Over the past couple of weeks, the Los Angeles Times Newspaper has written several articles addressing Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD’s) in the nation with a central focus on California. One story that really caught my eye was entitled, “The Shameful Reason California’s STD Rate Has Hit a Record High.”
The article went on to say that according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), any progress the United States made in the 1940s and 1950s in advancing STD prevention has since unraveled. Last year, the CDC reported that Americans were infected with the highest number of STDs on record: There were approximately two million new cases of gonorrhea, syphilis, and chlamydia. Today, that trend continues with a new report from California, where STD rates have hit a record high for the third year in a row. In a report published by the California Department of Public Health officials reveal than 300,000 people were diagnosed with syphilis, gonorrhea, or chlamydia in the state last year alone. That’s a 45% increase from 2012 and a rising trend that matches the overall increase in STD rates seen throughout the country.
In California, 218,710 chlamydia cases were reported in 2017 the highest number since the state began reporting on it in 1990. Meanwhile, there were 75,450 reported cases of gonorrhea, the highest since 1988. The spread of the infections was split across sexes: Chlamydia rates among women were 60% higher than among men, while gonorrhea rates in males were two-fold higher than they were in females. Women aged 20-24 were the most likely to have chlamydia, while men ages 25-29 were most likely to have gonorrhea.
Syphilis, a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum, was reported in every 34.3 cases per 100,000 Californians. Overall there were 13,605 early syphilis cases, the highest number since 1987.
Living here in California I asked myself, ‘Why has California’s STD rates gone up?’ I have my own suspicions, but I continued to read (as I hope you do) to see what the writer of the article and his research was going to attribute the rise to. Experts say that failing condom use, fewer public health clinics, and an increase in sexual partners because of dating apps are all factors at blame. Well, all these explanations are reasonably acceptable to me, but I would add a couple more in a minute. Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (USC), concurs when it comes to public health education, told the Washington Post there’s been a “decimation” of public health infrastructure since the financial crisis of 2008. Dr. Klausner went on to say, “For California to have a steady increase in congenital syphilis is shameful, given that we’ve known how to control syphilis since the 1990s.”
With all due respect to the good Doctor, and in the spirit of historical accuracy. We’ve known how to control syphilis since 1932 when the United States Public Health Service (PHS), which later became the United States Department of Health and Human Services conducted the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in Black Men, also known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study or Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. Dr. Klausner went on to say, “Seeing this come back is a sign of a failure of the public health safety net.”
Here’s the argument that I’ve been preaching for years about principles over pills and morality over medication. I see these two fundamental practices as essential tools needed in our tool box to stopping the spread of STD’s and HIV/AIDS–why, I’m so glad you asked. Did you know that antibiotic resistance has reduced treatment options for gonorrhea infections, which makes the need for prevention messaging even more important? Prevention people–not the taking of more pills; but exercising principles! Thank God for medication, but what’s great too is the exercise of morality! These are two good tools that we all can add to our tool box to prevent the spread of gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia and the other twenty-two STDs stalking our communities!
Dr. Gail Bolan, director of the CDC’s Division of STD prevention, stated that: “The resurgence of syphilis, and particularly congenital syphilis, is not an arbitrary event, but rather a symptom of a deteriorating public health infrastructure and lack of access to health care. It is exposing the hidden, fragile populations in need, that are not getting the health care and preventive services they deserve. This points to our need for public health and health care action for each of the cases in this report, as they represent real people, not just numbers.”
What’s so very sad to me is that syphilis, in-and-of-itself, hasn’t exposed a hidden, fragile population in need of health care and preventive services they deserve; rather, I would argue that these people have been hidden in plain sight, no one really wanted to see them. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in 1966, “Of all the forms of inequality, the injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane”. If he saw them in 1966; now fifty-two years later, let’s just be honest, our public health system just doesn’t want to see these people!
But we’re looking now, and we’re doing something about it. The CDC’s Doing It campaign is a new national HIV testing and prevention campaign designed to motivate all adults to get tested for HIV and know their status. As part of the Act Against AIDS initiative, Doing It delivers the message that HIV testing should be a part of everyone’s regular health routine to keep themselves and our community healthy. Dr. King said it best, “Everybody can be great…because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” I’m Doing it how about you.
Doing It is a new national HIV testing and prevention campaign designed to motivate all adults to get tested for HIV and know their status. As part of the Act Against AIDS initiative, Doing It delivers the message that HIV testing should be a part of everyone’s regular health routine to keep ourselves and our community healthy. He’s doing it. She’s doing it. We’re doing it. YOU should be doing it, too.
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