Forum Topic

Hammersmith - a den of iniquity?

Reading the item on the front page about the level of STIs amongst young people set me thinking. I'd call myself a liberal and was glad to grow up in an age where my own private morality was my own business. When I was a young man I had the aspiration to sleep with as many women as possible, but I was singularly unsuccessful.In the centre of Hammersmith now there are crowds of young people enjoying themselves and by the evidence of this report many are getting intimately aquainted with each other. The result has been a massive growth in diseases which may not have the dreadful impact of something like Aids but nevertheless can have some lasting and even fatal effects. A nurse friend of ours claims that the problem is worse even than these figures suggest with many people unwilling to visit a doctor due to embarrassment.The question this raises for me is that the Government spends lots of money on warning people about the dangers of smoking and drinking. The health risks from promiscuity are if anything greater and hit the young hardest yet no effort is made to make them aware of this. My nurse fried says that if you have 10 sexual partners in London you are almost definitely going to pick up an STI even if you practise 'safe' sex.Have we has a society become so anxious not to be seen as judgmental in moral terms that we are betraying our children by not telling them the truth about sex?

Ellen Kearney ● 5352d6 Comments

Jade Goody died of cervical cancer. I don't think she was coy about her adolescent promiscuity in any of her auto-biographies so there is a high chance that that was the reason for her early death. This likelihood was never mentioned at the time and a fantastic opportunity was missed to convey an important point on health to the very people most likely to benefit - young, not particularly bright teenage girls.

Andy Jones ● 5312d

I think many young people believe it won't happen to them, as has always been the case but also I have not seen any warnings about what could and most probably would happen. There needs to be more awareness in schools and on tv about what can happen with any of these STI's.  It is true that in most cases (including pregnancy) everyone is being led to believe that there is a quick fix for everything and that if you go to the doctors it will be 'sorted'.  Not if you leave things too late it won't and not if you don't get warning signs in the first place.

Tina Pemberton ● 5337d

A friend of mine is a pathologist and he says that there is a great reluctance to put a STI as a cause of death on a death certificate because of the distress that it would cause to the family. His belief is that STI deaths are unreported by at least half and even more when you include cases in which an STI has only been a contributing factor.

Paul Corcoran ● 5351d

Exactly, although you obviously have much more knowledge then I have.  I do firmly believe though that unfortunately many youngsters today do not understand the seriousness and just presume a) it will not happen to them, or b) if it does can just pop to the docs and it will be sorted.

Carol Burge ● 5352d

As a nurse many years back there were two patients with syphillis - one had gone blind and deaf and the other had a form of madness caused by this - it lays dormant for many years and then resurfaces by which time it is usually too late to treat.  Chlamydia can cause sterility and serious infection in the fallopian tubes etc if not treated.  Many of these diseases do not show up especially in women so potentially they can be as devastating as AIDS.

Tina Pemberton ● 5352d

I think it is more a case of being complacent.......the idea being that in this day and age everything can be fixed regardless of what it is.  I recently watched a documentary that featured the walk in Sexual Health clinic at Charring Cross hospital and was shocked at how the youngsters featured seemed to have no idea of the fact they were playing russian roulette with their health.  Granted the girls, and some of their mothers,  were concerned they did not want to get pregnant, but as one doctor stated pregnancy can be the least of their worries.  One young man featured was just starting out on a new gay relationship and wanted another HIV test....he was quite open that he had not been faithful with his previous partner and wanted to check he was OK.  However what shocked me the most was the case of a young girl who was HIV positive (after just one fumble as she put it), the doctors were trying to contact her as her blood tests were causing serious concerns and they wanted her to start medication, but she did not want it and in fact did not turn up for some of her appts.  I felt so sorry for her as she was, obviously, absolutely terrified.I don't have children but still have reservations about the cervical cancer jab available to girls......what with that and the pill I believe this could result in girls not taking seriously enough the continued need to get the guy to use protection as they will think they are safe!

Carol Burge ● 5352d