June 2003 – When they dabble in sexual dalliances in their teenage years, the toll on the physical, emotional, and spiritual lives of young people can be enormous. And the price tag is not simply a personal one. Entire families share the burdens of teen pregnancies, government and medical costs proliferate, and an entire culture faces the repercussions of virtually unrestricted access to abortion mills.

And then there are the diseases. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 25% of sexually active teenagers get a sexually transmitted disease (STD) every year, and 80% of infected teens don’t even know they have an STD, passing the diseases along to unsuspecting partners. When it comes to AIDS, the data is even more chilling: of the new HIV infections each year, about 50% occur in people under the age of 25. (See below.)

The most common approach in public schools to the problems of teenage sexuality and its consequences is to advocate that, if kids are going to have sex, they should be encouraged to have “safe sex” – that is, use condoms. But does the use of condoms make sex safe – or even safer?

The simple answer is that condoms do make sex safer for some things, but not others – and “safe” actually becomes a relative term. According to the Food and Drug Administration, for example, when condoms are typically used, they prevent pregnancy 86% of the time. That means, roughly speaking, that even when using condoms, a couple will become pregnant one out of every 10 times they have intercourse. That may indeed be safer sex (than not using a condom at all) – but it is still a gamble.

The issue becomes even more muddled when the topic is STDs. For some diseases, wearing a condom may provide some protection. That’s may, as in guesswork, because the scientific community can present little concrete evidence of condom effectiveness when it comes to preventing STD infections.

“Condoms may be effective in preventing transmission of HIV/AIDS and, in some cases, transmission of gonorrhea in men, but beyond that they do not protect adequately against other sexually transmitted diseases,” said Claude Allen, deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Even in the case of HIV, however, the definition of “protection” may be in the eyes of the beholder. The CDC considers condoms 85% effective in preventing the transmission of HIV – something akin to the odds of playing Russian Roulette with a revolver.

One of the most vigorous promoters of “safe sex,” the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), is forced to sound downright vague when it discusses condoms and STDs on its SIECUS Fact Sheet: The Truth About Condoms.

“Condoms can be expected to provide different levels of risk reduction for different STDs” it says. “There is no definitive study about condom effectiveness for all STDs. Definitive data is lacking on the degree of risk reduction that latex condoms provide for some STDs; for others, the evidence is considered inconclusive.”

That’s not exactly a firm foundation for an entire approach to teen sex.

Even worse, however, is the fact that SIECUS simply refuses to admit the possibility that the safe sex approach should be given an in-depth reappraisal. Immediately following the above admission, the Fact Sheet quotes the CDC: “It is important to note that the lack of data about the level of condom effectiveness indicates that more research is needed – not that latex condoms do not work.”

This shows how far ideology has contaminated, not only interest groups like SIECUS, which is to be expected, but even a supposedly science-based government agency like the CDC. If “more research is needed,” as the CDC admits, then why don’t government, health, and educational entities call a moratorium on safe sex education – which relies solely on the efficacy of condom usage – until the research is completed? Why risk the health and lives of teenagers in the meantime?

Moreover, for some STDs, such as human papillomavirus (HPV), an incurable disease linked to cervical cancer, condoms may provide no protection al all, because the virus is often on areas of the skin exposed during sexual intercourse but not covered by a condom. W its 20 million Americans already infected with HPV – and 5.5 million new infections reported every year – the disease is nothing short of a sexually transmitted epidemic. According to Dr. David Hager of the University of Kentucky School of Medicine, some studies suggest that 40% of college co-eds have tested positive for HPV,

Dr. John Whiffen of the National Physicians Center, a group of 400 doctors that is recommending abstinence as the sole approach to sex education, told Fox News that condoms are completely ineffective against six common STDs.

“To tell a child that a condom is going to protect them [against STDs] when it actually offers less than a 50% chance of protecting them is simply not a good argument,” Whiffen said.

Nevertheless, it’s an argument that SIECUS and its ilk continue to make.  

Infecting out kids?
According to Dr. Margaret J. Meeker in her new book, Epidemic: How Teen Sex is Killing our Kids, evidence from scientific studies shows that:

• 8,000 U.S. teens are diagnosed with an STD every day.
• 80% of teens who have an STD are unaware they are infected.
• 46% of teen girls become infected with an STD during their first sexual encounter.
• 30 different STDs infect millions of kids ages 12 to 18.
• 20% of Americans age 12 and older test positive for genital herpes.
• 15 million Americans are infected with a new STD each year – about 66% of those infections occur in people under 25.