Philadelphia To Install Condom Dispensers In High Schools

Officials hope to curb the spread of STDs.

While the rest of the country is debating whether or not guns belong in public schools, the City of Philadelphia is adopting another form of protection.

With the spread of STDs among high schoolers reaching epidemic levels, the school system is install free condom dispensers in 22 area schools. The schools with the most STD cases will be receiving the dispensers. They will not be placed in plain view in the hallways. Instead they will be located in the nurse's office.

"We believe distributing condoms is part of our obligation to keep students healthy and to remain healthy," school district spokesman Fernando Gallard told ABC News. "The health department has described this as a continued epidemic of STDs among teenagers in Philadelphia."

In the past five years, 5 percent of Philadelphia's teenagers have tested positive for STDs including HIV.

"The City of Brotherly Love" isn't the first to adopt such a strategy. A school in New York City provided its students condoms at the prom.

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