I Find It Hard to Believe

Post #995


There is a commercial for a prescription medication that seems to show up on my TV screen several times a day that makes what I consider to be an incredible statement:

1 out of 5 adults in the United States is infected with the genital herpes virus. And 90% of them have never been diagnosed. (Valtrex commercial)

OK, I admit that I don’t believe that I have every written about an STD before. I also admit that I am not very knowledgeable about the subject—primarily what I learned as a social worker and later in classes I took via the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. However, I am aware that, if this claim that 20% of U.S. adults are infected with the genital herpes virus is valid, that we Americans have one hell of an epidemic that. To my knowledge, is being discussed no where except in a television commercial.

Don’t you believe that there is something wrong with that picture? To me it is as shocking as when I learned a few years ago that it has become the norm in certain places for 5^th grade girls to perform oral sex on 5^th grade boys.

One of the first things I learned in seminary was to question everything, including the Bible. Since I don’t consider a pharmaceutical TV add to be anywhere near as authoritative as the Bible (which, if you really study it, has texts with varying degrees of trustworthiness), I decided to do a little research. Here is what I found at the United States Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website:

Results of a nationally representative study show that genital herpes infection is common in the United States. Nationwide, at least 45 million people ages 12 and older, or one out of five adolescents and adults, have had genital HSV infection. Over the past decade, the percent of Americans with genital herpes infection in the U.S. has decreased.

Genital HSV-2 infection is more common in women (approximately one out of four women) than in men (almost one out of eight). This may be due to male-to-female transmission being more likely than female-to-male transmission.

Did you pick up what that says? It confirms the TV ad: at least 45 million people ages 12 and older, or one out of five adolescents and adults, have had genital HSV infection and takes it a step further because the TV commercial limited the claim of infection to adults. Second, it says that the number of Americans infected is has come down to 20% over the past decade. Finally, am I misreading the second paragraph or does it really claim that one out of every four females in the United States has had a had genital HSV infection?

This ain’t funny, folks! So how the Centers for Disease Control recommend we address this epidemic? I’ll be damned, but it gives the same prescription as the Right Wing gives for preventing unwanted pregnancies and AIDS:

The surest way to avoid transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, including genital herpes, is to abstain from sexual contact, or to be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested and is known to be uninfected.

Come on folks! Telling humans to abstain from sexual contact is about as realistic as telling your adolescent kid to wait until he/she completes college before getting a driver’s license! The kid’s gonna drive one way or another, with or without a license; the kids (and adults) are gonna have sex, too.

And what about this “in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested and is known to be uninfected?” What I have learned from the under 40s with whom I have had contact over the past twenty or so years is that the “normal dating process” has become screw first and then talk to the dude or dudette to determine if you want to get to known them—or maybe ask her or him his or her name.

So I am leaving the answer up in the air because I have no answer. And I ask you: how can we Americans deal with this genital herpes virus epidemic?

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The furball has promised to write a new-post-a-day.