Health officials in locales where homosexual men concentrate are perplexed by recent outbreaks of invasive meningococcal disease, which kills one in ten of those infected.
“Certainly my patients have shown concern that something is running through the [homosexual] community like wildfire.” -- Dr. Jay Gladstein, a Los Angeles internal medicine doctor who mostly treats gay and bisexual men
There’s no known medical reason why meningitis, which is transmitted through saliva, would spread more among gay and bisexual men. Yet New York, Chicago and now Southern California have experienced outbreaks disproportionately affecting that population.
Gladstein, who is also an HIV specialist, said he thinks that the cases are likely among men who have multiple sexual partners, engage in anonymous sex and use drugs that make them more susceptible.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the New York City Department of Public Health launched a project to investigate the connection between gay men and meningitis. It’s possible that L.A. County will be included in the study as well, officials said.
The research may also consider whether meningitis can be transmitted in other ways, such as sexual routes that might be making gay men more susceptible, [medical epidemiologist at L.A. County’s Department of Public Health, Dr. Rachel] Civen said. The bacteria Neisseria meningitidis that leads to meningitis is known to colonize the throat and mouth, but researchers will investigate whether it can also colonize other parts of the body, such as the genitals or anus.
Meningitis is spread through close contact with an infected person. People can contract it through kissing, coughing or sneezing, or sharing cigarettes or drugs. It also spreads among people in group settings – like dorms, jails or shelters.
Symptoms of meningitis usually occur within five days. They include high fever, stiff neck, skin rash, severe headache, low blood pressure, sensitivity to bright lights and generalized muscle pains. The infection can cause brain damage, hearing loss and death. It progresses quickly, so immediate diagnosis and treatment is imperative, health experts say.
Los Angeles County and Orange County health officials urged all gay and bisexual men in the county to obtain vaccines today, regardless of their risk status, as the spread of meningitis has officially been labeled an outbreak by the state.
A spike in the number of new meningitis cases in May and June heightened the alarm among officials, hearkening back to the most recent outbreak of meningococcal disease, which occurred in 2014. However, the term "outbreak," as defined by the CDC, means the diagnosis of three or more cases over the course of three months, which is not necessarily a cause for panic, said The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach's Director of Health and Wellness Ismael Salamanca.
President Obama's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is reporting record high new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), thus demonstrating complete failure of health agencies and government schools for a safe sexual revolution.
“We need to do a better job of giving our young people the skills and knowledge they need to protect their own health. It’s important to teach students about healthy relationships and how to reduce sexual risk before they start to have sex.”
-- Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention
One simple fact is being ignored: STDs could be eradicated via simple moral, monogamous marriages.
The CDC’s new report shows STD like chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis increased dramatically in 2014 [the latest year tabulated].
In 2014, 1.4 million cases of chlamydia were reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a 2.8 percent increase since 2013. This is the highest number of cases of any STD ever reported to the CDC, the government researchers said in the annual report.
In 2014, there were just over 350,000 reported cases of gonorrhea — a rate of nearly 111 per 100,000 people. In addition, there were 20,000 reported cases of syphilis — a rate of about 6 per 100,000, the report said.
The most vulnerable populations, particularly young people, women and gay and bisexual men, continue to be hardest hit . . . men who have sex with men accounts for 90 percent of new cases of primary and secondary syphilis.
The number of US cases stayed relatively stable [yet high] from 2010 until 2014, when the figures started to creep up. Health officials say there’s no obvious explanation for why, although rates of other sexually transmitted diseases are increasing, too.
Health officials say they are eyeing a handful of reasons, including increasing PrEP use among men who have sex with men. PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, is a pill taken daily to prevent HIV infection in people who are at risk of getting the virus. Officials are concerned that people taking PrEP might not realize it doesn’t protect against other STDs, and engage in sexual activity that puts them at greater risk for contracting infections like syphilis.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention runs a program to dole out grants to state and local programs to provide their citizens with STD prevention resources. . . .
Prevention is the key when it comes to avoiding an STD. That means, having safe sex (using a condom) and having open discussions with your partner about their sexual history and whether they have had or currently have an STD.
. . . You can lower pelvic inflammatory disease risk factors by being in a long-term monogamous relationship with a person who has been negatively tested for STD, and using latex condoms correctly.
The findings, released by the CDC, mean that many students are not receiving critical health and safety information on topics like HIV, STDs, and pregnancy prevention. . . .
The report is based on CDC’s 2014 School Health Profiles, which surveys schools across the country on whether or not they teach all 16 recommended sexual health education topics, as well as other major health subjects.
For middle schools, the proportion teaching all 16 recommended topics ranged from 4 percent in Arizona to 46 percent in North Carolina. In no state did more than half of middle schools meet the goal, and in most states less than 20 percent did.
These numbers are cause for concern, experts say, as young people continue to face serious but avoidable sexual health risks.
In a first-of-its-kind analysis, President Obama's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported this week that African-American males who engage in anal sex have a 50-50 chance of contracting HIV during their lifetime. The risk for Latino men is 25%.
“It’s really important to say that these [projections] are not inevitable. This is a call to do things differently.” -- Carl Sciortino, executive director of the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts
The report, released at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston, is the first to take a look at any given person's lifetime risk of becoming infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS.
"At current rates, 1 in 2 African American men who have sex with men (MSM) and 1 in 4 Hispanic MSM will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime, compared with 1 in 11 white MSM," CDC said.
The CDC has been warning for years that people most at risk of HIV are not getting tested for it nearly often enough. . . .
The findings present a stark reminder of the threat still posed by the AIDS virus 35 years after the illness was first detected, despite progress in treatment and prevention.
“It was really a clarion call,” said Dawn Fukuda, director of the HIV/AIDS division at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, who heard the report presented at the international Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston. “These are numbers that are pretty astounding.”
The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the first to project the lifetime risk of HIV infection state-by-state and among certain groups of people. Based on death data from 2009 through 2013, the CDC concluded that gay and bisexual men, African-Americans, and people who live in the South have the highest risk of infection.
President Obama's agency charged with ensuring the safety of the sexual revolution has determined that a homosexual pornography performer who had tested negative for HIV was, in fact HIV positive, and infected with rectal gonorrhea when he unknowingly infected a porn co-worker plus another person, as well as participated in unprotected anal sex with over a dozen others over a period of days.
"Adult film performers and production companies, medical providers, and all persons at risk for HIV should be aware that testing alone is not sufficient to prevent HIV transmission." -- U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Researchers say a 25-year-old male porn actor, labeled "Patient A," tested negative for HIV in 2014 and over the next 22 days had unprotected sex with at least 17 people who hailed from seven US states and four countries.
Then an HIV test came back positive, and further tests showed he likely transmitted the virus to two men: Another adult-film actor and a non-work-related partner tested HIV positive less than a month after their encounters with Patient A and showed a similar strain of the virus, reports Live Science.
Some porn companies require that actors have a negative HIV test within two weeks of filming. But MD Magazine reports tests can't detect the virus within the first 14 days of infection.
. . . This prompted an investigation into the partners' patient A had contact with between the time he received his negative result and his recent examination. Of the 17 named sexual contacts, the CDC found six were chronically HIV-infected; one had sexual contact with patient A before patient A was infected; and 10 were at risk for infection by patient A." And of the seven of 10 partners patient A had unprotected sex with, two became infected.
Adult film production companies first check a database to ensure the performers they hire have had a recent negative test before filming, the CDC said. But to partially protect performer privacy, production companies are only informed of whether a performer is cleared to perform (or not) on the basis of test results. Since patient A's onset didn't occur until 10 days after his negative test, companies hired him to perform in "bareback films," which involve condom-less anal sex among male performers. This, unfortunately, is only the beginning of the problem, the CDC said.
Employers are required to ensure a safe working environment by law, so the CDC suggests employing multiple strategies to reduce HIV transmission among adult performers. Frequent HIV testing, use of condoms, and some antiretroviral medicines are but a few effective methods the industry can consider. Some antiretroviral drugs have been approved for use as "pre-exposure prophylaxis" (PrEP), a treatment for those who don't have HIV but are at high risk of infection.
The debate over whether to force porn actors to wear condoms is a controversial one that’s been playing out for years in California, home of the multibillion-dollar American porn industry. An HIV outbreak in 2004 spooked the industry and briefly shut down production.
Adult film productions may face greater pressure on two fronts in 2016. On Feb. 18, a state board appointed by California's governor to set standards for workplace safety will vote on proposed regulations to explicitly mandate condom use on sets. In November, new rules for the industry will also be put to Californians statewide on a ballot measure that would, among other things, require condom use and allow any state resident to sue to enforce the law. Both could extend restrictions now in place in Los Angeles throughout the state.
The adult entertainment industry opposes the rules. The industry's own voluntary system requires performers to get biweekly HIV tests before working without condoms. Productions that adhere to those standards have not had an HIV transmission in more than a decade, says Eric Paul Leue, the recently hired executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, which represents adult film producers. . . .
Several officers of the University of Texas Police Department (UTPD) at Austin issued a citation to Joshua Borchert, an intern with Campus Ministry USA, for using offensive words while preaching on a street across from University property. The police officers told Borchert that he could face jail for using the words “penis” and “anus” in the context of warning passersby of sexually immoral behavior.
“The first amendment of the Constitution protects offensive speech ... if anyone says anything of substance, it’s bound to offend someone.” -- Brother Jed Smock, Campus Ministry USA
The university told TheDC that the officer was responding to students who claimed to be “verbally harassed” by the intern-preacher. The video shows the officer explaining that the intern’s use of “anal” and “penis” offended students, before issuing a citation for disorderly conduct. “After a lawyer representing Joshua called the chief of police, the chief called Joshua and apologized. The citation was withdrawn.” Brother Jed told TheDC.
Ari Cohn, a lawyer with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) told TheDC that he found the video “deeply disturbing.” “Speech that simply offends others is protected by the First Amendment, and contrary to the officer’s statements, it is not the job of police to ‘do something’ about it. Issuing a disorderly conduct citation based on the content of speech violates decades of clear Supreme Court precedent,” Cohn said.
“Even worse is that while Brother Jed is not a campus community member, and was not even on campus property, the officer justified his decision with the fact that students on campus across the way were offended. The implications for campus expression are dire,” Cohn went on to say. “If offending someone on campus is now grounds for criminal citations, students wishing to express themselves will much more likely censor themselves, or simply refrain from speaking at all. Such a result is unacceptable, legally and morally, at a state university bound by the First Amendment.”
After reviewing a citation written to an evangelical preacher for disorderly conduct, the University of Texas Police Department voided the citation because it did not meet the requirements of the law.
“Our review further showed that the officers in training responded to a call for service in good faith and with respect for all parties involved, including the person(s) wishing to file charges as well those being accused,” UTPD Chief David Carter said in a statement.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives all people the right to freedom of speech. Even hurtful and hateful speech is covered under the amendment, and police officers must defend everyone’s constitutional rights, Carter said.
Carter said if an individual was threatening a student with their speech, the police could and would take action against that person.
“I’m not protesting; I’m preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ,” said Kirsten Borchert, 20, from Lafayette, Indiana.
Borchert was at DePauw University “preaching” with The Campus Ministry USA, based out of Terre Haute. The confrontational evangelical Christian group travels from campus to campus “Preaching specifically about sin and hell, and how sin leads to hell,” she said.
“I don’t want you [students] to burn forever and ever and ever in the lake of fire,” said Joshua Borchert, 22, who was fully adorned in his Eagle Scout uniform.
[In response,] Students mobilized quickly.
“I saw that post on Facebook, and I saw that there were protesters here saying homophobic things,” said sophomore Marissa Higgs. “When I heard about it I was like, 'okay, I've got to go.' So I grabbed my five foot rainbow flag off my bed and ran here.”
President Brian Casey was on the scene almost immediately after the situation began to heat up. As the afternoon continued, many at the protest felt a sense of pride and community with their fellow classmates.
“I don’t know why the school can’t kick them out,” junior Hector Rivera said, “It’s a private institution, so at least I’m curious to know more like the policies and politics behind all this.”
“We’re presenting no danger,” said Brother Jed Smock, the man in charge of The Campus Ministry USA.
. . . after The Campus Ministry USA was escorted off of DePauw’s grounds, Casey sent an email to students, faculty and staff announcing an open forum to be held at 4 p.m. in Ubben Quadrangle to address the protests.
Casey, DePauw Student Body President Craig Carter, City of Greencastle Mayor Sue Murray and Vice President of Student Life Christopher Wells gave short speeches to the crowd.
“Today we got invaded by people who came here, by people who came here who tried to shake our cores, who tried to shake our values,” Carter said, “I’ve never been more proud to be a Tiger.”
Students called for justice, and proclaimed that they were unsafe on campus and that the university was not doing enough to protect them.
Kirsten [Borchert] threw her hands in the air, carrying a Bible up with them, as she exclaimed her message to the crowd gathered outside of the Student Union Building.
The students, who stood at a distance not long ago no longer allowed Kirsten her personal space. They surrounded her with questions and comments, yelling back as she shouted to a crowd that no longer cared what she had to say. They were visibly aggravated.
“We’re using [Kirsten] because she’s usually the calmer one,” Joshua [Borchert] said, dressed in his Eagle Scout uniform. “I tend to rile them up more. They wouldn’t want me out there right now.”
Students screamed obscenities as Kirsten preached against getting drunk.
Joshua didn’t mind the crowd screaming at his sister. He said he is used to it.
“We go through different stages and cycles. She does that to get their attention, and once she gets their attention then she can continue to calm them,” Joshua said. He then explained the five-stage technique used by the group to humble the students into a calm crowd that can then receive their message.
Joshua and Kirsten have preached at around 30 universities in about 20 different states, Joshua said.
“Our message is repent, and be free from sin. Because if these people don’t repent, then they’re headed for hell,” Kirsten had explained.
Seeking casual sex? There's an app for that! Contracted a sexually transmitted disease? There's an app for that TOO!
"You can buy anything online all the time. Almost everything we can do instantaneously. There's an expectation in our society for things to happen more quickly." -- Dr. Ateev Mehrotra, Harvard Medical School
— Emotionally devastated over a broken relationship? Sorry, there's NO app for that!
According to President Obama's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis have increased for the first time since 2006, with the per-capita incidence in California leading the way, especially in Los Angeles County.
Some public health experts have blamed the heavy use of online dating apps, arguing that they lead to more casual sex among people 25 and younger, who are the most likely to be infected and also the least inclined to seek testing . . .
Rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis in the U.S. had been fluctuating for several years, but all surged in 2014. A particularly staggering statistic, the 1.4 million chlamydia cases reported that year, marked the highest number of annual cases of any condition ever reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to The [Los Angeles] Times.
Sexually active women under 25 are supposed to have annual screenings for [chlamydia and gonorrhea] infections, because they're considered high risk and bear the brunt of the consequences of most STDs. Each year, at least 24,000 women become infertile because of complications of STDs, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
. . . Last year, Planned Parenthood launched an app in California through which men and women can order chlamydia and gonorrhea tests. A paper found that in 2009 there were already 27 such services, and a Google search now yields hundreds of results.
One such start-up, based in Hollywood, began as a way to try to make sex safer, especially for people who might be using apps to find new partners.
In 2013, [Lora Ivanova and Ursula Hessenflow] launched myLAB Box, which sells test kits online for chlamydia and gonorrhea, HIV, trichomoniasis and hepatitis C. The kits — which cost $79 to $189 — require a urine sample, a vaginal swab or blood from a finger prick to send to the lab.
But AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein worries that as these tests become more popular, it will be difficult to make sure people are getting treated once they're diagnosed.
Already, there are problems following up with patients who order tests online. In the program run by L.A. County's Health Department, only about half of the 9,000 kits mailed out were returned for testing, which is in line with other programs' results.
In 2014, 1.4 million cases of chlamydia were reported, a rate of 456.1 cases per 100,000 people, which was up 2.8 percent from 2013. Rates of primary and secondary syphilis (the most infectious stages of syphilis) and gonorrhea have both increased since 2013, by 15.1 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively.
In 2014, nationally there were 350,062 reported cases of gonorrhea (a rate of 110.7 per 100,000) and 19,999 reported cases of primary and secondary syphilis (6.3 per 100,000).
According to the CDC, syphilis has been called “the great imitator” because it has so many possible symptoms, many of which look like symptoms of other diseases.
The painless syphilis sore that a person may develop early in the infection can be confused for an ingrown hair, zipper cut, or other seemingly harmless bump, the CDC said.
People can also be infected with syphilis and have mild symptoms or none at all.
The rate of gonorrhea in males was more than double that of females. Men between the ages of 20 and 29 had the highest rate of infection, according to the county.
The majority of syphilis cases were reported in men, especially men who have sex with other men. Black men had the highest rate of infection, almost double that of white males, county health officials said.
"Young women between 15 and 24 years of age have the highest rate of chlamydia infections," said Dr. M. Winston Tilghman, senior physician and STD controller for the county. "Chlamydia and gonorrhea both can result in infertility and other long-term reproductive health issues, which make prevention particularly important in this age group."
A new highly-regarded study shows a 22-fold increased risk for incident oropharyngeal cancer, a head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), following evidence of human papillomavirus (HPV) in the mouth -- likely transmitted via oral sex. Decades ago, such cancers were less common and assumed to be caused by smoking and drinking.
"This was a well-designed and conducted study." -- Dana E. Rollison, PhD, Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida
Risks of sexual immorality: add oral sex to the list, along with cancers of the anus and penis.
For background, click headlines below to read previous articles:
Dr. Ilir Agalliu and colleagues at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York looked at the records of more than 96,000 people taking part in a big medical study.
They all took a mouthwash test for oral HPV infection as part of the study. Four years later, 132 of them had developed some form of head and neck cancer. The researchers compared each patient with cancer to three similar people who didn't get it.
People infected with a strain called HPV-16 were between two and 22 times as likely to be in the cancer group, the team reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association's JAMA Oncology.
Experts believe 70 percent of all head and neck cancers are caused by HPV, likely spread by oral sex. According to experts, by 2020 head and neck cancer will beat out cervical cancer as the most common HPV-related cancer.
Dr Agalliu explained what prompted this study. "We had previously detected an unusually high prevalence of HPV types found on the skin and in skin cancers in the oral cavity, in addition to HPV16 and other high-risk types," he told Medscape Medical News.
"Moreover, there have been no prospective studies examining associations between oral HPVs and the subsequent risk of head and neck cancers," he pointed out.
The detection of HPV DNA in oral rinse specimens was associated with a 7.1-fold increase in the odds of incident HNSCC (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.2 - 22.6), after adjustment for smoking history and alcohol consumption.
However, oral DNA detection of other high-risk oncogenic HPV types, excluding HPV16, was not associated with the risk for HNSCC.
British and American health officials are in a panic over, what now seems inevitable: Sexually transmitted diseases that are resistant to any and all cures.
Sally Davies, Britain’s chief medical officer, has sounded the alarm on the spread of antibiotic resistant gonorrhea.
The sexually transmitted infection is increasingly caused by strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae that resist antibiotic treatment. “Gonorrhoea is at risk of becoming an untreatable disease due to the continuing emergence of antimicrobial resistance,” Davies wrote to doctors and pharmacies. The Guardian reports that a recent outbreak of a superbug strain of the disease – one that doesn’t respond to the antibiotic azithromycin – has put Britain on high alert.
Why does this happen? When researchers look for new antibiotics, they obviously look for ones that are incredibly effective against pathogenic bacteria. But as soon as these antibiotics are released for use by the public, they start to lose their effectiveness. Bacteria are fast-evolving creatures, and individual bacterium are skilled at sharing genes that allow them to survive particular antibiotics. Bacteria can even copy resistance genes from microbes of different strains and species through a process called horizontal gene transfer.
In England, 16 cases of “super-gonorrhea” have been confirmed since March of this year, including an outbreak in Leeds, according to the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV. The strain is resistant to an antibiotic called azithromycin, which is typically used in collaboration with a drug called ceftriaxone. According to the CDC, “cephalosporin antibiotics have been the foundation of recommended treatment for gonorrhea,” and “the emergence of cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea would significantly complicate the ability of providers to treat gonorrhea successfully, since we have few antibiotic options left that are simple, well-studied, well-tolerated, and highly effective.”
Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease that can be transmitted to anyone who is sexually active, generally infecting the genitals, throat, or rectum. Symptoms of the disease involve green or yellow discharge from genitals, as well as pain while urinating. Sometimes there are no symptoms, and a person may spread the disease to others without realizing it.
Typically, gonorrhea is treated with one or a combination of drugs, but once an antibiotic becomes more popular among patients, it loses its potency. Bacteria are constantly evolving and mutating, so it’s only a matter of time before certain strains develop resistance to common antibiotics.
Yesterday, President Obama's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued (yet another) report warning that sexually active homosexual men (men engaging in anal sex) are at high risk of transmitting HIV, compared to men and women who have normal sex posing little or no threat of HIV transmission; but a woman IS at risk if she allows an HIV-infected penis in her rectum.
The recommendations were published Tuesday in Vital Signs, a monthly report from the CDC. Based on national data, the CDC estimates that 25 percent of sexually active gay and bisexual men, nearly 20 percent of adult intravenous drug users and less than 1 percent of sexually active heterosexuals should be counseled on the use of PrEP. These numbers are based on lifestyle factors that put a person at higher risk for an HIV infection such as engaging in unprotected sex with multiple partners. The daily pill for HIV prevention that has been found to reduce the risk for infection by more than 90 percent for men who have sex with men and by more than 70 percent among patients who inject drugs.
PrEP was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2012 for high-risk patients, but the CDC reports that many primary care physicians are unaware of the drug and its high efficacy for HIV prevention. An unpublished online national survey of health care providers, conducted in 2015 found 34 percent had not heard of PrEP.
"PrEP isn't reaching many people who could benefit from it, and many providers remain unaware of its promise," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a press release. "With about 40,000 HIV infections newly diagnosed each year in the U.S., we need to use all available prevention strategies."
"PrEP isn't right for everyone," said Eugene McCray, director of the HIV/AIDS prevention division at the CDC. "No single method is, but it's right for some people, and when the men and women at high risk adhere to PrEP or whatever prevention methods work for them, we can make gains in national efforts."
The CDC said it is taking a number of steps to increase PrEP use. These steps include publishing resources to educate and advise health care providers, a hotline to answer their questions, and increased funding to community organizations to improve access to the drug.
While important, PrEP is one of a number of HIV prevention strategies. Others include treatment to suppress the virus in people with HIV and encouraging consistent and proper use of condoms. Other prevention strategies include reducing risky behaviors . . .
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE. . . . yet there's ZERO encouragement from these "experts" for abstinence from anal sex.
President Obama's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting that the sexually transmitted diseases (STD) epidemic is worsening, with some specific infections at record levels.
"STDs affect people in all walks of life, particularly young women and men, but these data suggest an increasing burden among gay and bisexual men.” -- Jonathan Mermin, Director, CDC National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention
Reported cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis all increased in 2014. Chlamydia cases had dipped in 2013, but last year's total of more than 1.4 million — or 456 cases per 100,000 — was the highest number of annual cases of any condition ever reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The chlamydia rate was up almost 3 percent from 2013, the CDC reported Tuesday.
Gonorrhea cases totaled 350,062, up 5 percent from 2013, and the most contagious forms of syphilis jumped 15 percent to 20,000. As in previous years, the syphilis increase was mainly in gay and bisexual men.
Most gonorrhea and chlamydia infections were in 15- to 24-year-olds, an ongoing trend. Both can cause infertility in women but can be treated with antibiotics. They often have no symptoms, and while yearly screening is recommended for sexually active women younger than 25, many don't get tested and infections go untreated, the CDC said.
“While rates have increased among both men and women, men account for more than 90 percent of all primary and secondary syphilis cases,” according to the [CDC] report.
Gay and bisexual men are most at risk for syphilis infections, according to the report. Men who reported that they had sex with other men accounted for 83% of male cases where the partner’s sex was reported.
Syphilis, however, remains primarily a problem among men who have sex with men (MSM), encompassing 83 percent of reported cases (when the sex of the partner is known). Fifty percent of MSM syphilis cases were also HIV-positive, highlighting a known but nonetheless frightening connection between the two STDs. It’s believed the sores commonly seen in syphilis make it easier for the HIV virus to be transmitted between partners.
“A number of individual risk behaviors (such as higher numbers of lifetime sex partners), as well as environmental, social and cultural factors (such as higher prevalence of STDs or difficulty accessing quality health care) contribute to disparities in the sexual health of gay and bisexual men,” explained the CDC’s summary of their report. . . .
It wasn’t solely age, gender, and sexual orientation that predicted greater STD rates, but race as well. In particular, STD rates were highest in blacks across the board, though few minority groups fared better than whites, save Asians.
"In the previous years, we have had some declines in some diseases and increases in others. But, we are concerned about the alarming increases we are seeing in chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis," said lead researcher Dr. Gail Bolan, director of the CDC's Division of STD Prevention.
"We are concerned that most of the surging rates are among men," Bolan said. "Men are driving these increases. There is an urgent need to tackle the increases we are seeing."
There is also evidence that gay and bisexual men are seeing similar increases in gonorrhea and chlamydia, she said.
Despite that, young people are still the most disproportionately affected by STDs, Bolan added. Last year, those between the ages of 15 and 24 accounted for nearly two-thirds of the reported cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea. That compares to previous estimates that young people get half of the estimated 20 million new STDs diagnosed each year in the United States, she pointed out.
The study found that the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium, which is thought to be sexually transmitted, infects more than 1 percent of people ages 16 to 44 in the United Kingdom. That comes out to about 250,000 people, according to U.K. census data. Studies in the United States have found that a similar percentage of people here are infected with M. genitalium.
That makes M. genitalium a more common sexually transmitted disease (STD) than gonorrhea, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new study adds to the evidence that M. genitalium is an STD, because it found that the infection was more common in people who had at least four new sexual partners in the past year than in people who had one or fewer new partners in the past year. In addition, people were more likely to have M. genitalium if they had unprotected sex, and no infections were found in people who had never had sex, according to the study, which was published Nov. 3 in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
The new study in the International Journal of Epidemiology found that about 94 percent of men and 56 percent of women infected with M. genitalium did not have symptoms.
Florida has the greatest number of new cases of HIV in the nation, and consistent with federal disease control agency data, 13- to 24-year-old males account for most of the new infections; but are older men the source?
"Part of the reason we are seeing new infections in older group of men who have sex with men is what I would actually term a kind of 'gay mid-life crisis' . . . becoming more sexually active." -- Dr. Michael Wohlfeiler, Chief of Medicine, AIDS Healthcare Foundation
For background, click headlines below to read previous articles:
Health officials in Florida are seeing a resurgence in HIV cases, especially among adolescents and young adults. After three decades of medical advances against the potentially-deadly virus, it's on the rise again. The Sunshine State now ranks number one with new cases.
Health officials also say up to 60 percent of teens and young adults who are infected don't know they are HIV positive -- and are unknowingly spreading the disease.
The AIDS Foundation is now trying to create a more aggressive media campaign to remind people that the benefits of safe sex far outweigh the risks of the disease.
The number of reported HIV cases in Florida has jumped 23 percent so far this year, the biggest increase in a continuing upward trend that began in 2012 after several years of decreases.
The most common way in which the disease is contracted is still through male-to-male sexual contact, according to the state health department. That accounted for 78 percent of all new cases in Florida in 2014, a percentage that has risen significantly since 2012, which keeps with national trends.
An "other" category, which includes people who get the disease through blood transfusions or from birth by an HIV-infected mother, has dropped to almost nothing.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the annual cost for treating a single case of HIV is more than $25,000. With HIV-positive people now living longer lives, that means the cost over a lifetime can come close to $1 million.
The Chicago Department of Public Health has issued an alert to all homosexual men about a recent outbreak of the "very serious" meningococcal disease, which is transmitted through intimate contact, including anal sex, or even casual contact. Officials are focusing on homosexual men who use Internet social media, such as Grindr, to "hook up" in anonymous sexcapades.
The alert was sent out after three confirmed cases were tied to the same strain within a short period of time.
The disease, less contagious than the common cold, is spread through saliva -- kissing and sharing drinks -- or through intimate contact.
Meningococcal disease can cause symptoms including fever, headache and a stiff neck. Some people may experience nausea, vomiting, increased sensitivity to light and altered mental status or confusion. Anyone with symptoms should seek immediate medical attention. Those without health insurance can call 311 to find a CDPH clinic or partner site.
[The Chicago Department of Health has] traced the outbreak to a specific group of people: sexually active men who are having sex with men living with HIV, or sexually active men who are having sex with anonymous partners or who are using online hook-up apps to meet other men.
It also can be spread through sex. Health officials say the disease is a rare bacterial infection that can cause very serious diseases, such as meningitis or blood stream infections and if left untreated it can lead to death.
In a stunning admission of failure amid the sexual revolution, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revised its "Sexually Transmitted Diseases Treatment Guidelines" to indicate that the nanny-state government is incapable of ensuring that a hedonistic culture can remain safe from disease. The new report recommends abstinence and/or a monogamous relationship.
In a significant shift, the federal government is now calling abstinence and monogamy "the most reliable way" to avoid sexually transmitted diseases, a $16 billion annual problem that hits as many as 10 million teens a year.
In a very long rewrite of the "Sexually Transmitted Diseases Treatment Guidelines, 2010," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dropped the old language that monogamy and abstinence were just "a reliable way" to avoid STDs.
The prevention section now reads: "The most reliable way to avoid transmission of STDs is to abstain from oral, vaginal, and anal sex or to be in a long-term, mutually monogamous relationship with a partner known to be uninfected."
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today updated its sexually transmitted diseases treatment guidelines to help healthcare professionals better manage the more than 20 million cases of STDs in the US annually.
The Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Treatment Guidelines, 2015 provides the first update since 2010. It notably includes recommendations for use of nucleic acid amplification tests, or NAATs, for Trichomonas vaginalis and routine trichomonas screening for high-risk populations.
A "dear colleague" letter to clinicians sent today from the CDC also details, among other items, new guidance for treatment of gonorrhea, chlamydia during pregnancy, and genital warts, and has new screening recommendations for gonorrhea and chlamydia, and for men who have sex with men.
Trichomonas affects about 3.7 million people each year. . . . trichomonas infection is associated with up to a three-fold increase risk of contracting HIV.
A reliable way to avoid transmission of STDs is to abstain from oral, vaginal, and anal sex or to be in a long-term, mutually monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner. For persons who are being treated for an STD (or whose partners are undergoing treatment), counseling that encourages abstinence from sexual intercourse until completion of the entire course of medication is crucial. A more comprehensive discussion of abstinence and other sexual practices than can help persons reduce their risk for STDs is available in Contraceptive Technology, 19th Edition. For persons embarking on a mutually monogamous relationship, screening for common STDs before initiating sex might reduce the risk for future disease transmission.
The most reliable way to avoid transmission of STDs is to abstain from oral, vaginal, and anal sex or to be in a long-term, mutually monogamous relationship with a partner known to be uninfected. For persons who are being treated for an STD other than HIV (or whose partners are undergoing treatment), counseling that encourages abstinence from sexual intercourse until completion of the entire course of medication is crucial. A recent trial conducted among women on the effectiveness of counseling messages demonstrated that women whose sexual partners have used condoms may benefit from a hierarchical message that includes condoms, whereas women without such experience might benefit more from an abstinence-only message. A more comprehensive discussion of abstinence and other sexual practices than can help persons reduce their risk for STDs is available in Contraceptive Technology, 20th Edition.
Health officials in the U.S. and worldwide are reporting that a sudden rapid spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), particularly among young adults, is the result of an expansion of the "hook-up culture" enabled by electronic social media. First it was the explosion of pornography, and now it's Internet-facilitated anonymous sexcapades that spread HIV among homosexual men, as well as other STDs among straight men and women — diseases that used to be under control.
“Before [Internet-based social media], if you were interested in sexual activity outside of marriage, there was a fear factor if you went somewhere you’d be seen. [But now], you click a few buttons and meet at a hotel.” -- Lynn Beltran, Epidemiologist, Salt Lake County STD clinic
Between 2013 and 2014, cases of syphilis grew by 79%. HIV infections were up 33% and gonorrhea cases increased by 30%. STD cases for young adults are growing at a faster rate than the rest of the population.
Rhode Island says the recent uptick in STD cases follows a national trend. The state's health department blamed "high-risk behaviors that have become more common in recent years," including "using social media to arrange casual and often anonymous sexual encounters."
A 2013 New York University study found that Craigslist was responsible for a 16% increase in HIV cases between 1999 and 2008 across 33 states. Grinder, a hookup app for gay men, was associated with more than half of all syphilis cases in New Zealand in 2012, according to Christchurch Sexual Health Clinic.
“The recent uptick in STDs in Rhode Island follows a national trend,” HEALTH said in a press release. “The increase has been attributed to better testing by (health care) providers and to high-risk behaviors that have become more common in recent years … (including) using social media to arrange casual and often anonymous sexual encounters.”
HEALTH indicated syphilis cases increased by 79 percent from 2013 to 2014, while gonorrhea cases rose by 30 percent.
In the report, the [Rhode Island health] department stated that they believe this is reflective of a national trend. They also warned that even though infection rates are up across the board, new cases of HIV and syphilis continue to increase among gay and bisexual men at a faster rate than in other parts of the population.
One of the contributing factors in this increase, cited by Dr. Rosemary Gillespie, chief executive at the UK-based Terrence Higgins Trust, is the rise in dating app usage (like Tinder and Grindr) over the past five years and users engaging in casual and often unsafe sex, saying “Dating apps have given people more opportunities to meet potential partners than ever before, and we are currently looking at their impact on gay men’s sexual health.”
Thanks, in part, to a growing use of “hookup” apps, doctors say they have seen rates of sexually transmitted diseases skyrocket over the past couple years.
Apps like Tinder, Down and Grindr could be partly responsible for gonorrhea rates in Utah being up in women more than 700 percent, they use as an example.
The numbers don’t lie, and gonorrhea rates jumped nearly 400 percent from 2011-2014. Men have seen a 300 percent increase, while rates among women have surged an incredible 714 percent.
The state [of Utah] is now rushing to stop this alarming trend by bumping up its annual conference scheduled for the fall and meeting with doctors from across the state in mid-May to brainstorm solutions.
New cases of AIDS and HIV continued to increase faster among gay and bisexual men than in any of the other populations, while infection rates of all STDs continued to impact blacks and Hispanics more than others.
Dr Rosemary Gillespie, chief executive at the UK-based Terrence Higgins Trust, said dating apps have a role to play in warning users of the dangers of practising unsafe sex.
She told MailOnline: 'Dating apps have given people more opportunities to meet potential partners than ever before, and we are currently looking at their impact on gay men's sexual health.
A study conducted by the Los Angeles LGBT Center revealed that those who participated in casual sex through online dating apps had a 37 percent greater incidence of getting STDs compared to those who met their partners in a bar or the gym.
While the Alachua County Health Department does not track the number of patients who have received an STD after meeting someone online, their records show that back in 2012—before these apps became mainstream—there were more than 950 cases of STDs from January to May. For the same period in 2015, the numbers increased by about 5 percent.
"When you look at any situation, regardless of where you meet someone, there are ways to protect yourself. Abstinence is the 100 percent way to prevent the spread of STDs. You want monogamous relationships, you want to get tested with your partners before engaging in sexual activity," said Larissa Cantlin-Plemons, Alachua County Health Department STD Program Manager.
