Chlamydia, a sneaky disease with few symptoms, leaves many women sterile — 80 percent of its female victims being aged 15 to 24 years. 

Cases of Chlamydia increased in the Australian state of Tasmania, from 17,000 to 60,000 notified cases, between 2000 and 2009. (The World Today, ABC Radio, 9/4/2010)

Tasmania’s Director of the Sexual Health Services, Dr M. O’Sullivan, told reporters that “simply educating young people may be the solution”.

“We actually set up an advertising campaign where we actually asked them what would be a good logo for young people in your age group, and they came up with ‘Don’t be a fool, wrap your tool’”.  

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Has it been proved that condoms stop people giving each other Sexually Transmitted Diseases?

In 2000, the US National Institutes for Health published the first-ever thorough review of the scientific research on condom-effectiveness. Studying eight STDs, they demonstrated that condoms reduce the transmission risk of two. (1)

When “consistently and correctly used”, they found that condoms provide an 85% risk-reduction for HIV transmission in either sex, and a 45-to-75% reduction for transmission of gonorrhoea in males.

The data were unable to demonstrate condoms being effective at reducing other STDs — despite twenty-eight expert panel members studying 138 peer-reviewed studies on the topic.

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More recent research has been a bit more reassuring to condom fans. (2)

In 2004, the Departments of Public Health and Community Health Services in Denver, Colorado, found that in condom-users there was “limited evidence” of protection against STDs — those using condoms “consistently” deriving more protection than occasional users.

They noted that people using condoms took greater risks — were more promiscuous — than those not using them (new sex partners: 63% compared with 41%; multiple partners: 60% compared with 36%).

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Is it good to keep people believing that promiscuously exploiting one another for sexual gratification is OK, so long as one doesn’t spread germs?

How to get inside young heads and convince them to motivate their actions on the basis of love for other people and obedience to God?

Too hard, apparently.

Sources:  (1) National Institutes of Health, “Scientific Evidence on Condom Effectiveness for Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention” (June 2000)(2) http://journals.lww.com/stdjournal/Fulltext/2004/03000/Comparison_of_Sexually_Transmitted_Disease.4.aspx