About AIDS Among Teens

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Dr. David Hill and today we're going to be talking about AIDS or HIV among teens. Every year in the United States, about forty-thousand people are diagnosed with HIV and of those, about fifteen or twenty percent are teenagers. Anyone who is sexually active or using IV drugs is at risk for contracting HIV or AIDS but some people are at higher risk than others. Anyone who's having sex without using condoms, anyone who's sharing needles or IV drugs, anyone who's practicing anal receptive intercourse, even if they're female, is still at a significantly increased risk for HIV. A lot of people don't know that they have AIDS so before somebody engages in intercourse with a partner, they might ask "do you have anything?" And that partner might say "no, I don't." But unless they've been tested repeatedly, they don't know what they have if they're sexually active. For that reason, you want to encourage teenagers to use a condom if they're going to have sexual intercourse every single time. Importantly, studies have shown that discussing condom use, discussing sexually transmitted diseases with teenagers does not increase their risk for having sex earlier than they should. We find that education only helps. So feel free to keep your child safe. Don't worry that just bringing up the topic or even making condoms available to your child is going to make them more sexually active than they would otherwise be. In fact, it might then make them a little bit less so, and if they choose to be sexually active, it can keep them from getting a deadly disease. So remember, any sexually active teenager is at risk for contracting HIV. Many people have no symptoms when they're first infected or have vague symptoms that seem like the flu and don't know they have HIV. Remember to discuss using a condom every single time a teenager engage, engages in intercourse and don't worry that having that conversation is going to put your teenager at higher risk for early sexual intercourse. We know it won't. Talking about teens and AIDS, or HIV, I'm Dr. David Hill."