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CDC: 110,197,000 Venereal Infections In US; Nation Creating New STIs Faster Than Jobs, College Diplomas

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Photo Credit: Cynthia Goldsmith

According to new data released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 19.7 million new venereal infections in the United States in 2008, bringing the total number of existing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S. at that time to 110,197,000.

The 19.7 million new STIs in 2008 vastly outpaced the new jobs and college graduates created in the United States that year or any other year on record, according to government data. The competition was not close.

The STI study referenced by the CDC estimated that 50 percent of the new infections in 2008 occurred among people in the 15-to-24 age bracket. In fact, of the 19,738,800 total new STIs in the United States in 2008, 9,782,650 were among Americans in the 15-to-24 age bracket.

By contrast, there were 1,524,092 bachelor’s degrees awarded in the United States in the 2007-2008 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That means the total number of new STIs in 2008 outpaced the total number of new bachelor’s degrees by nearly 13 to 1, and the number of new STIs among Americans in the 15-to-24 age bracket outnumbered new bachelor’s degrees by more than 6 to 1.

While the CDC estimates that there were 19.7 million new STIs in the United States in 2008, data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that the total number of people employed in the country actually declined by 2.9 million during that year.

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AIDS Activists Arrested After Protesting Speaker Boehner’s Office in the Nude

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Three women AIDS activists saying they wanted to highlight the ‘naked truth’ about potential spending cuts in HIV programs were arrested Tuesday after taking their clothes off in the lobby of House Speaker John Boehner’s office.

The trio had the words ‘AIDS cuts kill’ painted on their bodies and had linked arms with four men who also disrobed as part of the protest.

The protest came as health officials revealed that AIDS is spreading to a new generation of young men who are having risky sex and ignoring the painful lessons learned during initial outbreak of the disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that 1 in 5 new HIV infections occur in a tiny segment of the population – young men who are gay or bisexual.

The government on Tuesday released new numbers that spotlight how the spread of the AIDS virus is heavily concentrated in young males who have sex with other males.

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Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea triggers alarm over ‘superbug’

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On Thursday, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are scheduled to release new treatment guidelines to slow the growth of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea in the United States.

These guidelines are coming none too soon, said William Smith, executive director of the National Coalition of STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) Directors.

“It is pretty clear that we have already seen significant resistance to the existing [gonorrhea] treatments, and internationally, we have seen complete treatment failures,” he said. “So right now is the time to be just ahead of this, and to try and figure out how we can control it a bit longer with the existing resources that we’ve got.”

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