One more reason to keep your pants on

The Centers for Disease Control and prevention released a scary statistic today: one in four teen girls in America has a sexually transmitted disease.

The New York Times article on the subject concludes with this:

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends annual screening tests to detect chlamydia for sexually active women under age 25. The federal agency in Atlanta also recommends that women between ages 11 and 26 be fully vaccinated against HPV"

Excuse me? Age 11?

Isn't that rather like being vaccinated for yellow fever when you're not going to Africa?

I understand that the CDC wants women to be vaccinated before they become sexually active, rather than after, but come on—isn't the bar being set a little too low here?

Oddly enough, I can't seem to find the statistic on how many teenage boys have STDs. Not even by searching the CDC's Web site for "teen boys STD." Apparently they haven't gotten around to doing that study yet.

Would I sound like a conspiracy theorist if I wondered aloud whether that's because there isn't a trendy new vaccine to push on 11-year-old boys?

Perhaps.

Regardless, I'm sure those teenage girls didn't pick up those STDs out of thin air.