The National Journal tells us that a much publicized report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that stated that one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease was flawed, inaccurately released, and sensationalized in the press.
The original report stated luridly: “1 in 4 Teenage Girls Has a Sexually Transmitted Disease.”
Apparently the truth is far more nuanced, less lurid, and even positive.
- the study concerned infections, not disease.
- HIV/AIDS, syphilis and gonorrhea were not part of the study.
- teenage girls were only a subset of a larger study which contained older women, the 25% figure came from the larger study.
- there is a great variation in the infection rates, as well as sexual activity in general, within age categories among teenagers. 14 years old girls have far less sex than do 19 year old girls.
- in historical terms, the infection rates, and sexual activity in general, is lower than in years past.
But the original report created a stir that subsequent corrections will probably not clarify effectively. It remind us how the bureaucracy, the media, and interest groups work in our democratic system, to say nothing about human psychology--it's touch to change a story once it's been spun in a particular direction.
The CDC needs headlines to bolster its image and convince the population to contiune, if not increase, its funding levels. The greater sense that a problems exists, the greater need for the agency responsible for solving the problem.
Interest groups on either side of the Bush Administration's health poicies, which tends to promote abstinence only programs, used the original headlines to argue their respective cases:
Rival Washington advocates pounced on the CDC’s startling statistic. One faction, led by Planned Parenthood and other groups that get federal grants, said the number shows that the Bush administration’s abstinence-promotion programs don’t work and that funding should be transferred to sex-education and condom-distribution programs. The rival faction, led by social conservatives, said that the one-in-four number demonstrates the failure of condoms and sex-education classes.
And the media of course needs juicy headlines to grab viewers, and what better way to do it than with lurid tales of underage girls and sex?
Facts are a killjoy.
