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The main question in regards to sexually transmitted diseases is which side the law should take. Should the law fully back infected persons in regards to both their rights to privacy and confidentiality; or should it allow the sacrifice the few to protect the masses? One may find it that picking a side is just a simple black and white decision. However quite often, the issue of STDs in Society lies in the gray area. Should there be a distinction between in whether or not the infected persons knew that they had STDs.

It is interesting to find a correlation between the outburst of STDs in the 1980s and 1990s with the laws in regards to STDs. Some laws are designed to protect the spread of them by a relatively proactive approach. Meaning, that laws are made for the purposes of teaching children the dangers of having sex increases the possibility of having STDs spread. The other approach is reactionary, in regards that the laws are trying to restrict in a sense adults who are already sexually aware or active.

It is quite shocking at the actual cost of teaching abstinence only to school children in the US. According to the Huffington Post, the federal government has spent more than a billion dollars from taxpayers to support the abstinence only legislation across the country in the last 10 to 15 years. This federal funding is in most part to be used by states only to teach abstinence only within their schools, they are unable to use that funding for other purposes. As a result, several states have decided not to receive any federal funding because they have reached the conclusion that abstinence only does not work. [17]

The proactive approach seems the better option because it is easier to teach school age children, who are not sexually aware of themselves than to change the mindset of sexually aware adults. Another benefit of being proactive is that it may just take a lot less time in teaching children the proper way of being sexual because they have never interacted sexuality with others. However it would be that much more difficult to reprogram an adult because they have already have had innumerable interactions with sexual related topics throughout their lives.

The main downside of the proactive approach is the actual steps involved in regards to stopping the sexual activity of children. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 35 states cover or stress abstinence. All this does is to tell students that "Sex is bad, so do not do it." However in most cases that is as far as it goes. Generally, schools tend to not teach or are not even allowed to teach students other than abstinence only and are unable to teach about how to have safe sex.

It is interesting to note how the abstinence only policy laws were even passed. The main reason that they were passed was because it was backed up by none other than the religious right wing. In 1981, one of the first laws ever passed was called Adolescent Family Life Act or simply known as the "chastity law." This current law only funded abstinence only within schools and that funding could not be used else were. In 1996, a new federal program was passed by congress in which it would only teach abstinence till marriage. [18]

It is quite shocking, but what some would already assume, as the steps that were taken to get the laws similar Adolescent Family Life Act to get passed. Most of the time, these laws did not get into the public sphere of hearings or were even debated within congress. According to the Director of public policy for the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, Daniel Daley, that this legislation "took us completely by surprise." In addition he also stated that "An environment was created to make sure no one knew this was happening unless you were inside the loop - unless you were part of the Heritage Foundation of the Christian Coalition." [13]

It seems that there are no universal steps that schools need to follow across the country. In a Lubbock, Texas, a former high school student recounts how the message of abstinence only was conveyed to himself and his fellow students. He stated that the presenter of the abstinence only program basically equated that having sex before marriage is the same thing as someone putting a dirty toothbrush in ones month, and you being that dirty toothbrush. [12]

The main issue is that being school children age, most do not want to follow the "Sex is bad, so do not do it." Being at that age, they may want to experiment with many different things, be that drugs or sex. Just because someone says not to do something, it does not mean that they will necessarily follow it.

Our current approach does not work 100%. The most recent instance in which the current practice has clearly failed was in 2005. In which a total of 65 of 490 school girls in Timken High School in Canton, Ohio were reported to be pregnant. [7]

An additional issue is that there is sexuality all around us, and children. Pick up any newspaper; turn on the TV or any other form of media. You are basically guaranteed to see something that references some sexual conditation. Our society is a very sexual oriented society. So, one could say that we are to blame for this problem. The reason is that we are being hypocrites in that we say "ex is bad, don't do it" and show sexual content on an hourly basis. It is totally understandable that children do not follow what we tell them to do.

Taking the proactive approach is not a bio-ethical issue. The reason is quite simple. Abstinence and sexual education is not an issue for several reasons. the first being the fact that teaching abstinence and sexual education is the same as if you are teaching a child to read a book or to show them how to solve a math problem. An additional reason is that by teaching these things you are not casting out the minority from the majority.

One would assume that there would have been research which would support the assumption that abstinence only is an effective method in reducing the number of children who transmit STDs like HIV. However, we were unable to find one that supported it at all. In fact, most research in regards to abstinence only found it was an ineffective and even at times detrimental to children.

There have been several studies that have reached the conclusion that only teaching abstinence does nothing at all in regards to the decrease in the spreads of STDs. A 2007 federal reported concluded that kids who participate in abstinence only have the same chances of not having sex to those who did not take a role in the federal study involving 2,000 youth. Within that same report, it cited a 2004 congressional report found that 80% of abstinence only courses gave fake, biased, twisted information to kids in regards to sexual reproduction. [1]

A 2008 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in four girls have already gotten a STD. An additional study which was conducted a few months after concluded that the likely hood of pregnancy decreased by a total of 50% as a result of teaching children more information about contraceptives and other alternatives to just the abstinence only ideal. [5]

The most recent study, conducted in March 2009, by the American Medical Association also came to a similar conclusion. It found that children who were only taught “abstinence only” would have the same amount of sexual contact with the same number as partners, with no delays in regards to when their very first sexual intercourse occurred as compared to those who were not taught abstinence only. [2]

Yes, many states are taking a proactive approach by generally only teaching abstinence. Being human however, lawmakers and the like are quite often forgetting that humans are sexually beings. As a result, their being proactive is being negated by the fact that they are ignoring the most important human characteristic in that humans are sexual beings.

The second way is by taking the reactionary approach to deal with STDs. Laws are passed in regards to trying to change infected persons who are already sexually aware and/or active. Be that, make laws that are meant to make infected persons as outcasts or laws that are meant to try to equalize both the infected and those who are not infected.

The statistics in regards to the spread of STDs within the US is quite shocking to those who do not interact with STDs on an ordinary basis. At the end of 2007, the Center for Disease Control had estimated that there were around half a million people that are infected with AIDS virus within the US. This number has risen by about 20,000 people from the previous year. Also there is an estimated million people or so who have HIV. It is also believed that around another 1 million people have died as a result of AIDS. [16]

The first recorded clinical trial in regards to HIV took place on August, 1987. A year prior, the potential HIV vaccine had been approved to proceed with a clinical trial. The trial took place in Bethesda, Maryland at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. Phase 1 of this trial had 138 people who were health and also uninfected with the virus. The participants during this phase were given, gp160, was a candidate vaccine to try to see whether or not gp160 was effective or not. It did not have any major adverse effects on the participants. The results of the trial were that it was concluded that gp160 vaccine was indeed safe. [6]

Five years later, Phase 2 begins. This part of the trial got people who were uninfected to volunteer in it. These were people who had extremely high probabilities that they would soon get infected by their risky activities of using already used needles in their drug use, or where ones who already had multiple sexual partners. The purpose of this phase was to try to counsel them multiple times to get them to reduce their very risky activities. [4]

Between 1996 and 1997, Remune, formally known as gp160, began phase 3 of its clinical trial which was randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled. It took place in both the US and Thailand. It had a total of 2,500 patients involved who would receive Remune once every 3 months. It was randomly chosen whether or not which patients did and did not receive Remune as treatment. On May, 1997 the enrolment into the trial finished. [3] In 1999, the Data Safety Monitoring Board ended Resume’s Phase 3 trial. Its conclusion was that there was no difference between the patients taking either the vaccine or those who just took a placebo.

It is interesting to note that one of the creators of Remune is none other than Jonas Salk. In the early 1980’s he began to work on a vaccine for AIDS just like he did with polio. He was one of the co-founders of The Immune Response Corporation which created and patented Remune. Sadly, he died before any vaccine for AIDS was found at the age of 81. [11]

Four years later, in 2003, the next experimental vaccine came into development. It was called V520 and was developed by Merck with the purpose of making the body to produce T cells which in turn kill any and all cells that were infected with HIV.

One year later, phase 2 of the clinical trial began. It would involve 3,000 participants into the trial from North America, South America and Australia were did not carry the HIV virus but who were at a high risk of getting infected. During a preliminary report of the test vaccine, the Data Safety and Monitoring Board stated that 3% of the participants who were given 1 dose of the vaccine and a 2% of people who get given two doses were now infected with HIV. The DSMB concluded that the people who were only given a placebo had a similar percentage of getting infected as compared to those who were actually given the test vaccine. In addition, they found that the vaccine did not work after some of the participants got infected with it. [10]

The most recent news in regards to a working, well at least partially working, vaccine surfaced that was very promising. This past September, in a joint venture between the US Army and the Thai government, they were able to successfully create a working vaccine against HIV. Their vaccine was a combination to two prior ones that had failed. They tested it on a total of 16,000 people from Thailand. It was concluded that a full third of the participants had a reduced chance of getting infected with the HIV virus. [14]

It is important to note that this is only a small success in the battle against HIV. The reason is that it has been found that this vaccine only works on Thailand’s version of HIV strain. There is still a long ways to go until a universal vaccine for HIV is discovered. Until then, we should be happy with this small yet important victory.

Currently, there are laws that protect people uninfected with HIV from those who are. However it must be noted that to a certain extent, these laws are mostly directed at people who purposely transmit HIV to someone who is uninfected or do not disclose that they are HIV positive to their partners.

The first law in regards to HIV is now approaching its 20 year old mark. In 1990, the Ryan White CARE Act was introduced with the purpose of telling the states that it was now required make clear all of their criminal laws concerning HIV, so that their laws can “adequate to prosecute any HIV infected individual.” This Act also provides federal funding to states for the caring and treatment of AIDS. A decade later, this act was removed after all the states had certified that they had complied with the then decade old act. [9]

Currently there are three ways in which states can legally intervene in cases in which a person knowingly infected another person with HIV. The first case is that there are already HIV laws on the books in which makes exposure illegal. It is important to note that in most cases, these laws are not directly created as a result of HIV but are the results of “high risk” activities such as needle sharing and blood donations. [9]

The additional ways are that the states already have STD specific laws or that they relate the transition of HIV to criminal acts in which criminal laws can be used. According to the Caps Fact Sheet, as of 2005 there are 10 states that rely on STD laws that were already on the books and that 17 states just use criminal laws in cases involving people knowingly transmitting HIV.

In 2000, New York passed HIV Reporting Law, which required doctors and laboratories to report all new HIV cases of infections and illness. In addition, they were also required to report all of the current AIDS cases that they were currently involved with. It is important to note that the purpose of this law is to provide HIV surveillance and partner notification only. This data will only be used by the Department of Health and no one else. [8]

The current laws in regards to HIV and STDs are not the best around. However, they are what we have to use at this point in time. Let us just hope that time will give us some laws that are better than those we have now. We can also hope that the laws use some scientific data to back them up. Also that also that one day, that groups with power, the religious right in this case, are unable to pass their own ideals into laws that do not necessarily agree with others.

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