110 million STDs in US in 2008. A yawner for the public it seems.

The CDC has reported that there were a mind boggling 110 million cases of venereal disease in the US in 2008. This costs a chunk of change and immeasurable personal consequences.  Will this info impact sexual behavior?  I doubt it.

According to new data released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 19.7 million new venereal infections in the United States in 2008, bringing the total number of existing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S. at that time to 110,197,000.

The 19.7 million new STIs in 2008 vastly outpaced the new jobs and college graduates created in the United States that year or any other year on record, according to government data. The competition was not close.

The STI study referenced by the CDC estimated that 50 percent of the new infections in 2008 occurred among people in the 15-to-24 age bracket. In fact, of the 19,738,800 total new STIs in the United States in 2008, 9,782,650 were among Americans in the 15-to-24 age bracket.

“CDC’s new estimates show that there are about 20 million new infections in the United States each year, costing the American healthcare system nearly $16 billion in direct medical costs alone,” said a CDC fact sheet.

...The most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States in 2008 was human papillomavirus (HPV), which caused 14,100,000 estimated infections that year.

After HPV, in order of magnitude, according to the study, new STIs in the U.S. in 2008 included 2,860,000 new Chlamydia infections; 1,090,000 new Trichomoniasis infections; 820,000 new Gonorrhea infections; 776,000 new Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 (HSV-2) infections; 55,400 new syphilis infections; 41,400 new HIV infections; and 19,000 new Hepatitis B infections.

The total of 110,197,000 existing STIs in the United States in 2008 included 79,100,000 HPV infections, 24,100,000 HSV-2 infections; 3,710,000 Trichomoniasis infections; 1,579,000 Chlamydia infections; 908,000 HIV infections; 422,000 Hepatitis B infections; 270,000 Gonorrhea infections; and 117,000 Syphilis infections.

Clinton v. Giuliani?

Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are both currently ahead in their races for the presidential nominations of their respective parties. A lot can and no doubt will happen between now and their nominating conventions. There are some who say there's no way Giuliani can win the Republican nomination because he's too liberal on social and other issues. That may well be the case but if the other four major candidates -- McCain, Huckabee, Romney and Thompson -- all stay in the race despite poor performances I think there's a scenario where they carve up the social and economic conservative voters and Giuliani wins the endorsement with 35 to 40% of the vote.

Clinton still has a good lead on the Democrat side and is still the odds on favorite to win the Democrat nomination.

If this is the line up for 2008 I think there will be very disenchanted people in both parties. Giuliani, for obvious reasons, among social conservatives and other conservatives. And Hillary because she does not excite many Democrats. I spoke with one DFL elected official who rolled his eyes when I asked him if he supported Hillary. He thought she would be a disaster. For one, she has extremely high negatives among voters in general. And second, there's the sense she'll say or do anything to get elected. A recent example is her trying to play both sides of the issue on giving driver licenses to illegal aliens. And columnist David Broder raises another issue; the idea that Bill Clinton would maintain a very influential position if she did become president and the concerns people have with that. I think there was Clinton fatigue after eight years of his presidency which was marked by personal scandal and a sense of opportunism and lack of principle.

The 2008 presidential election winner maybe a case of who people dislike the least.