About that “1 in 4 teen girls have an STD” statistic…
It just came out a few hours ago, but by this point I’m sure you’ve seen the headline everywhere: 1 in 4 teen girls has a sexually transmitted disease. The title suggests a plague, a disease! Sick, rampant promiscuity at historically high levels. Lots of bad stuff. I mean, Jesus, that’s 25%!
And the various ideologues will instinctively eat-up the misleading statistic and, in turn, answer with their predictable call-to-arms.
Conservatives will propose more sexual censorship on television, radio and the internet. Fundamentalists will call for some scary theocratic solution, explaining the statistic as God’s collective punishment for our secular, sinful, sex-obsessed culture. And the rest of the government will blindly sink a bunch of taxpayer money into public awareness campaigns, the education system and, maybe if we’re lucky, free Corn Flakes for everyone.
And yourself? You’ll hastily resolve to never have sex again.
That’s where I come in and tell you to chill out: “Yo, chill out!” It’s called sensationalism.
The problem with the CDC study is that it includes HPV. Yes, HPV is technically an STD. But it’s one that is far less worrisome than that which we generally think of as an STD. As the CDC’s website itself states:
Most people with HPV do not develop symptoms or health problems…In 90% of cases, the body’s immune system clears the HPV infection naturally within two years. This is true of both high-risk and low-risk types.
Also, there’s now a vaccine.
And if that doesn’t downplay the HPV threat for you, perhaps its ubiquity will. Again, from the CDC:
At least 50% of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives.”
As Hootchi Chootchi states:
[The CDC] should really study who doesn’t have HPV because I’m telling you that everyone’s got it.
So let’s do that.
HPV, as you see below, accounts for 18 out of that original 25 percent.
Teens were tested for four infections: human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer and affected 18 percent of girls studied; chlamydia, which affected 4 percent; trichomoniasis, 2.5 percent; and herpes simplex virus, 2 percent.
So omitting HPV leaves us with 8 percent, or — what the headline should read — 1 in 12 teen girls who have an STD. Not anything to be proud of but certainly less depraved, less sensationalist than the original figure purported.
