STD Rates Set Record – Americans racked up 19 million cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), a rate that’s a record among developed countries.
The CDC reported that over half of the record STD infections were among teens aged 15-19, and they blamed abstinence-only sex education for the widespread disease rates among teens.
“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 told reporters in a telephone interview.
Douglas said better sex education can help teens know about condom use and that they should limit their number of sex partners and avoid sex with people who do have many other sex partners.
“We are not honestly and openly dealing with this issue and it’s the larger issue of sexual health,” he said.
STD Rates Soar Among Teens:
* Adolescent girls 15 to 19 years had the most chlamydia and gonorrhea cases of any age group at 409,531.
* Black women 15 to 19 had the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea.
* Blacks, who represent 12 percent of the U.S. population, accounted for about 71 percent of reported gonorrhea cases and almost half of all chlamydia and syphilis cases in 2008.
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