The land of the STD

If you write a blog long enough, eventually you find yourself writing the same thing again and again.

Today’s report from the Department of Public Health, showing Minnesota is fertile ground for sexually transmitted disease, is a perfect example.

The issue, for reasons I have never been able to figure out, is utterly incapable of shocking Minnesotans to the point where some significant step is taken that changes things.

And yet, the statistical nuggets in these reports are shocking, and often tend to challenge who we might think are the people involved..

In 2008, for example, data showed one in four American girls had a sexually transmitted disease.

Last year, we learned 63% of the cases of chlamydia occurred in suburbanites or in people in outstate Minnesota.

This year we found out that the rate of suburban sexually transmitted disease is up 15%. And men who have sex with men account for 88% of all male early syphilis cases.