Syphilis Skyrockets In U.S.

(WebMD)  A raging epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases in gay/bisexual men drove U.S. syphilis rates up 12 percent in 2007 - the seventh-consecutive year of syphilis increases.

Meanwhile, a CDC study found that tests for another common STD -gonorrhea - miss one in three infections among men who have sex with men.

Those findings alone are troubling enough. But the picture becomes bleaker against the background of a surging HIV epidemic.

"This increase in syphilis represents a major concern for the health of gay and bisexual men," Kevin Fenton, M.D., director of the CDC's HIV/AIDS center, said at a news conference. "STDs increase HIV transmission. And if a person is already HIV infected, syphilis can increase viral load [a measure of HIV activity in the body]."

Fenton announced the new STD data at this week's National STD Prevention Conference in Chicago.

Syphilis Surges Again

The syphilis numbers are shocking because just a decade ago, the U.S. was on the verge of eliminating the disease. Now 3.7 out of every 100,000 Americans - and 6.4 out of every 100,000 American males - carry the infection, which can cause blindness, brain damage, and death if untreated.

Rates among men are six times higher than rates among women. This, Fenton said, is largely because of huge increases in syphilis infections among men who have sex with men. About 60 percent of all recent U.S. syphilis infections occurred in these men.

African-Americans continue to be disproportionately affected by syphilis. Syphilis rates are six times higher for African-American men than among white men, and 13 times higher for African-American women than for white women.

Gonorrhea Test Misses Gay/Bi Men

Syphilis and HIV aren't the only diseases spread mainly by unsafe sex. Gonorrhea is also on the rise. One factor, a CDC study suggests, is that doctors miss more than one in three gonorrhea infections in HIV negative gay and bisexual men.

The problem seems to be that doctors aren't testing men who have sex with men in all three body sites where they are likely to be infected: the penis (urethra), the rectum, and the throat.

CDC researcher Kristen C. Mahle, M.P.H., and colleagues found that doctors miss more than one in three rectal gonorrhea infections, one in four throat infections, and one in 10 urethral infections in men who have sex with men.

Part of the problem is that the most effective tests for gonorrhea are nucleic acid amplification tests or NAATs. These tests are FDA approved for testing for gonorrhea infections in the urethra. But they are not approved for testing the throat or rectum.

Julius Schachter, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, reported to the conference that NAAT tests work very well in screening men's throats and rectums for gonorrhea and for chlamydia.

John Douglas, M.D., director of the CDC's STD center, said the CDC would work with the FDA to gain approval of expanded use of NAATs.

"NAATs detect twice as many gonorrhea and chlamydia infections as bacterial culture tests," Douglas said at the news conference. "FDA clearance of NAATs would allow for their widespread use in medical settings."
By Daniel DeNoon
Reviewed by Louise Chang
©2005-2006 WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved

[newsterl]

If you go to animal breeding, there is linebred and outcross, both have positives and negatives, with linebred you set many characteristics that are good but if there are genetic faults you can double up on them. With outcrossing you reshuffle the genes and that can bring in different good things, but it can also bring in a multitude of defects that become dominant with subsequent breeding- albinoism, deafness in Dalmatians etc
Humans are the results of thousands of generations of OUTCROSS breedings due to the taboo against ''incest'' so we are plagued with many many genetic faults and problems.

Theres no easy answer but if we dont get the human population growth under control, diseases, starvation and worse will do it for us- thats a fact an science isnt going to fix this, we simply cant grow more and more food on less land indefinitely to keep up with it.
Trouble is, we set up society to NEED young workers to pay into the SS system, the whole way Govt and society have been set up depends on this growth, but it cant go on indefinitely in a finite environment.
Life per "Logans Run" or "Soylent Green" to start with could become the results.

[newsterl]

Gaye5 you are probably one of the better co-posters on this site, we may disagree on things but we brought in some good material to this thread in the past couple of days.
Theres a lot of problems and side issues, but they are all related to or directly connected to overpopulation. Disease is natures way of controlling that, it doesnt matter if we talk rats, cows or humans, we are all subject to the same problems.
Mammals are all made basically with the same anatomy, the planet is full of nasty bacteria, diseases and virus, the living organism either adapts and copes or it doesnt and dies- survival of the fittest is natures way.
The problem with antibiotics and anti bacterial cleaners is they dont kill 100%, they always leave a few organisms behind and those are the ones that build up immunity or coping mechanisms and come back stronger than ever.

[gaye5]

Spot on newsterl, I said the same thing we are too clean, and I feel that it relates to immunisation also as our bodies are not getting what Drs used to call the minor childhood diseases to build up resistance..
In regards to urine, I have read that it is also been used for medical purposes as well, goodness knows why??? and yes we are becoming to populated which will bring about the demise of millions..if war doesnt get us first..
I get upset for those who have diffent ideas simply because it appears that on this site that people with different thoughts are belittled for their opinions, and if it isnt left wing thinking then they are lambasted as being ignorant, religious, or brainwashed. These people who are accusing others for being brainwashed, ignorant and or stupid that the same could be pointed at them, we must except others who have different opinions and listen to what they say and sometimes we acturally learn off them or them us.. I love learning and am very open to knowledge, well referenced knowledge.. I try to make sure that everything that I print is well reseached, unless it is my thoughts on things..

[newsterl]

Sure thing Gaye5. I posted the urine article mainly for medical reference- it IS quite clean as it says, though I have NO interest in it! it of itself is not some disease ridden liquid and I think the article you resourced mentioned urine drinking to disgust the readers- the bias I mentioned.
Disease are increasing because population has, so has overcrowding and overuse/misuse of antibiotics. 3rd world countries are another big problem and the tropics are a breeding ground for malaria, and much more because there''s no freeze.
I firmly believe kids raised in todays hospital-like homes are the ones whose immune systems never develop- they cant because mom is there with the handi wipes, hand sanitizer, lysol, anti bacterial cleaners etc- these are the ones who when exposed to the real world, pets, fumes, polin, dander, dust their immune system goes ape chit, they get allergies, asthma and worse.

[gaye5]

There is now a thought that many of these diseases were on the way down when imunizations was introduced, simply because of the awareness of hygine.
They now wonder if we are toooo hygenic and this is why many diseases along with new ones are on the increase, as the people have not had their immune systems built up with mild diseases..
Throughout history we have had epidemics which have come and gone (by themselves), and will get some that will come and go again..

[gaye5]

newsterl, thanks for the debate, I love sensible discussions, and your one of urine is something that I would do if I had to..
And yes we have had some terrible diseases in the past and yes they are on the increase again, it is a shame that the third world countries cant afford to immunise and because of this the world will always have these diseases until the pharmecutical companies decide that they will truthfully do it for mankind regardless of whether it is profitable or not..but of course they wont do the third world countries for nothing as it is not money in their pockets, so although they say that they have done it for mankind, in reality it is for their pockets.
I am for some immunizations but not blanket immunization of what used to be called the mild child hood diseases.. they built the immune system, and yes the very odd child with very low immune system died or was damaged or a pregnant mothers child was effective but most children got them and lived happily ever after..Many children who have been vaccinated are getting measles, mumps etc, including my grandkids...

[newsterl]

Ok Gaye5? you see what a little perspective on this does?

In the 20th century, tuberculosis alone killed an estimated 100 million people, how does that compare numbers wise to AIDS?

TB was spread by cough, sneeze and contact with infected objects or air.

400,000 Europeans a year died from smallpox in the 1700''s, and 80% of children infected DIED.
We eventually eradicated smallpox didnt we? so now AIDS has replaced it so to speak- but at least it doesnt spread by people SNEEZING in the same room as you, so you are safe, it doesnt personally affect your health.

[newsterl]

Tuberculosis, or ''consumption'' as it was commonly known, caused the most widespread public concern in the 19th and early 20th centuries as an endemic disease of the urban poor. In 1815, one in four deaths in England was of consumption; by 1918 one in six deaths in France were still caused by TB.

In the 20th century, tuberculosis killed an estimated 100 million people.

After the establishment in the 1880s that the disease was contagious, TB was made a notifiable disease in Britain; there were campaigns to stop spitting in public places, and the infected poor were "encouraged" to enter sanatoria that resembled prisons; the sanatoria for the middle and upper classes offered excellent care and constant medical attention. Whatever the purported benefits of the fresh air and labor in the sanatoria, even under the best conditions, 50% of those who entered were dead within five years (1916)

It was not until 1946 with the development of the antibiotic streptomycin that effective treatment and cure became possible.

[newsterl]

Active tuberculosis will kill about two of every three people affected if left untreated. Treated tuberculosis has a mortality rate of less than 5% (or less in developed countries where intensive supportive measures are available).

When people suffering from active pulmonary TB cough, sneeze, speak, kiss, or spit, they expel infectious aerosol droplets 0.5 to 5 5m in diameter. A single sneeze, for instance, can release up to 40,000 droplets.[17] Each one of these droplets may transmit the disease, since the infectious dose of tuberculosis is very low and the inhalation of just a single bacterium can cause a new infection.

Annually, 8 million people become ill with tuberculosis, and 2 million people die from the disease worldwide.[50] In 2004, around 14.6 million people had active TB disease with 9 million new cases

[newsterl]

Urine is mostly sterile, and definitely safe to drink.

Most people forget that urine is mostly water. Water is the filter of the human body. Waste that our cells produce, collectivley known as urea, ends up in our bloodstream. Our kidneys remove the urea, along with excess water, and the result is urine.

When you drink your own urine, you are putting more water back into your system, but you are also putting in the stuff your body is trying to get rid of. This is not bad for you at first, but if you drink no water, only your own urine for an extended period of time, the urea content of your urine will increase. It becomes difficult to urinate, painfull sometimes. But note, this is after drinking your own urine for days.

Its like using a dirty air filter. It works, but soon the filter will become more and more clogged with dust. Just like an air filter, the urine, which now must dispose of more and more waste in the same amount of water, becomes saturated. This is observable, as if you do drink your own urine over a few days it becomes darker in color. Similarly, the more water you drink, the lighter your urine is.

Astronauts on the Apollo 13 mission were stuck in space without power. For the last four days or so of their journey, they had run out of liquid water. They drank their own urine, which kept them from dehydration while they came home. I am not simply using the movie as the source of that info, they did in fact have to drink their own urine.