ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 20, 1996 TAG: 9611200041
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Sexually transmitted diseases are diagnosed 12 million times a year in the United States - including a staggering 3 million cases among teen-agers, the Institute of Medicine reported Tuesday. It urged a national attack on the largely hidden epidemic.
The nation spends just $1 to prevent sexually transmitted illnesses for every $43 spent treating them, the report found. The tab reaches $10 billion a year not counting the massive costs of AIDS, the best known of these diseases.
Left untreated, sexually transmitted diseases can cause infertility, cancer, birth defects and miscarriages, even death. And Americans suffer 10 to 50 times more sexually transmitted diseases than people in other developed countries, concluded the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences.
Sexually transmitted diseases are ``far more common than most Americans are aware,'' said report co-author Dr. Edward Hook III of the University of Alabama. ``They attack people early in their life but these diseases change people's lives and affect them for the rest of their lives.''
Among the institute's recommendations: Routine testing for sexually transmitted diseases among sexually active Americans, particularly young women, and improved sex education in schools - including condom distribution - to ensure that teens know how to protect themselves.
``There are a lot of shocking numbers in this report,'' Hook noted:
* Gonorrhea strikes 150 times per 100,000 Americans vs. just three times per 100,000 people in Sweden and 18 per 100,000 in Canada.
* One in four women has human papilloma virus, an infection that makes them 10 times more likely to develop cervical cancer.
* Surveys indicate one in 50 Americans is aware of having genital herpes, yet one in five really does.
* Two-thirds of people with sexually transmitted diseases become infected before age 25.
LENGTH: Short : 45 linesby CNB