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United States: It seems that the loony fundie penchant for killing off sex education in the US and replacing actual education with lectures on abstinence, has come back to bite them in the arse.
Half of all young Americans will get a sexually transmitted disease by the age of 25, perhaps because they are ignorant about protection or embarrassed to ask for it, according to several reports issued on Tuesday.
The reports, publicized by two nonprofit sexual and youth health groups, said there were 9 million new cases of STD among teens and young adults aged 15 to 24 in 2000.
They said the U.S. government's policy of preferring abstinence-only education would only increase those rates.
For the 27 million young Americans under the age of 25 who have had sex, the stakes are simply too high to talk only about abstinence,James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, said in a statement.
Given the prevalence of STDs, young people need all the facts — including medically accurate information on condoms.
The reports, released jointly by Advocates for Youth — a nonprofit group advocating for sex education, and the sexual health-oriented Alan Guttmacher Institute, pull together information from several different publications.
They include a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in the latest issue of the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, and a University of North Carolina report based on interviews with teens and young adults.
Approximately 18.9 million new cases of STD occurred in 2000, of which 9.1 million (48 percent) were among persons aged 15 to 24,the CDC report reads.
It said three diseases — human papillomavirus or genital wart virus, a parasitic infection called trichomoniasis and chlamydia — accounted for 88 percent of all new cases of STDs in 15- to 24-year-olds. Wart virus is the major cause of cervical cancer while chlamydia can cause infertility.
Half of Young Americans to Get Sex Diseases - Reuters, 24th February 2004.
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at 04:19. Last modified on September 28 2006 at 23:42.
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» ignorance breeds disease. from too many topics, too little time
the abstinence campaigns in sexual education in the u.s., which stopped pretty much prevent young people from being educated about their sexuality, have caused, over time, and increase in sexually transmitted diseases.... [Read More]
Tracked on March 4, 2004 12:47 PM
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