This just in...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American squeamishness about talking about sex has helped keep common sexually transmitted infections far too common, especially among vulnerable teens, U.S. researchers reported Monday.

Latest statistics on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis show the three highly treatable infections continue to spread in the United States.

"Chlamydia and gonorrhea are stable at unacceptably high levels and syphilis is resurgent after almost being eliminated," said John Douglas, director of the division of sexually transmitted diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We have among the highest rates of STDs of any developed country in the world," Douglas added in a telephone interview.

This kind of article is routine propaganda and is almost totally false in every respect--from the data analysis to the conclusions. Squeamishness about talking about sex doesn't figure into the problem in the least. Two groups represent overwhelming proportions of U.S. STI incidence--male homosexuals and blacks--neither of which have any obvious reticence to discussing sex.

Its also untrue that we have the highest incidence of STIs in the developed world. An analysis of the WHO data reveals that many large European countries don't report entire categories of STIs, and its unclear of how accurate that reporting is in the first place. In the countries where Chlamydia is reported, its remarkable to see that Denmark and Sweden have incidence rates equal to Washington D.C.--the highest in the U.S. by a considerable margin.

Are those Danes and Swedes squeamish about sex and ignorant about the value of condoms?

An analysis of incidence levels by county also completely destroys the notion that this is a sex education problem. In Utah for example, only Salt Lake County has an incidence level more than 300 per 100,000, which is entirely counter-intuitive if you buy the sex-education argument. The allegedly sexually-repressed rural counties of Mormon Utah have negligible incidence of STIs, while the the urban hipsters in Salt Lake are walking disease vectors.

STI incidence is a matter of culture--and its a highly sexualized culture that fosters STIs.

Its also counter-intuitive to promote condom-use; a planned and responsible choice, to sub-cultures that glorify and foster risky sexual behavior. No doubt a lot of people, particularly politicians, would love there to be some quick and easy answer to the problem, but there isn't. Changing a culture is enormously hard, and maybe impossible, but individuals can make their own choices.