by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
(March 17, 2008) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new study indicating one in four teenage girls between the ages of 14 and 19 are infected with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) in the United States.
The new study by CDC researcher Sara Forhan, M.D., analyzed the records of 838 girls ages 14 to 19 who participated in a 2003-04 government health study. The teens were tested for four common STDs: human papillomavirus (HPV) which can cause cervical cancer, chlamydia, trichomaniasis, and genital herpes. The study found 26 percent of the girls to be infected.
“What we found is alarming,” said Dr. Forhan, during a March 11 teleconference. “One in four female adolescents in the U.S. has at least one of the four most common STDs that effects women.
“These numbers translate into 3.2 million young women nationwide who are infected with an STD. This means that far too many young women are at risk of the serious health effects of untreated STD’s, including infertility and cervical cancer.”
HPV was the most prevalent STD at 18 percent. There are 100 different strains of this virus and 30 of them are contracted sexually, including genital warts. A vaccine has recently become available to protect against four strains of HPV, including those known to cause cervical cancer.
Chlamydia was found in four percent of the teens. This disease, which can be treated with antibiotics, often has no symptoms and can lead to infertility.
Trichomaniasis, which causes abnormal discharge and painful urination, can also be treated with antibiotics, and was found in 2.5 percent of the teens.
Genital herpes was found in two percent of the teens. This disease causes painful blisters and is not curable.
Disease rates were significantly higher among black girls – nearly half had at least one STD – versus 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-Americans.
According to this study, it will be very difficult for any sexually active teen to avoid the danger of contracting a disease. Even among girls who said they had only a single sexual partner, 20 percent were infected.
The report prompted organizations that profit from teenage promiscuity, such as Planned Parenthood, to make their usual demands for more money for “safe sex” education and less money for abstinence education programs.
“The national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, to CBN News, “and teenage girls are paying the real price.”
The problem with this oft-repeated argument is that it is not based on facts.
Sexual activity rates among U.S. teens have been going down for the last 12 or 13 years, which coincides with the time abstinence education programs began. Abortion, pregnancies and out of wedlock births rates have also been going down among teens during the same time period. However, pregnancy, abortion and out of wedlock births have been rising for the older age group, between 19-25, a group that has not been targeted by abstinence programs.
There is also mounting evidence that the problem with teen promiscuity may be found in the content of comprehensive or “safe sex” programs which are taught in the majority of U.S. schools. A recent review of these programs by the National Institutes of Health found that many of them do not go far enough in promoting abstinence while making misleading claims about the safety of condoms in preventing both pregnancy and STDs.
“Teens are erroneously taught that a condom makes sex safe,” said Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, to LifeSite News. “When we learn that one in four teen girls is infected with a sexually transmitted disease, it becomes clear that the contraception-based approach taught in 75% of U.S. schools is failing young people.”
Gary Rose, M.D., president and CEO of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, a non-partisan, non-sectarian medical research organization, says that condoms don’t make sex safe, only less risky.
“Generally, people think that if they us a condom, that they’re ‘protected’ and having ‘safe sex,’ but we know that for some of these diseases like gonorrhea and syphilis, using a condom only lowers your risk by about 50 percent,” he told KVUE News in Austin, Texas.
Even if condoms were capable of curbing this epidemic, the reality is that most people don’t use them consistently or correctly.
Giving misleading information to teens is only one reason why the “safe sex” programs may be contributing to the prevalence of STDs in American youth.
“There’s too much pressure on being put on young adolescent women to become sexually active,” says Dr. Kathleen Raviele, M.D., a practicing gynecologist and the president of the Catholic Medical Association.
“In my 30 years of practice, as sex ed programs are being offered to lower and lower grades, we’re seeing younger and younger children engaging in sexual behavior,” she said.
“We just have to look at the sex education programs in schools to see how they’ve failed. They have actually trained kids how to be sexually active at a time when they’re very vulnerable and not mature enough to engage in risky behavior that lead to sexually transmitted diseases that can damage their fertility later on. But it is also going to create problems with them as they try to establish marriages and families of their own,” she said.
“The best way to prevent the transmission of STDs is to supervise your daughter and any dating situations and eliminate the sex ed programs at schools because they’re training kids on how to have sex without consequences. There obviously are consequences and condoms are obviously not the solution. It’s not condoms, it’s chastity.”
However, Dr. Raviele sees another agenda at work in the release of this latest study. According to one CDC official, Dr. Kevin Fenton, because STDs can cause infertility and cervical cancer in women, “screening, vaccination and other prevention strategies for sexually active women are among our highest public health priorities,” he said.
“Getting the HPV vaccine is mentioned several times,” Dr. Raviele pointed out. “When I read this study I thought, ‘oh, there’s another agenda going on here.’ I think this is a push to mandate the HPV vaccine around the country.”
The drive for mandating the HPV vaccine, Gardasil, in the nation’s schools caused such a controversy last year that the manufacturer, Merck & Co., officially backed off the program.
“I think they’re still trying to do this but through another approach,” Dr. Raviele said. “They stand to make about $3 billion dollars on this vaccine. And they just lost $5 billion on lawsuits concerning Vioxx.”
However, the cost to our children’s health must outweigh any financial gains to be had from the promotion of vaccines or “safe sex” programs that encourage promiscuity among youth.
“This is not the same as other behaviors,” Dr. Raviele said. “It involves them physically and spiritually so it’s really damaging their ability to form committed relationships for life.”
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly/Women of Grace. http://www.womenofgrace.com
Give your children everything they need to make the right decisions about their sexuality. See If You Really Loved Me: 100 Questions on Dating, Relationship, and Sexual Purity, by acclaimed teen educator, Jason Evert, available in our store at www.womenofgrace.com/catalog
