The Nation - News from April 4, 1986

Sexually transmitted infections that threaten women’s fertility pose a little-known but major health threat, with costs totaling more than $2.6 billion in 1984 and likely to exceed $3.5 billion in 1990, government scientists reported. The researchers, led by Dr. A. Eugene Washington of the national Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, said that pelvic inflammatory disease can lead to chronic pain, infertility or internal scars. At least 1 million U.S. women get the disease each year. The findings appear today in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.