“Hooking Up”—Is it Really Worth it?

Rachel Allison

Last week I wrote about Hydeia Broadbent, a young woman’s crusade to stop HIV/AIDS.

This week I want to write about some of the “lesser” sexually-transmitted diseases and other problems that are caused by “hooking up.”

There are 19 million new infections of sexually transmitted gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis yearly, which cost $17 billion to treat each year.  But there are others—human papillomavirus, herpes, genital warts, hepatitis, trichomoniasis, and scabies, to name just a few.  The World Health Organization says that there “are more than 30 different sexually transmissible bacteria, viruses and parasites.”  Treatment for those in the United States is also in the billions of dollars per year—that is when they’re treatable and not drug resistant.

Assuming that everyone who is having sex is aware of STDs,  I am quite sure that they don’t understand the consequences that those diseases will bring to their lives.  One woman tells her story when she learned she had Genital Herpes.  I can’t imagine the emotional trauma such a discovery would cause.  As a teenager my doctor told me I had athlete’s foot, and emotionally I felt “dirty” until the creams and ointments cleared up the fungus.

Unfortunately, casual sex is expected by too many, and practically revered by  leftists.  Enter Sandra Fluke publicly demanding that free contraception be given to all sexually-active women. I wonder why someone didn’t argue that the monetary cost of complimentary contraception is miniscule compared with the cost of treating the STD’s that will be transmitted during all that “free” sex.

The facts:

• According to a recent CDC (Center for Disease Control) survey only 60% of high-school students who have had sex used a condom the last time they had intercourse.

50% of HS students say they’ve had sex at least once. (This statistic may be low because many don’t consider oral sex as “sex.”)

• According to the AP article entitled “1 in 4 teen girls has a sexually transmitted disease” not only did 25 percent of teenage girls have an STD, “among those who admitted to having sex, the rate was even more disturbing—40 percent had an STD.”  Black girls suffered worst:  48 percent of them had an STD.

The National Cancer Institute at the National Institute of Health stated that the human papillomavirus, which is “spread through direct skin-to-skin contact during vaginal, anal, and oral sex, causes virtually all cervical cancers and most anal cancers and some vaginal, vulvar, penile, and oropharyngeal cancers (cancers in the middle part of the throat.)” And the risk isn’t limited to women. The title of a 2011 NBCNews.com article adequately sums up the situation:  “Cancer spike, mainly in men, tied to HPV from oral sex.”  The article added that “we can expect some 10,000 to 15,000 patients with the oropharyngeal cancers per year in the United States, with the great majority having HPV-positive (cancers.) “High risk HPV infections account for approximately 5 percent of cancers worldwide.”

According to the CDC, “Chlamydia and gonorrhea are important preventable causes of infertility,” even though “most women infected with Chlamydia or gonorrhea have no symptoms.  There are “an estimated 2.8 million cases of Chlamydia and 718,000 cases of gonorrhea that occur annually in the United States.” Each year untreated STDs cause 24,000 women in the US to become infertile.”  STD’s cause approximately one-fourth of all infertility in women, and treatment to rectify infertility can be very costly.

I won’t elaborate on how STD’s affect babies.  But babies can get the dread disease from their mothers causing stillbirths, low birth weight (less than five pounds), conjunctivitis (eye infection) pneumonia, neonatal sepsis (infection in the baby’s blood stream), neurologic damage, blindness, deafness, acute hepatitis, meningitis, chronic liver disease, and cirrhosis.

STD’s truly are “the gift that keep on giving.”

Again I will ask, “Where is the outcry?”  If there were enough voices outraged by the outright disregard of the issue that is bringing so much emotional and physical pain, death and monetary waste, maybe…just maybe we could help bring this deception to the forefront.

Modern-day Russian Roulette

Rachel Allison

At birth, Hydeia Broadbent was abandoned at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas where Patricia and Loren Broadbent adopted her as an infant. Although her HIV condition was congenital, she was not diagnosed as HIV-positive with advancement to AIDS until age three. The prognosis was that she would not live past the age of five. Now more than 20 years later, Broadbent spends her time spreading the message of HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention by promoting abstinence and safe-sex practices (for people who choose to have sex

As an early recipient of anti-viral treatments that made AIDS a livable disease, she could have used her platform to emphasize the positives of HIV when coupled with modern medicine.  She could have chosen to give HIV/AIDS patients hope and the promise of beating the odds.

Not Hydeia.  She doesn’t sugar coat the consequences of the disease even when drugs promise a long and somewhat productive life. “There are days when I can’t get out of bed.  Sometimes I am so sick my mornings are spent with my head hung over the toilet.”

Every morning she takes her cocktail of five pills. Hydeia’s medicine costs $3,500 to $5,000 a month.

“There’s so much misinformation.  People think there’s a cure…but there is no cure.”  A positive test result is no longer a death sentence, says Hydeia, “but it is a life sentence.”

“It’s always there.  You’re always going to have HIV or AIDS.  You’re always going to be taking medicine.  You’re always going to be going to the doctor’s office.  You’re always going to be getting your blood drawn.”

Tell that to the millions who can’t fathom contracting HIV/AIDS (or any other STD for that matter.) “Hooking Up” is as common in today’s loose society as chopping wood was for my grandparent’s.

Legislators are outlawing anything and everything so that our society is safe.  The food we eat has to pass strict inspection.  The vehicles we drive, the toys our children play with, the fabric used to make our children’s clothing, roadways, walkways, speed limits…We have legislation in place to protect and defend just about everything.

And yet there are tens of thousands across the globe being exposed to a disease that is more threatening and costly than society will openly and publicly admit. Where is the outcry? The target audience seems to be oblivious to the “Russian Roulette” they are playing.

We need more Hydeia Broadbents educating and laying out the cold hard facts about a disease that can and should be contained and eradicated…Not with condoms.  Condoms have proven to be bogus protection. It can only be eradicated with a value system that teaches self-control and even self-denial…something almost unheard of in today’s society.

Despite the harsh realities of HIV/AIDS and the supposed public awareness, the National Center for Health Statistics, show that in the United States, “for all races combined in the age group 15-24 years, HIV/AIDS moved from the 12^th leading cause of death in 2009 to the 11^th cause of death in 2010.” It was the 7^th leading cause of death in 2010 for the age group 25-44 years.”   Where is the outcry? This is the elephant in the room that is destroying lives, and yet the target audience seems  oblivious to the destruction.  They continue to play with a fire that doesn’t just burn, it consumes.  Would it be taboo to legislate activity so intimate?  Apparently so.

Parents and grandparents, and the Hydeia Broadbents of the world, it is up to us to educate and raise the warning voice that will save lives in this promiscuous society where “if it feels good…” is accepted without thought of consequence or outcome.

Another Kind of Storm Striking New York City

Ann Bailey

New York City is back in the news with another form of devastation plaguing its citizens, a kind that isn’t usually discussed in polite company.  According to a new report from the Department of Health, the spread of HIV/AIDS, syphilis, hepatitis B, chlamydia, and gonorrhea is “soaking” almost every one of the city’s neighborhoods.

Based on metrics from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), of the 181 New York City zip codes tracked for disease, one-third of them were in the top 20 percent for multiple STDs.  Areas in the Bronx were the hardest hit with 68 percent of its neighborhoods in the highest percentiles for two or more diseases.  But the tony areas of New York City have certainly not escaped this scourge.  HIV/AIDS and syphilis both ranked in the top quintile in areas like Greenwich Village/SoHo and Chelsea/Hell’s Kitchen.  While only Staten Island – the area hardest hit by Super Storm Sandy – had no high-morbidity zip codes.

Yet New York City prides itself on its sexual liberalism and then tries to control the consequences through so-called “progressive approaches” to sex education and condom distribution.  Like the latest one called CATCH (Connecting Adolescents to Comprehensive Healthcare) where students at school can’t get an aspirin without parental permission, but they can receive birth control injections, condoms and the dangerous “morning-after pill.”

Oh yes, did I mention that New York City is infamous for having one of the highest abortion rates in the country?

All things considered, I have to ask NYC citizens and policy makers:  “How’s that sexual liberalism thing working out for ya?”

A Little “Stigmatization” Goes A Long Way…

Mary Jane Fritzen

Recently PBS Newshour included a sad segment about the increasing numbers of young Americans with HIV. “Teens and young adults now account for more than a quarter of the new cases of HIV identified in the United States annuals, and a clear majority of those cases involve young gay or bisexual men, the federal government said in a major news survey Tuesday.”   Gay men are still the American population most at risk for AIDS .  What can we do?  The Center for Disease Control said we should remove the stigma so that more will seek diagnosis and help, and we should increase education and condoms.

Would it not be more effective to warn young people about the cause-effect relationship between homosexual relations and HIV-AIDS?   Of course the disease is also spread in other ways of transmitting bodily fluids from one person to another, through used hypodermic needles or infected blood transfusions.  Babies born to mothers with AIDS are innocent victims.  When some persons acquired AIDS due to blood transfusions from infected persons, immediately blood donors were screened and transfusions made safe.   AIDS is spread in several ways; nevertheless it is a sexually transmitted disease.  Knowing that homosexual relations transmit HIV, why not link the cause to its effect?

Is there a parallel in our experience identifying smoking with lung cancer? 

During the past decades, when smoking was popular, courageous physicians testified it caused lung cancer, and so Americans have since stigmatized smoking. Not all smokers acquire lung cancer and not all lung cancer is caused by smoking, but fewer people die of lung cancer now that popular sentiment is against it. Considering the cause-effect, could we help prevent HIV-AIDS by discouraging homosexual relations instead of popularizing gays and their behaviors?  We must be kind and respectful, but the pendulum seems to be swinging too far in the opposite direction.

Certainly none of us are perfect and there are plenty of bad habits and behaviors that need addressing and correcting.  But instead of assuming that homosexuals have no choice but to act upon their inclinations, let’s be open and honest about what the consequences of those inclinations might be.  The last thing we need to be doing is popularizing and normalizing a behavior that has such life-threatening consequences.  It appears to me that some “stigmatization” could save some young people’s lives.

Editor’s note:  Mary Jane Fritzen is UFI’s newest blogger.   At over 80 years old, she’s an articulate and dedicated supporter of the family.    She’s an inspiration to us all!

HHS says no “morning-after pill” for minors

The Health and Human Services (HHS) Department has overruled a decision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make the morning-after pill available to kids without a prescription.  This controversial abortafacient drug, also known as Plan B, will not be sold directly off the drugstore and supermarket shelves.  Girls under 17 years of age will need a prescription to obtain the drug.   This decision has shocked and outraged pro-abortion advocates and women’s rights activists.

The Washington Post is reporting that FDA administrator Margaret Hamburg received a memo from HHS overriding the FDA’s decision to allow the morning-after pill to be sold to minors.  Hamburg was clear to state that she vehemently disagrees with the HHS decision.

Kathleen Sebelius, not considered to be a friend of the pro-family position, reversed the FDA’s decision stating that she had concluded that data submitted by the drug’s maker did not “conclusively establish” that Plan B could be used safely by the youngest girls.

Sebelius is  absolutely correct.  We’ll add that it is not safe for any woman (and certainly not for the new life that she is aborting).

Take a minute to hear our good friend, Wendy Wright, explain the dangers of the morning-after pill and you’ll know that at least on this one, the HHS got it right.