BID TO CONTROL V.D. CONSIDERED

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31439, 4 August 1967, Page 9

BID TO CONTROL V.D. CONSIDERED

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

SYDNEY, August 3.

Promiscuous teen-agers in Western Australia may be ordered to undergo medical examinations, in a drastic bid to control an epidemic of venereal disease.

The State Public Health Commissioner, Dr. W. S. Davidson, said in his annual report this week that he would do this unless public opinion was against it He said he had powers under the Health Act to order such examinations, and treatment ji needed, but present Government policy was to apply these powers only to prostitutes. He said sexual experience had become a “status symbol —a cult” among young people, and there was justification for such action. He said notified cases in the State had risen from 136 in 1961 to 710 in 1966. Of last year’s total. 615 were males mainly between 20 and 24. Of the 95 females,

41 per cent were aged between 15 and 19. Dr. Davidson said the growing epidemic of venereal disease had reached a state where “possible upset to a few innocent people must be risked if we are going to control the spread of the disease.”

Of promiscuous youngsters, the doctor said: “An infected youth, asked to produce the name of the contact during the previous fortnight from whom he is likely to have contacted the disease, produces two closely-typed pages and says: "Take your pick.' “A teen-age girl produces the same number of contacts from one evening’s activity but can recall the names of only one or two.”