High rates of STDs concern Lee County

Jennifer Booth Reed, News-Press.com,
March 12, 2008
One quarter of American teenage girls has at least one of four common sexually transmitted diseases, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released Tuesday.

Researchers looked at the rates of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, chlamydia, herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) infection and trichomoniasis in a first-of-its-kind study of STD prevalence among 14- to 19-year-olds.

The analysis, based on tests of 893 young women in 2003-04, found that one in four of them carried an infection. Researchers estimated 3.2 million girls nationwide had an STD.

The picture was worse for black girls: almost half were infected. Researchers said higher overall rates of STDs in the black community were a likely culprit.

Girls who've had only one partner and those who had been having sex for a year or less at the time of the study were infected at a rate of 20 percent.

"What we found is alarming," said Dr. Sara Forhan of the CDC's Division of STD Prevention. "Far too many young women are at risk of the serious side effects of STDs."

The diseases can lead to problems from cervical cancer to infertility.

The CDC called for more comprehensive screenings, more education, vaccination against HPV - a new shot that some parents question because of its lack of long-term data - and more awareness.

The findings surprised local health experts and educators, even though they've known that STDs are a problem.

"That is an outstanding statistic," said Susan Tutko, a Riverdale High School teacher and a lead health instructor for the Lee County School District.

Lee County's rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea, which wasn't measured by the CDC, are higher than the state average, said Dr. Judith Hartner, the Lee County Health Department director.

In Lee, the rate of chlamydia is 2,336 per 100,000 women. The state rate is 2,216 per 100,000. Lee's gonorrhea rate is 705 per 100,000 women versus a state rate of 701 per 100,000. Those figures are for women of all ages.

Lee County had 472 cases of chlamydia among girls ages 15 to 19 in 2005, the latest figures available from the state Department of Health. The state doesn't track other STDs measured in the report.

"The message here is young women are being exposed to sexually transmitted diseases and they're putting themselves at risk," Hartner said, urging young women to learn to protect themselves if they choose to be sexually active.

The report creates questions about how much young people learn about sexually transmitted diseases at school and elsewhere.

The findings rekindle the debate over whether abstinence-based education is enough. Florida teachers are permitted to talk about contraception, though the emphasis is on abstinence.

"They don't give us sex education at our schools," said Danielle Wieand, a senior at Lehigh Senior High. "We have our health class, but what they talk about is what happens in reproduction. They don't teach us about diseases."

Wieand said she thinks there should be a class that focuses on sex education at school. She said the only time sex education was discussed was at a one-time event in the ninth grade.

Wieand speaks to her mother about sex. "Me and my mom, we are very open about asking and answering questions," she said.

Other students said they got sufficient information.

"It teaches you everything," 16-year-old Tania Trujillo said of a health class she took last year at Ida S. Baker High School. "It teaches you about condoms, how to use them, but that how sometimes even they don't protect you from STDs."

Lee County School District spokesman Joe Donzelli said schools follow state curriculum guidelines and students are exposed to sex education. The problem, he suggested, is that students aren't heeding their teachers' lessons.

"To say we need more sex education, really, is a knee-jerk reaction to something that came out from the CDC. Why aren't students practicing what they're learning?" Donzelli asked.

He also questioned why the issue was put to the school district. "This is a community issue. Everybody needs to get involved," he said.

Tutko said the state has whittled away health requirements.

Health is no longer required in elementary or middle schools — individual principals decide whether to keep it in the curriculum, she said.

Also, a new state policy reduced the health and physical education requirements in high schools by one class. Until this year, students had to take a semester-long health class, a semester-long personal fitness class and then an additional quarter of physical education.

Now, health and personal fitness have been merged into one year-long course and the extra PE requirement is gone.

Wendy Grassi, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, said her organization knows this is a problem locally.

Florida has the nation's sixth-highest teen pregnancy rate, the sixth-highest syphilis rate and the second-highest AIDS rate.

"I think our overwhelming feeling is teenage girls and teenage boys are not getting the information they need to have in the schools," Grassi said. "If they don't have the information, how can they make good decisions? And, we know parents need help. It's hard for some parents to talk to their kids about sexual education."

Comprehensive sex education, particularly a campaign to only have sex while using a condom, hasn't done anything to slow down what he calls an STD epidemic, said Denny Pattyn, founder and president of the Silver Ring Thing, a nationwide effort to encourage teenagers to pledge they'll abstain from sex until marriage.

The CDC's report proves his point, Pattyn said.

"That is no surprise whatsoever," Pattyn said, "and consider this: Teens make up 10 percent of the U.S. population, but they already have 25 percent of these diseases. That's sickening."