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Playing word games

Chicago Tribune

"We know that doctors are not doing enough screening for STDs," said David Harvey, executive director at the National Coalition of STD Directors. The failure to screen routinely "is leading to an explosion in STD rates," he said, adding that cutbacks in funding and a lack of patient awareness about the risks make it worse.

Clayton Cramer

I would think the unwillingness of men and women to keep their pants on unless in monogamous relationships is what is causing the explosion of STD rates.

Nope. The "rate" of STDs is a function of how it is measured. Lack of routine testing means people go in to a doctor and get tested when they think they might have an STD. If testing was routine (ie, everyone did it once a year routinely) then the denominator in that rate would be the entire population, rather than the people who think they might have been exposed.

Thus, lack of routine STD testing is in fact responsible for the high rate of positive STD tests.

I take no position on whether the executive director at the National Coalition of STD Directors was deliberately playing word games, but he certainly seems to have a strong incentive to push for routine STD testing.

This entry was published Mon Oct 29 04:33:21 CDT 2018 by TriggerFinger and last updated 2018-10-26 18:40:07.0. [Tweet]

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