I so wish that this was some sort of a joke but here we go. Its time to copy something else that Kevin has on his blog.

If you are going to read this article get prepared to be completely disturbed.

A first-of-its-kind federal study showing 26 percent of American female teens have at least one sexually transmitted disease brought mixed reaction from health care professionals Tuesday, with some saying the findings were disturbing - but not necessarily surprising.

26% is not necessarily surprising. That seems like a pretty cold response to such a high number. I wonder what the effects of the STDs are.

Because some sexually transmitted infections can cause infertility and cancer, U.S. health officials called for better screening, vaccination and prevention.

Infertility. Okay that would be pretty hard. Lets see, infertility and cancer. Okay that isn’t, wait a minute did I just read cancer? Why isn’t this a bigger story?

Some doctors said the numbers might reflect the downside of both abstinence-only sex education and teens' own sense of invulnerability.

So how exactly is avoiding the cause part of the problem? If you don't participate you won't become infected. Why is that not a viable solution to doctors?

Only about half of the teens in the study acknowledged having sex. Some teens define sex as only intercourse, yet other types of intimate behavior including oral sex can spread some diseases.

Education is clearly the problem.

Alina Salganicoff, vice president for women's health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Menlo Park said, "Clearly, this is a really important part of adolescent health that we need to be paying attention to."

How did you get to be vice president?  Does making obvious statements set a person apart as VP material. In that case, making money is important for any business. Hello promotion!

"The statistics are certainly disheartening," said Dr. Dorothy Furgerson, medical director at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which serves Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties. "But I'd have to say, unfortunately, it's not surprising to me. That is what we see."

Why haven’t you been talking about it more then? If that is what you have been seeing then why did you wait for a study to come forward?

Abstinence-only programs have come under fire by some doctors and health advocacy groups for failing to teach teens how to protect themselves from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases should they ever decide to become sexually active.

Instilling morals is never the solution, scientifically speaking.

I would go further into the article but it was really depressing. Read further at your own risk.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_8542707?source=most_emailed