Old But Cool

I found this news blurb from last year. But it was so exciting I felt like I had to share it.

Basically, there's a correlation between getting Pap smears and fighting off/avoiding HPV infections.

Cool, huh?

I really wish my high school health class covered stuff like this. The curriculum was much more concerned about abstinence and pregnancy than STDs/STIs and health screenings.

OK, I'm fibbing a little bit. I remember getting a small dose of STI information, mostly to scare us rather than inform us.

I guess I find abstinence a good concept, but not one grounded in reality. Teens are going to have sex, whether parents want them to or not. Arming them with information they need is a lot healthier than putting earplugs in and blinders on.

Even if you're going to argue that it's not information teens need to have, when are they going to get it? I never knew the value of getting a yearly OBGYN exam until I was almost done with college. A friend of mine who was getting married and concerned about kids floored me when I asked her about family planning and she had no clue what that was.

Or maybe I'm just turning into a liberal nutcase.