William Smith is Executive Director of the National Coalition of STD Directors (NCSD) and previously Vice President for Public Policy at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).
While the cool mornings here in our nation’s capital may belie it, it is April again, which means the yearly observation of Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Awareness Month.
You can buy sex toys at the drug store these days. Does that mean we no longer need to talk about and promote sexual health?
While we await the expected and demonstrated good news of few cervical and other cancer deaths among person immunized against HPV, a recent study from Denmark already shows us that vaccination can significantly reduce genital warts.
I want to open this STD Awareness Blog series with a STD complication success story: fighting cervical cancer. Because here’s the thing: cervical cancer is almost completely preventable. This means that, given consistent and correct care, you will likely never been one of those 4,000 women who die of this preventable and treatable disease.
In 2007, 12,280 women in the United States were told they had cervical cancer, and 4,021 died from the disease. Here’s the thing: cervical cancer is almost completely preventable. This means that, given consistent and correct care, you will likely never be one of those 4,000 women who die of this preventable and treatable disease.
Across the United States and worldwide, MSM continue to be a group disproportionately affected by STDs and HIV, but we still need better data and better tools to guide prevention efforts.
Late last night, the details of the of the House Fiscal Year 2011 spending agreement were posted by House Republicans. Their chart appeared to completely zero out all activities of the CDC-NCHHSTP. Thankfully the news is not quite that bad.
If the family planning infrastructure of our nation is obliterated by the current strains of extremism, we’ll see not only more unintended pregnancies and abortions, but also a big rise in STDs.
Nearly 15 years ago the Institutes of Medicine called for development of a national STD strategy to address the destructive links between STDs and HIV. To this day, it remains mostly unheeded.
New data suggest mixed progress and ongoing challenges in the United States when it comes to the three most commonly reported STDs: Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and Syphilis.
