A recent report on sexually transmitted diseases (stds) in the UK has shown an alarming number of diagnosed cases of infections such as gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes and genital warts, and revealed the curses of sexual impropriety. The report by Public Health England shows that 448,422 new cases of stds were diagnosed in the United Kingdom in 2012. That’s 5 percent more than in 2011 and nearly 50 percent more than in 2003.

Those aged 15 to 24 had the highest cases of infections, accounting for 64 percent of all Chlamydia cases, 54 percent of genital warts diagnoses and 41 percent of gonorrhea cases. Of all the 15-24-year-olds with stds, 10 percent will be reinfected within a year.

Public Health England acknowledges that cases of these infections are “continuing the steady upward trend we have seen over the past decade.”

Experts are particularly concerned by the overall gonorrhea cases, which rose 20 percent in 2012. They are worried about a new super-strain of gonorrhea which cannot be easily treated. The report says, “High gonorrhea transmission rates are concerning as the global threat of antibiotic resistance grows. Ensuring treatment-resistant strains of gonorrhea do not persist and spread remains a public health priority, and the Gonorrhea Resistance Action Plan for England and Wales was launched by phe to help tackle this threat in early 2013.”

Health authorities have two solutions to offer: “safe sex” (which really isn’t), and getting tested annually or when one changes a partner. Government authorities have been squabbling over what is seen as the main solution: statutory sex education in schools. As the Mirror reported, the UK government has delayed publishing its sexual health strategy for two years out of fear of angering traditional Tories.

But there is a simple tried-and-tested method proven to prevent all sexually transmitted diseases—it is called abstinence. Modern sex education in schools, teaching students how to use condoms and how to access other birth control, is obviously not working. In many cases, it just promotes more promiscuous sex.

Many claim that youths are going to have sex anyway, so why not provide them protection and birth control? But this is just ignorance, or an excuse for poor parenting. There was a time in Britain (and America), and not all that long ago, when most teenagers did not have sex until marriage.

Theologian, educator and publisher of the Plain Truth magazine, Herbert W. Armstrong, wrote back in 1981 in his book The Missing Dimension in Sex about the true God-designed purpose for sex. “Sex ignorance is testified by the fact of 250,000 reported adolescent gonorrhea cases annually,” he wrote. That ignorance is far worse today.

Mr. Armstrong advocated educating parents first so they could, in turn, educate their children. He wrote his book primarily to fulfill the need for a textbook for the Principles of Living course at the college he founded. Mr. Armstrong had no confidence in sex education as it is taught in schools. He wrote: “Today, knowledge of physical details is abundantly available. Yet even among books disseminating biological information, I have not found a single volume I would want to recommend to our radio listeners, television viewers and Plain Truth readers. And when physical information is combined with a poisonous mental attitude, it emphatically destroys moral purity and character.”

The very first words Mr. Armstrong penned in his book read, “If ever the Western world needed a book, it needs this one now!” The Public Health England report proves just how urgently the United Kingdom needs that book. Request a free copy of The Missing Dimension in Sex. It contains God’s pure sex education as revealed in the Bible. Application of the instruction in that book can reverse the horrendous std trends of today and bring true happiness.