STD Education

These days everyone is so focused on AIDS and HIV being sexually transmitted, it seems like no one even thinks about all the other STDs that are out there like Syphillis, Chlamydia, Genital Herpes, and Gonorrhea. For instance, did you know that in this country in 2006 there were 358,366 cases of Gonorrhea reported. Or that there were 36,935 cases of Syphillis reported in 2006 and an overwhelming 1,030,911 cases of Chlamydia reported. There were no statistics reported on how many cases of Genital Herpes there were, however, it is believed that about 80% of the people with this disease don't even know that they have it. Therefore, it is believed that it is constantly being spread from partner to partner. It seems to be more prevalently spread from male to female during sex, however, there have been several instances of women passing it to a male partner, no one is exactly sure why.

I am not saying that HIV which may eventually lead to AIDS is not a serious problem, all I am saying is that seems to me that there needs to be more of a focus placed on all STDs and more information needs to pushed to our young people, letting them know about the risks to their health and their future. Having unprotected sex is just a bad idea, especially when you are young. HIV is considered a young persons illness because most of the cases being reported are in those persons 25 and under. This means that they really need to be careful out there, because one night of pleasure could lead them to a lifetime of pain and illness or even death. Making teens aware of the risks involved is only one part of this. They should have kids come into the schools to talk about their STDs much in the same way that MADD comes in with a crashed up car. These kids need the shock value of the whole experience, they don't think that it is going to happen to them, but looking at the statistics, there is actually a strong possibility that they are next.