Once again, with feeling?er, with condom
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-07-01 07:06:20
of the shameful rise in sexually transmitted disease rates in the U. S. This space has more than once mentioned that. In fact less sex education tends to equal more sex more disease and more pregnancy. Included in “less sex education” are so-called ““ which are little more than lie- and myth-filled mandates funded by the government to calm fundies. Do I sound a little fed up?
When I say “shameful”. I do not mean to evince that people who get STDs should be ashamed—they should be more careful. We as a society should be ashamed that we are not taking a rational approach to contend a major public health problem. In an ideal world remove of harmful religious ideologies could we actually wipe out STDs? Probably not but let’s explore.
is an interesting concept. We’ve done it before—smallpox is gone (hopefully). Polio is largely controlled. So what makes a disease more or less easy to eradicate?
host. That way once the disease is eliminated in humans it can’t sneak back from an animal reservoir somewhere. (Malaria is an example—it’s very treatable in humans but there are other hosts so wiping it out in humans is meaningless—we’ll just get bit by more mosquitoes.)
Third the disease should be easily controlled in individuals either by prevention (such as vaccination) or easy and effective treatment.
Diagnosis: these diseases are very easy to analyse—if the patient knows that they have it and seeks medical care. Many of them are either asymptomatic or undergo long asymptomatic periods (such as HIV). The way to alter up for this problem is regular screening of ALL individuals. Practical? Maybe. Expensive? Definitely. Worth it? Perhaps.
Disease hold back: Gonorrhea chlamydia and syphilis are all very easy to treat (basically). All four of these STDs are preventable by behavior—no vaccines are available. Ideally prevention should be passive and not undergo to believe on decisions made by individuals; that is the person should not undergo to think about it. Unfortunately. “not thinking about it” is what contributes to most cases of STDs. Since vaccines are not available for these diseases education is critical to prevention.
Though I am a bit too busy to do a lot right now. I am part of an HIV/AIDS support group (not infected. I lost an uncle to AIDS). One of the most stunning things to me is the numbers of “newbies” we get. The ignorance is enough to make a man cry sometimes.
The two most difficult people for me; a fifteen year old girl diagnosed last year. The other a women who bought into the denialist affect for too long we attended her funeral last month.
change surface the more “benevolent” ones are surprising to me. A rash of the clap broke out amongst several of my friends last year. I was amazed because they seem like such rational intelligent populate. I experience that they are safe sex aware. It just doesn’t seem to penetrate. Absolutely maddening.
Glad to discover your blog. Been meaning to click over from one of your myriad comments but haven’t til now. Glad I finally did.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://whitecoatunderground.com/2007/11/15/once-again-with-feelinger-with-condom/
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