CDC's recent report indicating that one in four US teenage girls is infected with an STD came as no shock to Buffalo-area health care providers and youth workers.
"It doesn't surprise us," said Dr. Dalinda Condino, chief of adolescent medicine at Women and Children's Hospital. "You can only get pregnant once a month; you can get an STD every time you have sex."
"People need to know it's a problem out there," said Dr. Anthony J. Billittier IV, Erie County health commissioner. He said chlamydia and gonorrhea are both on the increase in the county, though he does not know if this is due to an actual rise or to better detection and reporting.
Adolescents should be routinely tested for STDs, Billittier said, as a way to destigmatize testing. Sex educators need to stress abstinence and explain safer sex practices, he said, and girls should be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, the STD linked to most cases of cervical cancer. "I don't see how we cannot give our children a potentially lifesaving procedure," he said.
"The overarching theme of the report is not all that new - that sexually active teens will contract [STDs], just one of the harmful effects of sexual activity among adolescents," said Judith Vogtli, program director of ProjecTruth of Catholic Charities of Buffalo. The group stresses abstinence until marriage as the only 100 percent effective way to avoid STDs and teenage pregnancy.
Laura Meyers, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Western New York, sees the results as proof that teaching abstinence alone is not effective. "From our perspective at Planned Parenthood, this, I think, highlights the need very acutely for comprehensive sex education, particularly in schools."
03/25/08
NEW YORK: Targeting Sex Diseases Among Teens
Source: Buffalo News:: Barbara O'Brien; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention