just readhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080311/ap_on_he_me/teen_stds
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26% of american girls from 14-19 have a std
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i find that really shocking and being a teen kind of hard to imagine. i know people who have had sex but no one with an STD, who knows. dumb teenagers
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I think there are some doubtful aspects of this study. The report says:
"The teens were tested for four infections: human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer and affected 18 percent of girls studied; chlamydia, which affected 4 percent; trichomoniasis, 2.5 percent; and genital herpes, 2 percent."
Now these add up to 26.5%, but you would expect some people to have more than one disease, so the percentage of people infected should be less than 26.5%. The quoted figure of 26% suggests to me someone just added up the numbers.
Furthermore, the HPV rate is far higher than the others. HPV comes in many different strains, not all sexually transmitted. Ordinary warts on hands and feet are also HPV, are very common, and are not transmitted sexually. It's not clear what strains were tested for, or whether all were included, though it does appear from the text that they didn't just test for genital warts.
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I read that at livescience yesterday and had pretty much the same thoughts as you. The study,as presented in the article, seemed to vague to offer any real conclusion or be of much value. I came away with the impression the was a study that a reporter offered their own conclusion for.