Best choice is not risking chance of STDs

Since religious, moral or parental prohibitions apparently don't seem to work in many cases, could a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scare more teenage American girls away from having premarital sex?

We doubt it, but it should.

If the findings that at least one in four teenage girls nationwide has at lease one sexually transmitted disease don't scare the girls themselves, they should at least be a wakeup call to the responsible adults in their lives.

Nearly half of black teenage women were infected with at least one of the diseases measured in the study -- human papillomavirus or HPV, chlamydia, herpes simplex type two and the common parasite, trichomaniasis.

Among whites and Mexican-American teens, 20 percent had some sort of STD.

Among 838 girls who participated in a 2003-04 study, 18 percent had HPV, which can cause cervical cancer; 4 percent had chlamydia; 2.5 percent trichomoniasis and 2 percent herpes simplex virus type 2.

The findings raise the issue of the rights of teens to privacy and the rights of parents to decide what's best for their child.

The CDC recommends annual chlamydia screening for all sexually active women under 25, the three-dose HPV vaccine for girls 11-12 and catch-up shots for females 13 to 26.

Some doctors support confidential teen screening, and may be reluctant to screen for STDs or discuss them with teen patients because they would have to tell their parents.

Regardless of what happens after a young woman is exposed to sexually transmitted diseases, it's clear that her best choice is not to chance exposure in the first place.