Research: Part 2

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23574940

1 in 4 teenage girls have an STD? While I don't find this statistic to be overly unbelievable, I do question it's validity. The study was based on 838 participants of a "nationally representative sample"... from 2003-2004. Maybe the research is like me and really slow when it comes to data analysis, but she was collecting survey data. How hard is it to analyze survey data? 4 years to analyze survey data? Something smells fishy and it's not the infected snizzes of the 838 participants. I love how news articles are published on these studies and only provide the "controversial" results. How were these girls selected for the survey? Is it from all over the nation or just given out at BGSU (Yeah, you all know what I'm getting at with that one... dirty, dirty school). For your study to hold weight or for an article to truly be important or worthwhile, publish some more information about the sample, and not just repeating the fact that 1 in 4 teenage girls have an STD. Also, where's the data on males? Why is it that studies keep popping up about teenage girls (see previous posts)? What about studies on teenage males? Could it be that these studies are mostly carried out and published to fulfill some alterior motive like promote abstinance or sell something like vaccines, medication, check-ups, etc.? How many parents are going to read this and freak out that their teenage daughter has an STD? I hate how this country uses "scare tactics" to get things done, and I hate even more how the general public falls for such things (Read: 9/11 and the Patriot Act/Iraq War)?

The point of all this... America has become lazy. We would rather take things at face value, than than try to research and learn the truth. More to come on this topic in a future post....

Follow-Up: I went to the CDC website (the agency 'responsible' for the study) and there's no mention of the study, no resource to be found, nothing. Yet somehow, it is a "Breaking News" study on MSN.com. Amazing.