CDC: Teen pregnancy, AIDS rates up

Teen birthrates and rates of AIDS cases among young men have gone up in recent years according to a report released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to the CDC, birth rates among teens aged 15 or above had been down since 1991 but spiked in more than half of U.S. states since 2005. The number of AIDS cases in teen boys has nearly doubled while syphilis cases in adolescents aged 15 to 24 has gone up in recent years.

The negative news regarding sexual health in teens has increased scrutiny of abstinence-only programs that were championed by the Bush White House. Teens need "medically accurate, age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education" rather than such a strong emphasis on abstinence-only according to a statement by Planned Parenthood. Conversely, backers of abstinence-only like a group called American Values laid blame on primarily with “a culture obsessed with sex.” (Right and our culture was so prudish and Victorian during the years that teen birthrates and AIDS rates were going down!)

Racial minorities were particularly vulnerable according to the CDC:

"This report identifies a number of concerns regarding the sexual and reproductive health of our nation's young people," Janet Collins, director of CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, said in a news release...

The study also identified a number of racial/ethnic disparities in the sexual and reproductive health of young Americans. For example, Hispanic teens aged 15 to 19 are much more likely to become pregnant (132.8 births per 1,000 females) than non-Hispanic blacks (128 per 1,000) and non-Hispanic whites (45.2 per 1,000). The study also found that non-Hispanic black youth in all age groups have the highest rates of new HIV and AIDS diagnoses.

Image- BBC News (“A UK software developer has released a "purity ring" application for Apple's iPhone.”)
Online Sources- ABC News, Guardian UK, Chicago Tribune

Study: 1 in 5 Mexican-American girls infected with STDs

A report released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) concluded that an alarming number of teen girls in the U.S. are infected with a sexually transmitted disease (STD). The study of over 800 subjects found that 26% of teen girls overall have STDs with black girls at the most danger of infection with 48%. Regarding Latinas, only Mexican-Americans were considered in the study; their rate of infection was approximately 1 in 5.

The CDC’s findings show that sex education programs are in need of retooling, according to several experts interviewed by the Associated Press:

"This is pretty shocking," said Dr. Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Montefiore Medical Center's Children's Hospital in New York.

"To talk about abstinence is not a bad thing," but teen girls — and boys too — need to be informed about how to protect themselves if they do have sex, Alderman said…

"Those numbers are certainly alarming," said sex education expert Nora Gelperin, who works with a teen-written Web site called sexetc.org. She said they reflect "the sad state of sex education in our country."

"Sexuality is still a very taboo subject in our society," she said. "Teens tell us that they can't make decisions in the dark and that adults aren't properly preparing them to make responsible decisions."

Sources- New York Times, Bloomberg, Xinhua, Associated Press

Image- BBC News (“HPV, which can cause cancer, was found to be the most common STD”)