As STD rates decrease across the country, but they are rising in Amarillo.
Read more: Local, State, Economy, Health, Education, Community, Environment, Consumer, Sexual Education, STD, Sexual Transmitted Diseases, Planned Parenthood, Texas Panhandle Family Planning Center
AMARILLO -- For years, sexually transmitted diseases have been on the decline in many parts of the country, but in Amarillo they are still on the rise.
The numbers are shockingly high. There were six HIV cases in Amarillo all of last year. The Texas Panhandle Family Planning Center has already diagnosed three new cases since the beginning weeks of the new year.
And they're not all young people, of the diagnoses, two people are in their 50's and one is 22.
Amarillo still has the highest STD rates in the state and they keep rising.
Cases of gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis, which health officials say is supposed to be stamped out, have doubled and even tripled in some cases.
We asked Claudia Stravato from the Texas Panhandle Family Planning Center why the numbers are higher here than anywhere else. "This is the result of uninformed, casual, unprotected sex," said Stravato.
Stravato said the key word is un-informed, and more people need to talk openly about sex since teenagers are bound to mess around.
"The community is very conservative and while we hand out condoms otherwise we don't talk about, there needs to be better sex education in schools period," said Stravato.
We want to hear your opinion on the matter, so we set up a web poll. The question is, "Do you think abstinence only sex education is working in our schools?"
