An epidemic is stalking youth.
It is infecting hundreds every day.
It's a taboo subject; but it rages around the world.
Here are the facts — and what YOU can do about it!
It is a hushed-up subject, though millions are struck by the disease every year. Almost nobody wants to talk about it!
It does its work silently, quietly. It strikes suddenly. It even blights the lives of still unborn generations!
Number One Social Problem
Some authorities claim it is America's number one social problem, involving more people than divorce.
"The disease is hitting people of all ages, professions and income brackets," says Dr. Lee Elgin, director of control of the disease in Miami, Florida. He added, "We have had bankers and even physicians infected."
What disease are we talking about? What is this disease that is seldom discussed but affects MILLIONS? Venereal disease!
"Gonorrhea is now out of control," warned Dr. William Brown, chief of the disease program at the National Communicable Disease Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Officials at the center predict 1.5 million Americans will become infected with it this year — up 25 percent from two years ago and DOUBLE the number of a decade ago.
The American Social Health Association estimates about 1,500,000 are infected each year.
But WHY are people afraid to bring this subject out in the open and discuss it frankly, honestly? Why are so many afraid to face it — and hide their eyes from it?
Such an attitude can only serve to contribute to the growing ravages of the problem!
Hiding one's eyes from a problem will not make it go away!
Venereal disease, today, is a SERIOUS plague. Yet it need not have been, if today's parents and today's youth had been taught right values.
Some authorities say only 10 percent of the cases are ever reported — the rest are covered up, kept secret because of the shame and stigma involved.
But the United States is not alone in succumbing to this scourge of the flesh!
Worldwide Hydra-headed Monster
Venereal disease rears its ugly head around the world. Said Dr. Emanuel Snell, Director of Communicable Disease Control, Manitoba, "Venereal disease is OUT OF CONTROL in North America and the entire Western world" (Canadian Press, Oct. 24, 1968).
In Western Europe it has also reached epidemic proportions. In Britain it is close to epidemic. Parts of black Africa have some of the highest rates in the world.
One government pamphlet reports, "Venereal disease is rising ALL OVER THE WORLD. With modern means of transportation no country is isolated from other nations . . .
"Syphilis and gonorrhea have not been brought under complete control anywhere. Of 106 nations reporting to the World Health Organization, 76 acknowledged a rising incidence of syphilis" (Venereal Disease — A Renewed Challenge, p. 4).
A recent British Medical Association booklet reports that more people have venereal disease in Britain than at any time in the past 13-20 years.
New resistant strains of gonorrhea have been reported in Sydney, Australia, and the rapidly increasing number of school children affected is alarming authorities. Last year girls up to 19 years of age represented 38 percent of all cases; this year they are expected to represent closer to 45 percent!
In Ontario, Canada, the rate of gonorrhea has nearly doubled since 1955; cases among girls 17-19 have more than doubled in the past ten years.
The rate of "Vietnam Rose" — the name GI's call gonorrhea — has reached an all-time high for any war involving U. S. servicemen. One out of every four soldiers reportedly has been infected. Says the World Health Organization, in one American unit an estimated 700 out of 1,000 men were infected in a single year!
In major Vietnamese cities, the VD rate for American servicemen has soared. In Quinhon, on the coast, the rate was once as high as 126 percent — a seemingly impossible figure, until you realize that some troops were infected more than once! Gonorrhea may be the number one communicable disease problem in the whole world!
But why? What is the cause of the skyrocketing increase?
The Results of "Free Love"
The truth is, we live in a promiscuous world. Fornication is deceitfully labeled "free love." Adultery goes under the name "wife swapping."
Unknown to many, homosexuality is the cause of much of the shocking increase in venereal disease!
And homosexuals may have as many as 20 or more "contacts" in a single day.
Syphilis and gonorrhea are spread from one person to another through illicit sex relations — through promiscuous contact with someone who has the disease in an infectious stage. An estimated 45,000 women in the Los Angeles area, for example, are "walking reservoirs" of venereal disease and will infect anybody foolish enough to have sexual relations with them!
These diseases are not, as many falsely believe, spread through the air, or carried by insects, or transmitted by food or water. One almost never contacts VD from toilet seats, drinking fountains, door handles, or similar articles or objects. Why have educators and doctors generally failed to warn that people contract personal, private "social" diseases by breaking the laws which regulate human health and happiness?
Why have ministers often been in the forefront of those advocating breaking of moral laws instituted to govern the proper use of sex in marriage?
Have we forgotten the meaning of "Thou shalt not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14) and "Flee fornication" (I Cor. 6:18)?
When will we quit kidding ourselves? "Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body" (I Cor. 6:18).
Venereal diseases are not new to the world scene. They have plagued civilizations down through history. Among the ancient Gentiles were some of the most vile, sordid, obnoxious proponents of sexual perversion. Homosexuality was rampant. Some of the world's most cherished, respected, looked-up-to philosophers were practicing homosexuals!
Perhaps it does make a difference what God has to say about them?
Notice!
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . . Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie . . . for this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another (and never satisfied!); men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense (including mental problems, frustrations, feelings of guilt, unhappiness, wretchedness, misery, and venereal diseases!) of their error which was meet (or fitting)" (Romans 1:22-27).
Permissiveness, apathy, public unconcern, widespread promiscuity due to the general lowering of the moral barriers and sexual restraints of society, and finally, now, the crashing of morals into the gutter — these are the causes of the new plague of venereal diseases scourging the world!
It's time health officials and parents became concerned. Widespread use of the "pill" may prevent pregnancy. But it won't prevent VD.
What can you do about this growing problem? How can you protect your children, educating them to avoid the dangers and perils of promiscuity — of necking, petting and consequent fornication?
The answers are contained in our booklets entitled Your Marriage Can Be Happy, Why Marriage — Soon Obsolete? And the book on Modern Dating. Write for your free copies, sent as a service in the public interest!