so.
How do you get those to appear in your FR sidebar? I have the standard sidebar list and in my Subscription list, I’m not offered that choice.
Good writing style. There’s no use trying to sugar-coat this. Kids aren’t stupid, and the treacle treatment is just patronizing comedy. Tell it true, tell it right, and tell it often. This article does that.
Virologists first began the study of cervical cancer (CC) in the early 1900’s when an Italian doctor conducted a survey and discovered that CC was more often found among married women than among nuns.
Eager to make a scientific connection between the results of the survey and the disease they quickly postulated that sexual activity was the primary risk factor. Although many sexually transmitted bacteria and protozoans were proposed as causative factors in the disease, it wasn’t until 1966, when virologists, following the isolation of the Epstein-Barr virus
(a strain of the ubiquitous herpes virus), suggested, based on a laboratory study, that a higher percentage of CC patients had previously been infected by the herpes virus than had women without the tumor.
This revelation was quickly followed by the elucidation of both the herpes simplex type 1 virus which causes sores around the mouth; and type 2 which causes sores in the genital area - including the cervix. Virologists quickly proposed that type 2 was the cause of CC,... a supposition that was eventually proven wrong.
Yet this conjecture led to the concept of a “latent” virus which eventually became the key support for the theory that HPV caused CC.
In order to explain how a cervical tumor would appear years after exposure to the herpes simplex type 2 virus, scientists constructed a “new” hypothesis: that is to say that during the primary infection when millions of cells were killed an occasional virus would mistakenly mix with a cell’s DNA (thereby becoming
impotent in the process) mutating the genetic code of a few surviving cells which would eventually grow into a tumor years later.
Unfortunately, for the proponents of this theory, further research demonstrated that approximately 85 % of all American adults have been infected by the herpes virus, many without any outward symptoms,
including millions of women without any hint of CC. Additionally, many women with CC were found to mhave never been infected by the herpes virus.
Even in those women with CC and a history of herpes, the viral fragments left over in the tumor cells were different and inactive indicating that NO particular part of the herpes virus was or could be responsible.
Virologists, however, never allowed these facts to discourage them. In 1983 they proposed a NEW hypothesis; that is to say that the herpes virus was a “hit-and-run” virus which briefly infected the cervix, then mysteriously
vanished never to be seen again. The hypothesis, although ridiculous, actually lasted into the early 1990’s when they quietly retreated from the herpes virus hypothesis altogether.
In 1977, a German herpes virologist, Harald zur Hausen, proposed another virus as the causative factor in the development of CC, the human papilloma virus. He based this on the observation that cervical warts
could occasionally turn into full-fledged cancers.
Utilizing new laboratory techniques in the early 1980’s
zur Hausen was able to isolate small broken left-over pieces of the papilloma virus in the tumor cells of some patients.
However, zur Hausen and his virology colleagues soon discovered that more than one-half of the American adult population (therefore, half of the adult women) had been infected by the virus, but only a very few ever
developed CC. zur Hausen’s theory appeared to violate Koch’s first postulate (Koch’s Laws of Infectious Disease) since at least one-third of all
women with cervical cancer never developed CC. The remaining two-thirds are infected with over a dozen different strains of HPV.
The human papilloma virus tends to infect younger, more sexually active women with an average age of approximately 20 years. CC on the other hand is a disease afflicting older women usually detected between
the ages of 40-70 years. Based on these observations zur Hausen calculated a highly improbable “latency” period of between 20 to 50 years. Additionally, the HPV virus does not reactivate when a tumor appears.
zur Hausen postulated that HPV caused a genetic mutation which eventually produced the tumor. But each leftover piece of the virus caused different irrelevant mutations. In addition, cervical cancer grows from one
single cell which begs the question of why millions of other infected cervical cells never develop into tumors.
HPV causes papillomas (genital warts) on young, sexually active adults. The warts are not malignant and may appear or disappear almost overnight. They typically disappear spontaneously as a result of antiviral immunity.
But cancers, especially solid tumors, usually develop more slowly over time. CC begins as a benign hyperplasia. Most hyperplasias regress and disappear, but occasionally one may develop into a dysplasia, or a larger growth of
abnormal cells. In certain instances a dysplasia may develop into a neoplasia, or cancer. A small percentage of these neoplasias will become malignant and develop into cervical cancer.
It has been proposed that dysplasias may actually encourage the growth of HPV. It is interesting to note that equal numbers of men and women have genital warts, yet penile cancer in men is exceedingly rare.
A cancer virus that infects both men and women equally should produce equal numbers of tumors.
It is thought that the rampant use of oral hormonal contraceptives by females, as well as the documented increase in female smokers, may be factors influencing the development of CC. Oral contraceptives contain
powerful sex steroids that have direct effects upon the function of cervical cells, and may explain the superficial “correlation between CC and the number of sexual contacts a woman has had. Since men do NOT use oral contraceptives it may explain the rarity of penile cancer. Finally, CC is
not contagious.
The study by Merck & Co., Inc., evaluated women between the ages of 9-26 years. Although it is not unheard of that a young woman is diagnosed with CC, it is rare. One would not expect to find women in this age
population developing CC. I am not aware of any valid study which proves conclusively that HPV causes CC.
So, as a parent, if you are worried about your daughter developing genital warts, by all means get the shots. I would not, however, make the assumption at this time that the vaccine will prevent her from eventually developing CC.
Perhaps waiting for further scientific data on efficacy and safety would be prudent. It is, however, the responsibility of each parent to understand and evaluate the risks and rewards with the vaccine.
“He infected Jim! We’ll have to shoot him out the air-lock!”
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