Think twice before hooking up with that out-of-towner this holiday weekend. And, if you do, be safe.
The CDC has just released reports that number of syphilis infections in the United States jumped a whopping 10 percent from 2012 to 2013, with gay and bisexual men accounting for 75 percent of the increase.
According to the report, 17,357 cases of syphilis were reported last year. That’s 5.5 cases per every 100,000 people.
Dr. Jill Rabin, co-chief of the division of ambulatory care in the Women’s Health Programs-PCAP Services at North Shore-LIJ Health System in New Hyde Park, N.Y., called the rise in syphilis cases “very alarming.”
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“Syphilis is like the canary in the coal mine for HIV,” she said. “People are going to be positive for syphilis before they are diagnosed with HIV. This means that there is a potential increase in HIV cases.”
According to MedicalXpress, the sores caused by syphilis make HIV transmission easier. In rare cases, syphilis can lead to serious health problems, including death. Though it’s easy to cure with antibiotics if caught early.
“Having an STD doesn’t mean someone is dirty or broken,” said Fred Wyand, spokesperson for the American Sexual Health Association. “Far from it.”
Wyand urged people not to let the stigma of a STD prevent them from being tested and treated.
“One of the great barriers to having sexual health conversations is the sense of embarrassment. People need to have frank, open conversations,” he said. “It’s not about sex. It’s about health.”
Related stories:
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Guess Which STD Now Kills More People Than AIDS
Graham Gremore is a columnist and contributor for Queerty and Life of the Law. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Ugh! Stop being so sex negative. Syphilis is not a death sentence anymore. Be proud of your gift!
onthemark
@PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID: “Be proud of your gift,” really? The gift that keeps on giving?
Caine
This is more FEAR MONGERING to the gay community. Be afraid of sex everyone. You might get HIV, you might get meningitis, you might get…. syphillis. The best part of this is the “don’t have sex with out of towners” LOL
onthemark
@Caine: Uh… if that’s what you “learned” from the meningitis scare of about a year ago, you weren’t paying much attention. Meningitis is not even a sexually-transmitted disease. Unfortunately it can be transmitted just by proximity, like flu. Fortunately there is a vaccine for it.
Paco
This isn’t surprising since condoms aren’t very effective protection against syphilis. I have read that their effectiveness is in the range of 50% to 66% depending on certain factors. Skin to skin contact is all that is needed. Since it is ineffective to expect people to be less promiscuous, the only options are to increase testing and remove the stigma about taking charge of your own sexual health and informing all your sexual partners of your infection so they can get tested and treated. The good news is that it is still curable.
As far as being wary of hooking up with out of towners, I’m pretty sure most infections happen between locals.
Saint Law
Best not to have sex with anyone outside your immediate family.
Scribe38
@PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID: Ewwwww! Yes lets all go out willingly and stupidly catch diseases; when we could just wear condoms and reduce the risk. @Caine: Education is not fear mongering, but explaining the rise and risk of disease. Medical professionals (I’m one) make all sorts of health warnings to protect the public (cancer, stroke and heart attack risks, etc), no one claims that medical advice is stroke/fat/cancer negative or fear mongering. If you guys are cool catching diseases go for it, and as your nurse I will give you the best care I can (without judgement), but please stop championing others to follow your behavior.
Chris
It is not being sex-negative to tell people (gay and straight) to be careful; to get tested; and if infected, to get treated. I’d add the hope that you’re not infected with any drug-resistant strains. It is common sense.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
@PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID:
I will not attempt irony and will leave it to grownups
I will not attempt irony and will leave it to grownups
I will not attempt irony and will leave it to grownups
Daniel
@PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID: you can be sued for giving out the gift. Let me know if it is a case. My best friend is civil litigation attorney!!
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
@Daniel: It needn’t come to that. I am very accommodating — my gift-giving comes with a generous returns policy
jason smeds
The CDC is homophobic. It portrays gay and bisexual men as being high-risk when in fact it has nothing to do with sexuality. It’s got to do with behavior, not sexuality.
When you behave in a promiscuous fashion within a concentrated social scene such as the gay scene, it spreads diseases. Simple. No philosophy or deep thinking required.
joey
i have been on here before talking about how i contracted hep b, i was made fun of by several guys on here. its strange some guys just dont want to admit the dangers that come with sex, its a risk, like someone above said if youre cool with diseases go for it..i always used condoms, had the hep vacines too, but something didnt work. its dangerous enough when you do all the right things as i now know. i was lucky caught in time as i have no liver damage however i get sent in every 6 months to check for anything different with my liver – FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE – after the test its just about all i can do to try to not think about the next one in 6 months…dodging a bullit every 6 months. i havent had sex in just over 2 yrs, its sucks but i think i sleep better
Kangol
@Paco: I appreciate your post. Can you link to studies showing condoms being ineffective against syphilis?
I wonder how much syphilis transmission is occurring during un-condomed male-male sex vs sex with condoms (oral and anal). This also points to the fact others have made on here before that while PrEP may protect you from HIV seroconversion if used properly and regularly, it will not protect you from other STDs/STIs.
I need to look at the report, but I also wonder if antibiotic resistant syphilis, which has shown up before, plays any role here.
Reporting on this rise in syphilis transmission, which seems to spike every few years among gay men, isn’t “sex negative,” but it does suggest that sex isn’t a risk-free activity, no matter how wonderful and available it may be.
demented
@PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID: Be proud of having syphilis? Are you also proud of chicken pox?
ait10101
@jason smeds: I think that is pretty silly. If a disease is in, say Liberia, it makes sense to warn people to take precautions with respect to Liberia. If a disease is especially common in gay men (the figures given indicates a very strong skew) then it makes sense to warn gay men. With disease it is very important to focus efforts on the vectors of transmission, as general warnings aren’t very effect. Be safe in any case is the best advice, but in this case it appears that there is a vector through gay sex and it deserves special attention.
Paco
I can link to the CDC site that says that condoms are only partially effective if the condom covers the sore. I think it is rare for people to use condoms during oral sex which can be a mode of transmission too.
http://www.cdc.gov/std/syphilis/STDFact-MSM-Syphilis.htm?mobile=false
Here is where I found the percentages. Even if they are only 50-66% effective, I still advocate using them of course.
http://www.aidsmap.com/Do-condoms-work/page/1746203/
I don’t know if the rise in transmission is due to condomless sex or not, or just too many sex partners for infected individuals in a short period of time that keeps escalating the number of infections. It would be interesting to know what factors are driving the spike in new infections.
Paco
@Kangol: Posted the links I had but forgot to hit reply first. 🙂
jason smeds
ait101,
Firstly, there is no such thing as gay sex. There is anal sex if that is what you mean by gay sex. Lots of people perform anal sex, including many heterosexual couples. It is not an exclusively gay act.
Secondly, what sort of diseases are you talking about? HIV and syphilis are very difficult to catch, unlike Ebola, for instance. Unlike Ebola, HIV aren’t viruses that you catch because you happen to randomly touch the skin of an infected person.
HIV is something that one opts into through intimate sexual gambling in a social scene that is built on a sex act, a scene that is highly concentrated. Concentration creates a pathological cascade but it is still an opt-in cascade that can be completely avoided if one opts out of promiscuity or out of the gay scene altogether.
Going back to the CDC, its problem is that its statements are based on the all-encompassing identity called “gay” without segregating those who are discerning (and thus less likely to catch an STD) from those who are not discerning (and thus more likely to catch an STD). This failure on the part of the CDC is a form of homophobia.
Matt
That’s hardly news. STD’s are always on the rise in the gay community because many gay men refuse to live monogamous lives. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
Matt
@jason smeds: The CDC isn’t homophobic. The facts are the facts. Pervs give each other STD’s.
onthemark
@joey: The usual way of getting Hep B is through rimming. Are you saying you think you got it somehow via anal sex with a condom, and after being vaccinated? I don’t see how that’s even possible. Not “making fun” of you, but really I’m not quite sure what you’re saying.
And if you “have no liver damage,” what’s the problem anyway? It doesn’t sound like much of an inconvenience to get a check up every six months, but if there was no liver damage to begin with, I don’t understand why you’d even need to do those check ups.
It sounds like you were simply exposed to Hep B without ill effect, and that happens to millions of people.
onthemark
@Matt: OMG, it finally happened, we got a commenter who is even crazier than “jason smeds”!
Matt
@onthemark: I’m not crazy. You’re just “offthemark”
onthemark
@Matt: Your imaginary boyfriend is a lucky guy. (Because he’s imaginary!)
jason smeds
Matt,
I don’t entirely disagree with you about the promiscuous behavior of many men on the gay scene. However, I maintain that the CDC is homophobic in the way it phrases its statements in relation to male homosexuality in general.
Saying that gay men are at high risk neglects the fact that many gay men – especially those who do not do the scene – are not part of this risk-taking social scene. It’s as if the CDC wants us – and the world – to believe that we gay-identifying men are all promiscuous and disease-prone.
If a Right Wing member of the Republican Party said this, you’d all be criticizing him for being a homophobe.
Gman23
Jason Smeds – good comment. I’m with you.
Jacob23
@Matt: I agree with you, but the blame does not lie with many gay men. These persistently high rates of STI infection are primarily driven by a minority of very promiscuous gay and bi men. It is in the neighborhood of 10%. While promiscuity reigned supreme in the 1970s, peaking in the mid- to late-70s, it has been on a steady decline ever since. Today, it is a minority practice among gay and bi men, and the extreme variety is limited to that 10%, which not coincidentally is also the approximate national rate of HIV prevalence for gay and bi men.
@Smeds – I don’t entirely disagree with you. They might phrase things better. But they are likely frustrated at these continued reckless practices and are erring on the side of being blunt. Also, technically, they have a point. When you get very high infection rates in a small population, people who are not particularly promiscuous can be considered at elevated risk. For example, under ordinary circumstances, a college student who had, say 1 or 2 partners per year over the course of 4 years, might not be at great risk for an STI. But if the infection rate is high – let’s say 19% (which is the actual HIV prevalence rate in large US cities) – then 4-8 partners throughout college puts our student at serious risk. The only ones who would be safe are those who are monogamous with an uninfected partner and those who are not engaging in intercourse. So maybe the CDC should qualify their statement to that extent.
Jacob23
@onthemark: You are confusing Hep A and Hep B. B is spread like HIV, and that’s how Joey got it.
Historical fun fact: the dangers of Hep B and the manner of transmission were well known in the 1970s. It killed 5000 people per year back then. High risk groups included hospital workers (who were exposed to blood) and gay/bi men. In fact, there was a large scale study of the disease in San Francisco over the course of several years, as part of the effort to develop a vaccine.
Had gay and bi men not been soaked in the warped inhumane ideology of sexual radicalism, they would have reacted to the Hep B threat the way sane, rational, caring people do – by stopping the activities that were endangering others. Had they done so, they would have largely stopped HIV in its tracks even before they became aware of its existence. But instead, in spite of the knowledge of Hep B, the “sexual liberation” fiesta continued unabated, year after year after year, until HIV finally revealed itself in the early 80s. At which point they all protested “How could we have possibly known?”
onthemark
@Jacob23: Quit spreading misinformation!
Hepatitis A is a food and water-borne illness. You get it from an unsanitary restaurant, not from sex.
“joey” always seems hopelessly confused. Apparently he was exposed without incident to Hep B, and is now IMMUNE, and therefore couldn’t transmit it to anyone else which (admirably if unnecessarily) seems his main worry.
Apparently he had/has a doctor who either explained this all very badly to him, or is gleefully exploiting his hypochondria for profit.
There has been a vaccine for Hep B since the ’80s and I urge everyone to get it. Meanwhile you can wallow in your smug, snooty heterosexism and feel superior to everyone else.
Jacob23
@onthemark: I am not spreading misinformation, jackass. Hep A is spread through contact with feces. Yes, it can be spread via contaminated food. But it is also spread through the practice of “rimming” which you specifically mentioned in your first ignorant comment to joey. By contrast, Hep B is spread through the contact with blood and body fluids, just like HIV. Unlike Hep A, Hep B has no special association with rimming, although obviously there could be a risk if blood is present. From Wikipedia:
“The virus is transmitted by exposure to infectious blood or body fluids. Infection around the time of birth or from contact with other people during childhood is the most frequent method by which hepatitis B is acquired in areas where the disease is common. In areas where the disease is rare intravenous drug use and sexual intercourse are the most frequent routes of infection.”
So your first comment on this – “The usual way of getting Hep B is through rimming.” – is false. STFU and educate yourself.