Posted on 06/03/2008 1:39:05 PM PDT by forkinsocket
Does one of every four American teenagers really have a sexually transmitted disease? No, despite headlines given to a recent federal study.
On March 11, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease.
This eye-opening statistic landed like a dead rat on the doorsteps of America’s 37 million households and 30 million teenagers. The New York Times, among other papers, put the news on the front page. CBS news anchor Katie Couric told her viewers that “at least one in four teenage girls in America has a sexually transmitted disease,” and she ended by saying, “I know what I’ll be talking about at the dinner table tonight.”
The one-in-four number “really caught every parent in America’s attention,” said Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, because it is so simple and “so stunning.” Richards said that her 17-year-old daughter read it “and personalized it, and said, ‘There are some girls I know who have an STI’ ”—shorthand for sexually transmitted infection. “It really brought it home.”
Rival Washington advocates pounced on the CDC’s startling statistic. One faction, led by Planned Parenthood and other groups that get federal grants, said the number shows that the Bush administration’s abstinence-promotion programs don’t work and that funding should be transferred to sex-education and condom-distribution programs. The rival faction, led by social conservatives, said that the one-in-four number demonstrates the failure of condoms and sex-education classes.
An April 23 hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee showcased this dispute.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...
Haven’t they been pushing the condom safe sex message for 20 years now? Didn’t that message penetrate the young people?
My wife checked this out when it first came out and said most of it was HPV and didn’t really buy off on it. I think the CDC is trolling for more money myself. There’s nothing like a crisis to drum up some money, isn’t that right? (Think globull warming.)
“One faction, led by Planned Parenthood and other groups that get federal grants, said the number shows that the Bush administration’s abstinence-promotion programs don’t work”
No, they work. Problem is they’re not followed.
25% is just about 1 out of four by my math. Sample size is too small to be valid, though.
How many dudes have sexually transmitted infections? Why is this not being reported on? How are the girls getting these infections?
It’s funny to see the reactions. The abstinence/conservative group says that the 1 in 4 number indicates that the condom safe sex message hasn’t worked. The liberal group says that this shows that not enough has been done to get the message out there. Interesting........
… we pride ourselves in following three core values—accountability, respect, and integrity.
Strike one, strike two, strike three... you're out!
NO. Tell me it ain’t so......
A Government Study that is portrayed inaccurately and may not even be accurate itself ?
How is this possible. How could we ever trust the Government and the media again ?
Why was it just GIRLS that had the diseases??? The boys are NEVER mentioned as having any....wonder why?
All this bull is based on their underhanded efforts to force the HPV Vaccine on our little girls.
Who by the way WILL have sex. So our dear leaders MUST teach them that abstinence is a silly religious (bad!) superstition and that they are entitle to free condoms - followed up later with free abortions.
Abstinence-until-marriage programs nearly always fail because, surveys show, 95 percent of people have sex before marriage. --Heather Boonstra, Guttmacher Institute
If that 95% only sleep with one or two people whom they know well and wait until their 17 or 18 instead of 14 or 15, I'd say it's well worth it.
I'm my own grammar-nazi.
Nice choice of words...
No, but something else did.
Seriously, you aren't the only one to wonder that. There seems to be a big push to force all girls to get vaccinated. I think it would be more effective to get the tom cats who can't control themselves neutered.
“...said the number shows that the Bush administration’s abstinence-promotion programs don’t work”
— Under Bush....abstinence ‘didn’t work.” Under a liberal... no one works.
It’s funny to see the reactions. The abstinence/conservative group says that the 1 in 4 number indicates that the condom safe sex message hasn’t worked. The liberal group says that this shows that not enough has been done to get the message out there. Interesting........
First, there are no good simple cheap tests for HPV, and there are no male symptoms, so we don't really know how many teenage boys have HPV.
Second, The dirty little secret here is that HPV is not passed by fluids - it is a virus that is is passed by contact between male scrotum and female external genitalia. And HPV infection rates, male and female, are substantially larger than for other STDs.
So ... indoctronate kids that condom sex is safer ...and even if they DO use a condom, they will pass HPV.
Conclusion: Advocating use of a condom to prevent other STDs results in higher incidences of HPV.
Because in quite a few cases it isn't boys in their own age group but men in their 20's and 30's that they're sleeping with.
Hank
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