What Are STDs?
STDs are infections spread by sexual contact: genital, oral, anal, heterosexual, or homosexual. The most common infections are Papilloma, Trichomonas, Herpes, Hepatitis B, HIV, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and Syphillis.

What are the Complications of STDs?

• All STDs promote getting and transmitting HIV/AIDS.
• Papilloma (HPV) infection frequently occurs during a woman's first sexual experience. The virus causes genital warts and cervical cancer, which kills 4900 American women annually but is entirely curable when discovered early.
• Hepatitis B (HBV) infection leads to chronic liver disease and cancer.
• HIV has caused 524,060 AIDS deaths among 929,985 infected.
• Syphillis damages heart, nerve, and brain.
• Chlamydia causes premature labor; it also causes infertility in men as it does in women.
• Gonorrhea ("clap") spreads to joints and blood ("blood poisoning," "bad blood," which can be fatal); it also leads to epididymitis, which can result in male infertility.
• Chlamydia and gonorrhea infections in women are rarely detected because of lack of symptoms. Untreated, they cause Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID): scarring of the Fallopian tubes leading to infertility, tubal pregnancy, and chronic pain. Last year, 151 American women died of PID; another 100,000 were made infertile.

What Can You Do?

• Practice sexual abstinence, or have protected sex with one uninfected partner.
• Don't have sex with anyone who has genital or anal sores or unusual growths.
• Don't go back and forth between partners.
• Use a condom correctly every time. (Herpes and papilloma may be spread outside the condom.)
• Get tested for gonorrhea and chlamydia, and get a Pap smear, at least once a year.
• Remember that birth-control pills prevent pregnancy, but not disease.
• Print this page and take it home to your kids. Two-thirds of STDs occur before age 25, and one-fourth are in teenagers. There should be no need for Dr. Hutcherson's "What Your Mother Never Told You About Sex" (Putnam Publications; April 2002).