tagged w/ STI
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The associated press reported that the U.S. teen birth rate in 2009 fell to its lowest point in almost 70 years of record-keeping. "Experts" are reported to believe the declined in teen birth statistics is partly due to the recession.
The birth rate for teenagers fell to 39 births per 1,000 girls, ages 15 through 19, according to a government report released Tuesday. It was a 6 percent decline from the previous year, and the lowest since health officials started tracking the rate in 1940.
More info: http://he-ed.blogspot.com/2010/12/heed-share-does-recession-effect-your.htmlThe associated press reported that the U.S. teen birth rate in 2009 fell to its lowest... more
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Many groups are doing something about the sobering STI rates amongst youth around the world. It’s hard to discuss education disparities without discussing health disparities and more specifically the lack of informed sexual health action amongst youth/young adults. With World AIDS Day not too far in the rearview it seems pertinent to mention the infection statistics for youth, LGBTQ and women of color.
2009 America:
46% of high school students had ever had sexual intercourse
14% of high school students had had four or more sex partners during their life
34% of currently sexually active high school students did not use a condom during last sexual intercourse.
Approximately 19 million new STD infections each year (almost half of them are among youth aged 15 to 24.)
More info: http://he-ed.blogspot.com/2010/12/heed-highlight-sexual-health-and.htmlMany groups are doing something about the sobering STI rates amongst youth around the... more
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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Dr. Kenneth Katz recently published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine titled “Health Hazards of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” This week, he penned an op/ed for RH Reality Check about his experiences treating U.S. military at an STD clinic in San Diego. Dr. Katz sees the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” rule for LGB members of the military as a huge roadblock to good medical care. He’s pretty confident that his military patients feel safe divulging their sexual histories to a civilian doctor like himself. But when those troops go overseas, they are cared for by military doctors. Technically, doctor-patient communication is exempt from DADT, but many patients don’t realize that they can tell their military doctors about gay sex without fear of reprisals (at least in theory). Dr. Katz’s patients have told him that they won’t go for recommended follow-up STD screening after they ship out because they’re afraid to be honest with their doctors. He worries about how many troops are suffering from treatable infections in war zones because they aren’t allowed to serve openly.
Food stamp use skyrockets, swordfish sales unaccountably flat
Monica Potts of TAPPED points to the alarming statistic that in the last month alone an additional 500,000 Americans went on food stamps. She notes that the right wing website Daily Caller is alarmed not by the fact that fellow citizens can’t afford food, but rather that there’s no gruel-only foodstamp program available:
Meanwhile, the conservative news site The Daily Caller is shocked, shocked, to learn that you can use food stamps to buy all manner of food. The government, apparently, doesn’t restrict you from purchasing an $18-per-pound swordfish steak from Whole Foods. But that kind of discovery, like almost everything else in the “debate” over food stamp use, is the sort of ridiculous one that comes from a person who’s never been hungry.
The Hyde Amendment
In Campus Progress, Jessica Arons and Madina Agénor call for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment for being an assault on the reproductive rights of poor women and women of color. The Supreme Court declared abortion to be a constitutional right in 1973, yet nearly 40 years later, the Hyde Amendment still prohibits nearly all federal funding for abortions. In practice, the women most affected by the Hyde Amendment are those who depend on government health care programs like Medicaid and the Indian Health Service:
Former U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), the law’s sponsor, admitted during debate of his proposal that he was targeting poor women because they were the only ones vulnerable enough for him to reach. “I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion, a rich woman, a middle-class woman, or a poor woman,” he said. “Unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the … Medicaid bill.”
Meanwhile, ultra-conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is calling on Congress to de-fund the reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood, Andy Birkey reports in the Minnesota Independent. In an interview with a conservative news site, Bachmann doubled down on that idea, suggesting that all of health care reform be de-funded because it funds abortions. This is not true. The aforementioned Hyde Amendment guarantees as much. Furthermore, even though health reform never would have funded abortions, President Obama signed an eleventh-hour executive order guaranteeing that health care reform would not fund abortions.
Brooklyn bees gorge on maraschino cherry run-off
Home beekeeping is the hottest new trend for health-conscious locavores. New York City recently changed the law to accommodate beekeepers in the five boroughs. Just because you live in an industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn is no reason to miss out on this sweet action, right? Well, actually, there is a catch. That nice honey at the farmers’ market tastes like lavender because that’s what those rural bees ate. What do bees in Red Hook, Brooklyn eat? Run-off from a maraschino cherry factory. The overindulgent bees “look like vampires” according to one local keeper and their honey runs bright red. Maraschino honey sounds like a delicious mash-up of high and low culture. Unfortunately, Sarah Goodyear reports in Grist that the end product doesn’t taste nearly as good as it looks. Arthur Mondella, the owner of Dell’s Maraschino Cherries, wants to do right by the beekeepers. He initially suggested putting out vats of different colored syrup to “help” the bees make rainbow honey. His proposal was not well-received by the crunchy set. Instead, he has agreed to work with the beekeepers to keep the bees out of the vats next year.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Dr. Kenneth Katz recently published... more
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by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
When Scott Roeder shot Dr. George Tiller in church last year, media accounts described him as a lone wolf. Roeder acted alone on the day of the assassination, but he was part of a community of career anti-choice terrorists, as Amanda Robb reports in Ms. Magazine.
A community of radical, anti-abortion activists
Over the course of 6 months, Robb interviewed Roeder over a dozen times. She met with his allies at the court house. She even got permission to sit in on phone calls between Roeder and his friends. Robb’s exhaustive investigation revealed that Roeder had for years been enmeshed in a community of radical, anti-abortion activists, many of whom have committed acts of terrorism ranging from clinic arson to butyric acid attacks to murder.
Roeder was not a card-carrying member of any mainstream anti-abortion organization, but he drove to the scene of the crime with the number of Operation Rescue’s senior policy adviser on his dashboard.
Robb’s intensive reporting was supported by the investigative fund of the Nation Institute.
The enemy in your pants
Sexually transmitted infections (STI) are one of the oldest security threats in the history of warfare. During the Second World War, the U.S. military launched a PR offensive to teach recruits how to avoid venereal disease. Syphilis was a special concern because penicillin didn’t become available until after the war. Elizabeth Gettelman and Mark Murrmann of Mother Jones present an entertaining slide show of classic military sex ed posters, including the image you see above.
And now for something completely different
The board of directors of the National Association of Evangelicals (NEA), which represents more than 40 denominations with millions of members, unanimously approved a resolution that listed increased access to contraception as one acceptable strategy for lowering the abortion ration.
Robin Marty of RH Reality Check suggests that contraception might be a wedge issue within the anti-choice community. The NEA is already getting pushback from more conservative forces within the movement and the Catholic Church remains unshakably opposed to contraception.
What about the workers?
The seemingly unstoppable oil geyser in the Gulf of Mexico has captivated national attention. But, as Mike Lillis of the Washington Independent reports, the lives of oil workers are being forgotten in the face of the ongoing ecological disaster. Eleven people died in the blast that set the spill in motion and dozens more were injured. Oil rigs are among the most dangerous places to work, but nobody is listening:
“The worker safety issue has been completely lost in this story,” said Tom O’Connor, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, an advocacy group. “It’s one of the biggest industrial disasters in recent history, and yet Congress [views it] the same as the public: They’re not seeing it as a worker safety issue.”
The rig workers aren’t the only ones at risk. As I report for Working In These Times, oil spill cleanup workers are complaining that BP isn’t giving them the personal protective equipment they need to work with oil and dispersant. Some say they’re already getting sick.
Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La) whose coastal district one of the closest to the rig, is lobbying Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to set up mobile clinics for rescue workers and volunteers. Care2 has more information on the exchanges between Sebelius and BP regarding workers’ health.
In AlterNet, Amanda Terkel reports that cleanup worker John Wunstell, Jr. filed an injunction against BP after his oil-soaked clothes were confiscated when sought treatment at a local clinic. Wuntsell wants BP to stop “altering, testing, or destroying” any evidence from workers who become ill.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
When Scott Roeder shot Dr. George... more
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Of the more than 100,000 NYC women who engage in anal sex each year, only 23% use condoms compared to 61% of men who have sex with men.
The report also found that women who engage in unprotected anal sex get tested for HIV much less frequently than women who always use condoms during anal play: 35% versus 63%.
Unprotected anal intercourse is more frequent among younger females and those with many partners. 11% of Women 18 to 24 had unprotected anal sex compared to 2% of women 45 to 64. Of women with three or more sexual partners, 15% had unprotected anal sex in the past year versus 4% of those with one or more partner. Broken down by race, 8% of Asian...
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/2010/04/22/women-have-unprotected-anal-sex-at-higher-rates-than-gay-men/Of the more than 100,000 NYC women who engage in anal sex each year, only 23% use... more
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A new website features a bizarre, interactive game called Adventures in Sex City, in which the Sex Squad battles the evil, STI-spreading "Sperminator." No joke.A new website features a bizarre, interactive game called Adventures in Sex City, in... more
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On August 29th, 2009, Orange County Choppers hosted the first ever All Subaru Meet to benefit the ASPCA. Hosted by RallyArmor and sponsored by companies like Konig Wheels and BlackFlameCustoms.com, this event featured tours of the Orange County Choppers retail facility, cute, adoptable dogs from the ASPCA, tons of great raffle prizes, and so much more.
For more information, please visit www.occsubarumeet.comOn August 29th, 2009, Orange County Choppers hosted the first ever All Subaru Meet to... more
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What kind of lessons can we learn here? During the Bush era, when abstinence education received increased funding, reports of teen pregnancy and STDs "rose sharply," according to a new report from the CDC. Birth rates had been in decline since 1991, but that trend has reversed in more than half the states since 2005, according to the Guardian. The report also finds that syphilis has increased by 50 percent among adolescent girls and that gonorrhea and AIDS among teens are on the rise as well. Abstinence education advocates say the problem is not the failure of their curriculum, but that they need more money to promote their "no sex before marriage" message.What kind of lessons can we learn here? During the Bush era, when abstinence education... more
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The government has announced plans to make sex education compulsory for 5 - 11 year olds in Britain's schools in a move that has caused divisions between faith groups and safer sex campaigners.
Faith based schools will still be free to add their own values in the educational mix in a move that could see them preaching against sex outside marriage, the use of condoms and homosexuality. Primary schools will be able to teach children that these things are wrong if they wish but secondary schools will have to focus on sex education in the context of teenagers relationships.
The moves will also see children taught about personal finance, safety, drugs and alcohol alongside sex in primary schools.
Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe and the level of sexually transmitted infections has reached record levels. Condoms, which faith based schools will be free to preach against are the most effective preventative measure for preventing unplanned pregnancies and preventing a plethora of sexual infections including HIV. The only more effective method is total abstinence.
So in a world were the core sexual health message for all absolutely has to be encouraging the use of condoms in a situation in which you don't want to expose yourself to unwanted pregnancy or risk. Why on earth are minority religious groups dictating sex education policy and being free to remove this message?The government has announced plans to make sex education compulsory for 5 - 11 year... more
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A study carried out by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain found that many middle-aged people have an irresponsible attitude to their sexual health.A study carried out by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain found that... more
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ClareW
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added this
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3 years ago
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According to a new research study, roughly 65% of people in their 30s and 40s don't use a condom when having sexy time with a new partner. Whoops.
'Those aged between 35 and 44 are twice as likely to have unprotected sex with a new lover than 16 to 19-year-olds'
What makes it slightly more horrific for me is that they are now planning an 'urgent drive' to promote safe sex to the more mature members of society, which is great, but think of all the young kids who are gonna be scarred by their mums or dads getting a pamphlet though the door warning of the dangers of unprotected sex...
The chief executive of the sexual health charity FPA said: "Thirtysomethings may see sexual health as a young person's concern and so do not always think about using condoms."
As my Mum told me, always wear your raincoat when playing in the rain. I guess that stands true no matter what age you are...
Picture by Natalie Dee: http://tinyurl.com/5km2gzAccording to a new research study, roughly 65% of people in their 30s and 40s... more
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For the first time ever, a pill that treats chlamydia is gonna be made available 'over-the-counter' for people who have tested positive for the infection, or have had sex with an infected partner.
According to recent findings, chlamydia accounts for two thirds of all new cases of STDs found in young British adults.
Think it's a good move making it so readily available, or is it gonna promote even more unprotected mischievous shenanigans?For the first time ever, a pill that treats chlamydia is gonna be made available... more
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