Letter to the Editor

Does H1N1 qualify as pandemic?

Sunday, May 3, 2009

To the Editor:

Pan-dem-ic

-- adjective

-- 1. (of a disease) prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world; epidemic over a large area.

As of this writing, there have been 68 confirmed cases of swine flu in America and one very sad death. But does that qualify it as a pandemic?

Today, there are more than 25 known sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) as opposed to the 1960s, when there were only two well-known STDs: syphilis and gonorrhea.

Each year, in our country alone, there are approximately 19 million new cases of STDs with half of those being in people between the ages of 15-24.

And with $14.1 billion in yearly medical costs, shouldn't this be considered the real pandemic?

Years of handing out condoms to middle and high school students have not helped to end the transfer of sexually transmitted diseases? In fact, it has encouraged it.

So why in the face of such tragedy has our President cut the federal funding for abstinence education by $14 million? And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that she wants to eliminate the funding altogether, calling it "bad policy."

It's because we live in a culture that has become obsessed with free and limitless sex at all costs. But there is a price to pay for this ideology -- the health of our children.

Michele Foxworthy,

Cloverdale