The first study of girls 14-19 has shown that 1 in 4 teenage girls have an STD. That's nearly 3 million girls!
The most common STD among teen girls is HPV. African-American girls were found to have the highest overall prevalence with nearly half of them studied having had one or more STD's.HPV, also known as Human Pampillomavirus, is a genital infection that most of the time cannot even be seen. Many women may have it and not even know it not only because you cannot see it and there are very little symptoms of it.
Certain types of HPV can cause genital warts in both males and females. There are two types of HPV, low-risk and high-risk. Low-risk HPV is the kind that causes warts which can appear inside or outside of the vulva. The high-risk HPV is the cancer causing form. It can cause cervical cancer and other cancers such as cancer of the vulva.About 90% of cases the body's immune system clears HPV infections naturally within 2 years.
Recently doctors have come out with a shot, Gardasil that is given in 3-doses, that can prevent and protect you from obtaining HPV and/or Cervical Cancer. Gardasil is recommended for girls ages 11-26 who have not been vaccinated or compeleted a series of other vaccinations. It doesn't help treat cervical cancer or genital warts.
Girls the ages of 14-19? That means girls as young as my little sisters are having sex and obtaining STD's and STI's! Should doctors honestly have to be giving girls that young a shot just so that they can be protected from such a disease? They shouldn't even be having sex yet!!
I was apalled by this survey! Not so much that 19 year olds were in the survey but some of those girls are just babies!!! What does everyone think of this?
2 comments:
I heard that 1 in 4 statistic on NPR a couple of weeks ago, and I was appalled. I thought I'd heard it wrong, but sadly.... not the case. It's so frightening.
I know, isn't that ridiculous!!!
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