What if the government spent billions on a program over four decades and an authoritative federal study showed that the policy not only failed but may have contributed to spreading several incurable diseases?

Would the press connect the dots and warn the American people?

Not if that would threaten the widely administered and well-funded “safe sex” programs for kids.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that one in four American teen girls and half of all black teen girls—half!—have at least one sexually transmitted disease (STD). This finding comes in the face of nearly 40 years of federally funded “safe sex” education that told the girls they would be “safe” if the boys used condoms.

The study of girls 14 to 19 tested for four infections: Chlamydia, trichomoniasis, herpes simplex and human papillomavirus (HPV).  The latter disease causes nearly all cases of cervical cancer, which kills about 4,000 American women each year.

Here’s the well-kept secret that the media reports are leaving out: Condoms are ineffective in preventing HPV. According to Dr. John Diggs, Jr., a Massachusetts MD who specializes in treatment of STDs, condoms are only partially effective, even when used perfectly, in preventing a host of STDs. That’s because many of the infections affect the entire genital region, not just the “covered” portion.  So why are the schools pushing condoms on kids as if this will make them “safe?”

With every announced failure, the answer is always the same: More “safe sex” education, and the earlier the better. Some school districts are targeting kindergarteners. If Clinton’s Surgeon General, Joycelyn Elders, had had her way, preschoolers would now be gazing at anatomy charts, cucumbers and condoms.

The CDC study was unveiled on March 12, but only ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson of the three major network news shows covered the story that evening. There was no mention of abstinence, only the usual “risk reduction” approach, which is centered around condom use and birth control pills.

ABC reported that 3 million girls have “infections that cause everything from infertility to cervical cancer.” The story focused on the need to educate teens better about how “to protect themselves,” as one interviewee put it.

A Washington Post story on March 13 that featured interviews with local teens, led with a quote from a medical expert who was “astounded” at the CDC figures. The expert, Elizabeth Alderman, adolescent specialist at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, said that although teens who come to doctors’ offices “tell you they or their partner are using a condom, obviously, many are not.”

Or maybe they are.

Medical authorities have known this for years. In 2001, the CDC released a study that concluded, “there was no epidemiologic evidence that condom use reduced the risk of HPV infection, but study results did suggest that condom use might afford some protection in reducing the risk of HPV-associated diseases, including warts in men and cervical neoplasia in women.”  Continued...