US Navy health officials push condom use

[rainbow4321]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20050421-13341900-bc-us-navy-condoms.xml

Armed with alarming statistics about unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among sailors and Marines, the US Navy wants that condoms be made widely available to troops, reports UPI.

The Navy office's advocacy of condom use as a means of combating disease and pregnancy appears to be at odds with the White House's embrace of abstinence as the best means of preventing disease and pregnancy, and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention's recent revisions to its stance on condoms.

According to Navy data, since 1985 more than 5,000 sailors and Marines have been infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, costing the Navy healthcare system $12,000 per patient or $6 million a year to treat them. In 2004 there were 106 new cases of HIV in the Navy and Marine Corps. Each year the Navy assumes a lifetime healthcare cost of $20 million for sailors and Marines infected with HIV. There were about 4,500 unplanned pregnancies -- nearly 70 percent of all enlisted pregnancies are not planned. Their total healthcare cost for the Navy was about $16 million, about $3,200 per pregnancy.

It is a clash between competing interests. For both moral and political reasons, the White House seeks to publicly discourage casual sex that it links to condom use. The Navy, seeking to protect the health and readiness of the fleet, skews toward the practical.

[rodeodance]

1. my my--this is welcome news. Wonder what the christian Repugs will

have to say about his.

[rodeodance]

2. so--will they issue or make available the Pill to the women?

[rodeodance]

4. April 21--was the date of this. I have not heard anything on the news or

in the newspapers. figures!!

[rainbow4321]

8. I had to dig pretty damn deep...

to find it..initially found it on Big News Network webpage (see below) under military news which then led to an India-based news webpage..so I googled and found the ScienceDaily webpage <which looks like a pretty cool site, BTW>.
So, yeah, as usual, the most interesting articles about the US are found OUTSIDE the US...cuz OUR newswires are owned by the chimp regime--which means anything that "conflicts" w/ our dictator isn't going to surface!

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=c0825a308ce3b8a1&cat=187cf2a69985adcf

[whistle]

3. Ooops, those middle east strains of STDs are getting mighty...

...powerful, eh? As for planned pregnancies, I didn't think the navy allows any of those.

[rodeodance]

6. Frist is a Dr. and he lies about condom effectivenss--Looky here!!

.....While funding abstinence education abroad, the White House is proposing to cut $4 million from the CDC's HIV and AIDS, STD and tuberculosis-prevention program, according to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, an advocacy organization that promotes sexual education.

The White House also supported Congress' appropriation of nearly $170 million in federal funds for abstinence-only education for students in the United States. By law the programs funded cannot discuss the role condoms play in preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Those programs came under fire last year by Democrats charging scientific inaccuracies. Senate Majority Leader and physician Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., asked to defend the programs on ABC News in December, said they merit review and that the government has an interest in providing accurate information about public health challenges, including AIDS, the flu and condoms.

Frist also said, "We know that there's about a 15-percent failure rate" with condoms.

Used correctly -- which requires user education -- the CDC states the failure rate is between 2 and 3 percent.

[BOSSHOG]

5. Discourage Casual Sex vs 4,500 unplanned pregnancies?

Gosh I wish I were a fucking republican rocket scientist. bush does nothing for MORAL reasons, his whole worthless life revolves around politics. Sailors have been fucking and sucking since before there was a country, when the old British maxim for control of the seas was Sodomy, the lash and rum. People have sex james dobson, its all God's fault, in fact those who give you money are sodomites and divorcees and spouse abusers and pedophiles. But it don't matter does it james as long as those dollars keep dropping into your collection plate.

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. Ye Olde Dollar Bill wins again

Oh yeah, and lives are important too. If only the Navy paid for deaths in undeveloped countries, we'd have had a cure by now.