STDs At Record Levels

STDs At Record Levels

From November 13, 2007 Associated Press:

ATLANTA - More than 1 million cases of chlamydia were reported in the United States last year — the most ever reported for a sexually transmitted disease, federal health officials said Tuesday.

A new U.S. record," said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr. of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More bad news: Gonorrhea rates are jumping again after hitting a record low, and an increasing number of cases are caused by a "superbug" version resistant to common antibiotics, federal officials said Tuesday.
Syphilis is rising, too. The rate of congenital syphilis — which can deform or kill babies — rose for the first time in 15 years.
"Hopefully we will not see this turn into a trend," said Dr. Khalil Ghanem, an infectious diseases specialist at Johns Hopkins University's School of medicine.
The CDC releases a report each year on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, three diseases caused by sexually transmitted bacteria.
Chlamydia is the most common. Nearly 1,031,000 cases were reported last year, up from 976,000 the year before.
The count broke the single-year record for reported cases of a sexually transmitted disease, which was 1,013,436 cases of gonorrhea, set in 1978.
Putting those numbers into rates, there were about 349 cases of chlamydia per 100,000 people in 2006, up 5.6 percent from the 329 per 100,000 rate in 2005.
...

Douglas said it doesn't look like the superbugs are the reason for gonorrhea's escalating numbers overall, but they're not sure what is driving the increase.

Not sure? Hmmm. Could it be a dramatic increase in people who are changing sexual partners more frequently than they change their cell phone provider? Yes, using condoms helps, but it isn't a sure method of avoiding STDs. There's a reason that cable television channels are awash in ads for drugs to help people suffering from herpes outbreaks, and who don't want to give it to their current sexual partner.

UPDATE: Shocking: the AP version of the story left out this detail that appears in the November 14, 2007 Los Angeles Times story about this:

Gay and bisexual men made up 64% of new cases of primary and secondary syphilis in 2006.

Hmmm. About 4-4.5% of men are gay or bisexual--so about 2-2.25% of the population has 64% of the new cases of syphilis. Who woulda thunk it?