P-D:
For young prisoners, frank talk about STDs
You’d have to drink 10 gallons of saliva, all at once, to contract HIV from an infected kissing partner. That’s one lesson Kamina Ballard taught a group of 20 teenagers Tuesday at the St. Louis City Juvenile Detention Center.
“Realistically, we don’t kiss that much,” she told the 14- and 15-year-olds.
Ballard and other city public health educators spend every Tuesday afternoon dispelling myths and offering information about sexually transmitted diseases for youth in the correctional facility.
It’s all part of the city health department’s push to reduce the number of STDs, particularly among young adults, who are most at-risk. The city recently scored the highest rates in the country for gonorrhea and chlamydia, with nearly two-thirds of cases coming from people between the ages of 12 and 24.
Why only the juvenile “correctional facility” in St. Louis City? Juvenile offenders everywhere are susceptible to HIV, AIDS, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea should they engage in certain behaviors. Why educate only the juvenile inmates in St. Louis City and not anywhere else?
Also, I find it hard to believe that none of these young men and women haven’t heard these things before. After all, nearly all of them have probably attended the St. Louis City Public Schools at least for a few years.
So Ballard … tells them that … oral sex is sex.
And why would they think otherwise? Wouldn’t it be ironic if we found out that Dr. Ballard voted for Clinton in either ‘92, ‘96 or both?
After the weekly classes, anyone who wants to can get tested for syphilis or HIV. This week, seven of the boys volunteered. They are all automatically tested for chlamydia and gonorrhea when they enter the facility.
The health department’s education and testing program at the youth correctional facility started in March, and so far more than 60 teenagers have been tested for HIV and syphilis. None has tested positive.
While this doesn’t say anything about chlamydia and gonorrhea, it does say that this group of “more than 60 teenagers” is oh-for-the-table for HIV/AIDS. And this is where perhaps my postjudices have affected my usually clairvoyant interpretation of news and current events. We hear that St. Louis is at or near the top of the national rankings for cities’ infection rates for various STDs, yet in a group of more than 60 young (supposedly reckless) people from this city, individuals whom you think would be more likely to have STDs in this supposedly STD-rich city, not one is positive for HIV/AIDS. It’s probably the same or not many more for other STDs.
We’re finding out that the UN admitted that it has deliberately fudged up HIV/AIDS infection rates around the world in order to hustle money to “fight” the “pandemic.” I’m starting to think that we have been similarly snookered over American cities and STD rates.