The real sex (and race) story of the week
"Kristen" and "Client #9?" Whatever. This week it's been Spitzer's High Class Hooker Channel, All the Time (probably because so much of our nation's media is headquartered in New York).
But the real sex story, of course, was the bombshell report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that one out of four teens -- some 3 million -- have sexually transmitted infections.
The numbers are even more shocking when you drill down into the report and find out who's getting hit the hardest. Kai Wright at The Root notes that, even though the CDC finds that African-American youth aren't necessarily engaging in riskier sexual behavior, the numbers for black youth are off the charts:
But the real sex story, of course, was the bombshell report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that one out of four teens -- some 3 million -- have sexually transmitted infections.
The numbers are even more shocking when you drill down into the report and find out who's getting hit the hardest. Kai Wright at The Root notes that, even though the CDC finds that African-American youth aren't necessarily engaging in riskier sexual behavior, the numbers for black youth are off the charts:
[S]adly, researchers found blacks once again hardest hit by a health problem: A whopping half of African American teens in the study had an STI.Even scarier: the fact that the CDC report didn't even look at several STD's -- including HIV:
The study is just the latest on a growing list of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigations that have found the sexual health of black youth to be in critical condition. You name it, and we're more likely to get it. HIV/AIDS? Yup, we're 69 percent of newly diagnosed cases among teens. Syphilis? While it's holding steady or declining in other racial groups, it's shooting up among black teens, particularly boys. Teen pregnancies? Rates went up for the first time in 14 years in 2006, and black girls saw the highest spike.
[R]esearchers expect the teen STI and STD rate to be even higher than they actually found, because their study didn't include a number of serious infections, such as syphilis, gonorrhea and, the big one, HIV. Which raises a giant, troubling question. There's much we don't know about HIV, but one thing is clear: If you've got an untreated STI or STD and you have unprotected sex with someone who's HIV positive, the chances of you contracting the virus go up as much as five-fold. If half of black teen girls had an STI in 2004, the potential growth of the black AIDS epidemic is off the charts.The upshot: Whatever certain campaign operatives might think, race still plays a major factor in determining the health and life chances of millions of people.
Labels: CDC, public health, race and racism, the root
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On the topic of STDs, a reader points us to The AIDS Chronicles -- Here to Represent, a documentary about the social and cultural impact of HIV/AIDS on Atlanta's African-American community.
Told from the perspective of people affected by the disease, the film explores topics such as women with AIDS, black gay men, churches and AIDS, and the convergence of poverty, substance abuse and AIDS. The person behind the documentary is Bailey Barash, a former CNN science producer who's now an independent filmmaker based in Atlanta.
For more information about The AIDS Chronicles, including a trailer and information on public showings, visit Barash's Web site. Excerpts are also available on YouTube here and here.
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