When I saw the article beginning, "One out of four girls," the first thing that came to mind was, who gave them the STDs? What are the statistics for males? Since human papilloma virus (HPV) can be transmitted by skin-to-skin contact in addition to sexual intercourse or oral sex, all STDs involve some form of direct sexual activity with another person.

And that person is? Men and boys, one would imagine. So far, I've encountered no editorials excoriating males, or calling them slutty.

Watch Very Young Girls when it's finally shown on Showtime. It follows GEMS, an org that helps teen-age prostitutes escape "the life".

"Currently, there is no test designed to find HPV in men."
http://www.cdc.gov/STD/hpv/STDFact-HPV-and-men.htm

This is the reason there is no speculation in the CDC study about the teen girls. Though we may be able to consider that what is most likely here is that 1 in 4 teen boys have HPV too, though there is absolutely no conclusive evidence of it because of the lack of testing available. Men are also considerably less likely to have any health risks because of HPV.

HPV is so common, I think I'm more freaked out that I wasn't more freaked out by this study.

This isn't related to this study, but on the issue of young people and women of color being covered in the news... here's a story that was on the front page of the Boston Globe two weeks ago: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/03/04/frightened_bus_users_make_stand/

Although it documents a really awful situation on the bus lines, I thought it put a really great emphasis on the organizing the teens are doing.

Abstinence-only policies, funding cuts and poor educational systems hit hardest among young black women.

Is this true when you control for class?

Umm, to be more specific, since "class" isn't well defined for statistical purposes, is it true when you control for income and other measures of wealth?

I hear you on most of this - I thought the article was pretty awful, too. However, I don't share your feelings on the word "infected." It sounds a hell of a lot better than "diseased." In fact, Sexually Transmitted Infection (rather than STD) is a term that is gaining acceptance rapidly.

Planned Parenthood uses the term:

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/stis-stds-101.htm

I don't believe that the article was implying the women are "slutty," I think it was just addressing something that could become a real problem for many women.
Blaming the men for giving these women STDs is pointless, they are in the same position. "Abstinence-only policies, funding cuts and poor educational systems"
Educated people make better decisions. It is not fair to assume that these men know they have an STD and their goal is to infect as many unknowing victims as possible.

I hadn't said this at the last post, but I wanted to add to Jpettibo's post with a wikipedia snippet that sums things up pretty well:

Until the 1990s, such afflictions were commonly known as venereal diseases: Veneris is the Latin genitive (possessive) form of the name Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Social disease was another euphemism. Public health officials originally introduced the term sexually transmitted infection, which clinicians are increasingly using alongside the term sexually transmitted disease in order to distinguish it from the former. According to http://www.etharc.org, "Sometimes the terms STI and STD are used interchangeably. This can be confusing and not always accurate, so it helps first to understand the difference between infection and disease. Infection simply means that a germ — virus, bacteria, or parasite — that can cause disease or sickness is present inside a person’s body. An infected person does not necessarily have any symptoms or signs that the virus or bacteria is actually hurting his or her body; they do not necessarily feel sick. A disease means that the infection is actually causing the infected person to feel sick, or to notice something is wrong. For this reason, the term STI — which refers to infection with any germ that can cause an STD, even if the infected person has no symptoms — is a much broader term than STD." The distinction being made, however, is closer to that between a colonization and an infection, rather than between an infection and a disease.

I must confess that, as attuned as I am to the nuances of language, I really don't understand the whole move from STDs to STIs (for that matter, whatever happened to VD?). I mean...syphilis is a disease. Chlamydia is a disease. What's wrong with the word? Yes, it sounds icky to say that one is "diseased," but that's because it feels bad to be diseased, and that's directly related to health.

EG: I must confess that, as attuned as I am to the nuances of language, I really don't understand the whole move from STDs to STIs (for that matter, whatever happened to VD?). I mean...syphilis is a disease. Chlamydia is a disease. What's wrong with the word?

They mean different things medically. It is possible to have the organisms that cause syphilis without showing any symptoms. Such an individual would be infected but not diseased. There are even people who are infected with HIV but are completely immune to the virus's negative effects, and are therefore not deiseased.

Thinking in terms of infection instead of disease is better when dealing with public health because that takes carriers into consideration.

If the study reported on by the NYT analyzed rates of infection, then they were merely using a well-defined medical term correctly, and being offended by that is silly at best.

Hum I’ll second what madhattress said.

To EG’s question:

It's based on medical jargon. An infection means basically that a pathogen managed to get in and establish itself (ie reproduce) at the cost of the host. This is vs colonization where pathogen reproduction isn't successful. And is vs parasitism where the parasite is a more complex(eukaryotic) organism than say a bacterium or fungus. Infection can then lead to the display of symptom, e.g. disease.

So basically STI would include ppl who don't have symptoms, but carry the infectious pathogen and are capable of spreading it to others. For example, people who are HIV+ but aren't exhibiting symptoms would have an STI. Once symptoms start you could refer to it as STI or a STD, but you wouldn’t trust an AIDS survey that ignored ppl who were HIV+ but weren’t experiencing symptoms (yet).

So research that focuses on the pervasiveness of STIs would give a more accurate picture of the spread of these infectious diseases than measures of STD outbreaks which would only measure the amount of ppl who actually exhibit the disease symptoms and get tested.

Or what Alice said.

thanks for clearing up the medical terminology--i wasn't aware of the actual difference between an infection and a disease.

"This isn't related to this study, but on the issue of young people and women of color being covered in the news... here's a story that was on the front page of the Boston Globe two weeks ago: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/03/04/frightened_bus_users_make_stand/
"Although it documents a really awful situation on the bus lines, I thought it put a really great emphasis on the organizing the teens are doing."

Yeah, I agree. I hope the MBTA listens!

"Blaming the men for giving these women STDs is pointless, they are in the same position."

Not necessarily. It's one thing when a girl and her high school sweetheart are in the same boat, it's another when the girl didn't have a choice and her new 30-year-old husband did...

Well, seeing a woman on the cover, let alone, a black woman on the cover of the NY Times should have made everyone aware that she was being put in a negative spot light. When are these ways going to change? Why can't we take a look at all the great things young women are doing, and stay out of their sex lives!

"So then where do we go? HALF of the African American girls studied had contracted some form of STD. That is a staggering statistic and it is hard to blame such a clear discrepancy on personal behavior and choice. Abstinence-only policies, funding cuts and poor educational systems hit hardest among young black women. And they don't deserve it."

Poor educational systems not only because sex ed gets cut but because prep for opportunities besides SAHM gets cut. Yesterday I read this article:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/03/16/less_affluent_areas_see_increase_in_teen_births/?page=2

"...'They used to say that 80 percent of teens who got pregnant didn't want to be teen moms, that it was not a planned pregnancy,' said Carol Ireland, the pregnancy and parenting teen specialist for Haverhill public schools. But now, Ireland said, more and more teenage girls are telling her they want to be pregnant.

"'There are more girls right now - because of a lack of direction - who say, 'Well, I know I shouldn't be a mom, but I kind of want to be.' Because they don't have the goals, they don't have the direction. And that's what really troubles me,' Ireland said..."

Now if someone - of any race - is trying to get pregnant then isn't she even more vulnerable to STIs than someone who chooses to have protected sex or to not have sex?

Mina,

Thanks for article. I found two other parts interesting.

"Haverhill school officials said there may be a direct correlation between decreased funding for health education and their rising teen birth rate. But officials in Framingham, Leominster, and Lawrence say they can't explain their recent increases in pregnant youths by pointing to key changes in funding or in curriculum.

and

For many girls, the biggest problem is often getting access to birth control, said Aglio-Girelli, one of the teen pregnancy nurses in Framingham's schools."

3 comments:

a) What is so fricken hard about getting some decent sex education and some counselors in these schools?...oh, right no one can make a fast buck off of that.

b) Um, again, what happened to the dudes?

c) These communities are basically training grounds for low-end, unskilled labor.

Now let me think...let me think...what's a low-end, unskilled job thats going to be unsafe and disportionately female...

see how this sh*t comes full circle?