Shock!

New research by the Sydney Sexual Health Centre, based at Sydney Hospital in Macquarie Street, showed that a culture of binge drinking among young [backpackers] may be contributing to unsafe sexual behaviour and higher rates of infection when compared with the general population.

The centre’s acting director, Lynne Wray, said yesterday a study of 4382 travellers and 8810 non-travellers aged 18 to 30 who visited the clinic between 1998 and 2006 showed that the travellers were more than twice as likely to drink excessively.

They needed to do a study to work that out? There’s a reason that John Surname goes backpacking around the CBD of Melbourne every weekend.