Despite recommendations for annual preventive exams for adolescents, only 10 percent of teens have enough visits within 12 months to receive the recommended three shots needed for HPV vaccine. Ideally the three shots are delivered within six months, and only 1 percent of teens see their physicians that often.

New syphilis cases in the Houston area rose an unprecedented 28 percent in the first half of 2007, an increase the Houston Department of Health and Human Services (HDHHS) considers an outbreak.

New findings that one in 20 North Carolina men who have sex with men (MSM) reported using crystal methamphetamine during the previous month suggests increased risk for spreading HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STD), according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues.

After leveling off for more than two years – and declining in 2006 – new syphilis cases spiked in New York City during the first three months of 2007. The Health Department announced today that doctors reported 260 new cases of primary and secondary syphilis during January, February and March, compared with 128 cases during the same period last year.

Nearly half of all people infected with HIV/AIDS are now women, the majority of whom contracted the disease through sexual intercourse with male partners. Especially alarming is the steady increase in HIV rates among women under the age of 25, a population considered one of today’s most vulnerable for acquiring the disease.

A new World Bank report on HIV/AIDS launched on June 13in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, says the mobilization of empowered 'grassroots' communities, along with delivering condoms and life-saving treatments, are beginning to slow the pace of the continent's epidemic, which last year killed more than 2 million African adults and children, and left another 24.7 million Africans struggling to live with its deadly effects.

Like most women, you pass along important health tips to your family and friends. That's why the FDA's Office of Women's Health and the Federal Citizen Information Center have put together the free Reproductive Health Kit for you. It features valuable information on sexually transmitted diseases that every woman can use and share with her loved ones.

High-risk sexual behavior in adolescents appears to be influenced by the sexual attitudes of peers, and young people select friends whose attitudes about sex are consistent with their own attitudes. These are the conclusions of a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and published in the May/June 2007 issue of the journal Child Development.

A University of Sydney researcher has found that some married men who have sex with other men have contemplated suicide at the prospect of their wives or female partners finding out.