The U.S. Centers for Disease Control report released Monday paints a dismal future as most sexually active teenage girls suffer from one or more disease. President Obama's solution is to terminate abstinence education.
-- From "Sex infections still growing in U.S., says CDC" by Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor, Reuters 11/16/09
"Chlamydia and gonorrhea are stable at unacceptably high levels and syphilis is resurgent after almost being eliminated," said John Douglas, director of the division of sexually transmitted diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"We have among the highest rates of STDs of any developed country in the world," Douglas added in a telephone interview.
The administration of President Barack Obama has signaled a willingness to move away from so-called abstinence-only sex education approaches promoted by his predecessor, George W. Bush, and conservative state and local governments.
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From "Teen Girls at Higher Risk for STDs: Report" U.S. News & World Report 11/16/09
Teen girls aged 15 to 19 accounted for the largest number (409,531) of the 1.5 million reported chlamydia and gonorrhea cases in the United States in 2008, followed by women aged 20 to 24, according to an annual federal report released Monday.
The researchers also found that black females continue to have a higher rate of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) than any other racial or ethnic group.
Early testing, diagnosis and treatment are essential to prevent long-term health consequences of sexually transmitted diseases. Each year in the United States, untreated STDs lead to complications that cause at least 24,000 women to become infertile, according to the CDC.
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From "Teen Girls' Chlamydia Drives STD Rate Up" by Daniel J. DeNoon, WebMD Health News 11/16/09
Because chlamydia infections usually don't cause symptoms until they result in pelvic inflammatory disease, many cases remain undetected and hence unreported. Sexually active girls and women under age 26 should be screened for chlamydia every year, but only 41.6% of eligible women enrolled in Medicaid or private health plans do so.
Left untreated, some 10% to 20% of chlamydia infections cause pelvic inflammatory disease. That can lead to long-lasting pelvic pain, ectopic pregnancy, and infertility.
Overall, chlamydia rates went up 9.2% from 2007 to 2008, the most recent year for which there is data. Some of the increase is due to increased screening, but the CDC suspects that much of the increase reflects a rising number of new infections.
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