Public health experts on Tuesday called for President Donald Trump to declare a public health emergency in the explosive rise of sexually transmitted diseases, which have increased nationally for four years in a row. Cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis rose by 200,000 between 2016 and 2017 alone, to a total of 2.29 million, according to preliminary data released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. has the highest STD rates in the industrialized world, said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, on a media conference call Tuesday. The current crisis preys on the most vulnerable in the population, he said, and costs the U.S. $16 billion in preventable health care costs a year.

Public health experts on the call blamed the skyrocketing STD rates on a serious decline in public health infrastructure and funding. The purchasing power of federal STD funding has diminished by 40 percent since 2003, […]