Primary Care Doctors ‘Not Doing Enough’ To Curb STDs

Julie Lopez, 21, has been tested regularly for sexually transmitted diseases since she was a teenager. But when Lopez first asked her primary care doctor about screening, he reacted with surprise, she said.

“He said people don’t usually ask. But I did,” said Lopez, a college student in Pasadena, Calif. “It’s really important.”

Lopez usually goes to Planned Parenthood instead for the tests because “they ask the questions that need to be asked,” she said.

As rates of sexually transmitted infections steadily rise nationwide, public health officials and experts say primary care doctors need to step up screening and treatment.

“We know that doctors are not doing enough screening for STDs,” said David Harvey, executive director at the National Coalition of STD Directors. The failure to screen routinely “is leading to an explosion in STD rates,” he said, adding that cutbacks in funding and a lack of patient awareness about the risks make it worse.