In perhaps the most shocking indictment ever made of a section of the U.K.’s National Health Service, the 2003 parliamentary Health Select Committee declared genitourinary medicine to be in a state of meltdown. “We have been appalled by the crisis,” the committee said, adding “we do not use the word ‘crisis’ lightly, but in this case it is appropriate.”¹ The committee cited waiting lists of two months, clinics housed in shoddy portable buildings, demoralized staff, and a desperate lack of resources. More than anything, however, the crisis is caused by the UK’s epidemic of sexually-transmitted infections (STIs).

The U.K.’s Health Protection Agency, which monitors the problem, says that its latest (2005) report shows a “grim picture of a continuing high incidence of STIs in young people, increasing prevalence of HIV infection especially in men who have sex with men² . . . together with evidence that heterosexual transmission of HIV within the UK is increasing.”³ And, it says, STIs are overwhelmingly the greatest infectious disease problem in the country today: “Each year more than 1.5 million new episodes are seen in UK clinics for genitourinary medicine.”⁴

Detailed figures for the past decade show an accelerating incidence for each type of disease. During the period 1995-2004 the number of cases of gonorrhea jumped by 111%; chlamydia by 223%, genital warts by 32%, herpes by 15%, and syphilis (though actual numbers are relatively small) by an alarming 1499%. Chlamydia is now the most common STI in the country, with 104,155 new cases in 2004 (up from just 32,288 in 1995) and affecting about 1 in 10 of 16-to-25 year-olds.⁵ Untreated, it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancies, and infertility in women.

No one in genitourinary medicine has much doubt about the reason for all this. In the past decade there have been dramatic changes in British sexual habits.⁶ Young people are starting their sex lives much earlier than they did 10 years ago—more than one in five girls before they are 16—and they change sexual partners more often. In 1990 the average number of sexual partners over a lifetime was 8.6 for men and 3.7 for women; it is now 12.7 for men and 6.5 for women and rising.⁷ And an increasing number have more than one partner at a time.

Although the statistics suggest that STIs is mainly a young people’s problem, one doctor working in the field, Professor George Kinghorn, stresses that the revolution in sexual behavior is sweeping across all age groups. There are 23 million Britons aged between 15 and 44 and, according to the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, almost two-thirds of them will change their sexual partner in a five-year period.⁸ Add to this the number of older people who take new partners when long-term relationships come to an end, and the implications are enormous. As Professor Kinghorn says, “a conservative estimate says that one in three adults will acquire an STI (in their lifetime), but I suspect it is more likely to be half.”⁹

British experts, whilst clearly worried about the problem, repeat old, stale advice. Typical is the Health Protection Agency which states, “The messages should be: always use a condom with a new or casual partner; make sure you have a check up if you have put yourself at risk of acquiring a STI or have any symptoms; think about the possible risks before you have a new sexual partner.”¹⁰ And the doctors, of course, want more specialist colleagues and better treatment facilities to do the job—in short: more money. Pastors can do much better. They can teach their congregation the biblical message that God wants sexual activity to be confined within faithful marriages. If people listened to this, the misery and expense caused by Britain’s epidemic of sexually-transmitted diseases could be cured almost overnight.

from Kairos Journal

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