A study released by the Center for Disease Control and prevention found that AT LEAST one in four teenage girls is infected with a sexually transmitted disease. The teenage girls used in the study were tested for Chlamydia, HPV, genital herpes and trichomoniasis, only four of the most common STD infections threatening public health today. So why did they test girls instead of boys? Well there are likely to be a variety of reasons, but before you women out there get too angry, you should know that HPV, one of the STD's covered in the the study, can only be tested for in women. Men can carry the disease and may suffer some of the consequences of having it (although not to the same degree as women), but there is no kind of screening for the diease among men.
For those of you out there who have never heard of HPV, learn it. Its the most common STD out there, and is likely to infect over 50% of sexually active adults at some point in their lifetime. It can occasionally cause genital warts, and can cause certain kinds of cancer, mainly cervical cancer. But before anyone gets too freaked out, you should know that HPV doesn't usually cause cancer, and that with modern day pap smears these cancers can usually be detected early enough to prevent any life threatening illness. HPV is more of a problem in countries where there isn't very good health care, and the disease and cancer can go undetected for years.
So what does this all mean? And why are the numbers so high? Is it education, or the lack thereof? What do you think?