Tag Archives: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Let’s Talk About Sex

by D Gregory Smith

“Sex Is the Question,” is an engaging and important survey regarding the sexual practices of gay and bisexual men. This entirely confidential survey is sponsored by the Center for Disease Control, and will be used by state and local health departments to better understand the HIV epidemic among gay and bisexual men and potentially create new techniques to reverse the trend. “Sex Is the Question” is the largest survey ever attempted by a US federal agency for gay and bisexual men, and it will only take you a few minutes to complete. Do you want another great reason to take the survey? For every completed survey, “Sex Is the Question” will make a monetary donation to the It Gets Better Project.

How can you take the survey? Just click on this link. After you complete the survey, you will also have the opportunity to invite your friends to participate, and a donation will be made to the It Gets Better Project for each of your friends who completes the survey too. In addition, “Sex is the Question” is not just a survey. It is the first study of its kind to provide immediate feedback to its participants by incorporating videos and other interactive tools. At the end of the survey, you will be presented with personalized insight and comparisons based on your answers. Thank you for your consideration! With you support, we can help put an end to HIV once and for all, and in doing so, support a terrific organization.

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Some Startling HIV Facts

by D Gregory Smith

…from The CDC’s Annual Report from the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention (DHAP), Accelerating Progress, Investing for Impact. This report provides an overview of some of the HIV prevention activities conducted and supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during late 2010 to the end of 2011.

Too few Americans with HIV are getting the testing, treatment, and care they need to stay healthy and prevent transmission to others.

Surprisingly, only 28% of all HIV-infected persons are considered to have HIV under control ( viral load less than 200/ml). That’s not enough.

Percentage of HIV-infected Individuals Engaged in Selected Stages of the Continuum of HIV Care, 2010-11

All HIV positive individuals- 100%

Aware of their infection- 80%

Linked to HIV care- 62%

Retained in HIV care- 41%

Receive antiretroviral therapy- 36%

Have their virus under control*- 28%

*Plasma viral load < 200 cells/ml

Source: MMWR  60(47);1618-1623

 

 

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“Abstinence Isn’t Working”

by D Gregory Smith

…Salon.com backs it up:

Earlier this week, when the CDC announced a record low in the teen birth rate, it listed two possible causes: “The impact of strong pregnancy prevention messages” and “increased use of contraception.” The Guttmacher Institute came out with an even stronger message: “The most recent decline in teen births can be linked almost exclusively to improvements in teens’ contraceptive use,” the organization said in a press release, which pointed to another CDC study for evidence.

But that hasn’t stopped conservatives from claiming that the drop is a result of, you guessed it, abstinence education and, paradoxically, an increase in abortions.

Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America expressed her outrage over the CDC analysis: “They don’t even mention the fact there’s been a tremendous increase in effectiveness and pervasiveness of abstinence education. They don’t mention the fact that teen sexual activity, by their own admission, is down.” As Think Progress noted this week, teen birth rates are actually highest in states with abstinence-only policies. Not only has it been widely documented that such programs are largely ineffective, it’s also been shown that such programsmay prevent contraception use.

Now, it’s true that teens — specifically 15- and 16-year-olds — are delaying sexual activity, but the change in contraceptive use over the years has been much more profound, and there has been no significant change in sexual activity among 18- and 19-year-olds. What’s more, there was no change in sexual activity among teens, period, from 2008 on, says Laura Lindberg, senior research associate at Guttmacher, so the recent decline in teens births certainly can’t be attributed to abstinence. Also, it should be noted that abstinence can be the result of any number of social influences, not necessarily abstinence-only education. (Consider research showing that teens who receive sex educationare much more likely to delay sex.)

Full story here:

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America’s Most-infested STD States

by D Gregory Smith

From Men’s health comes this story about gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis- HIV is mysteriously absent- and some cool graphics:

In celebration of STD Awareness Month, we gathered data from the 2010 Center for Disease Control’s annual report to give you the breakdown on which states have the highest STD rates, and incorporated some need-to-know info about each of the leading culprits that are spreading across the U.S.

Today’s free PDF: The Great Men’s Health Sex Survey

Gonorrhea

What to Look Out For: Gonorrhea often shows up within 10 days of infection, but typically there are no symptoms early on. Given time, though, it’ll raise it’s ugly head—discharge from the penis (and vagina for women), frequent urination, and discomfort during urination. As a bonus, it can also lead to epididymitis in men, which can cause infertility.

How it spreads: Gonorrhea is caused by bacteria and is transmitted through semen and vaginal secretions during intercourse. According to the CDC, it’s the second-most reported infectious disease with nearly 356,000 infections in 2007, but it’s estimated that about twice as many new cases actually occur but are undiagnosed and unreported.

Treatable? Yes, with antibiotics. [But something to keep in mind: Researchers recently discovered a new strain of gonorrhea, H014, that can’t be killed with current antibiotics. So playing it on the safe side makes even more sense.]

Excellent information, nonetheless. For Chlamydia and Syphilis info, Click Here.

Gonorrhea And The Antibiotic Wake-up Call

by D Gregory Smith

I’ve been talking about this for a while now, but it’s now being seriously discussed in the mainstream media.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Linezolid

Image via Wikipedia

On the growing roster of antibiotic-resistant diseases, gonorrhea is the one that has most recently captured the attention of public health officials. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned last week that 1.7% of certain types of gonorrhea infections show little response to treatment, even with cephalosporins, the last line of antibiotic defense.

At this point, no matter what happens with cephalosporins, resistant gonorrhea is on its way to winning out over available antibiotics, making it one of many worrisome bacterial strains, such as total-drug-resistant tuberculosis and MRSA,or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Resistant infections are emerging faster than new antibiotics. According to the nonprofit Pew Health Group, from 1935 to 1968, 13 classes of antibiotics were created; since 1968, there have been only two. Antibiotics are hard to develop and the profit margin on them is low because, unlike antidepressants or medications for high blood pressure, they’re not usually taken on a long-term basis.

The demand for such classes of antibiotics is clearly growing- but outside of one of the board members of Merck or Abbott or Pfizer gets untreatable gonorrhea or MRSA- you can bet it won’t happen without a struggle.

Full story here.

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Warning! Gonorrhea Threat Is Real

by D Gregory Smith

HIV isn’t the only reason to use condoms. From Tim Horn:

"WARNING - VENEREAL DISEASES" - NARA...

The last line of therapeutic defense against gonorrhea is losing its strength, according to an editorial published February 9 in the The New England Journal of Medicine. With no new antibiotics effective against the sexually transmitted infection (STI) on the horizon, Gail Bolan, MD, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and her fellow authors are worried about an upswing in gonorrhea samples showing to be less susceptible to cephalosporins—the only class of drugs still widely effective against the bacteria.

“It is time to sound the alarm,” the authors state. “During the past 3 years, the wily gonococcus has become less susceptible to our last line of antimicrobial defense, threatening our ability to cure gonorrhea and prevent severe [associated illnesses].”

Gonorrhea, caused by the bacteria Neisseria gonorrhoeae, is the second most commonly reported communicable disease in the United States, with more than 600,000 new cases reported annually. Typically spread through sexual activity, it disproportionately affects vulnerable populations such as minorities who are marginalized because of their race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Untreated gonorrhea can cause serious and permanent health problems in both women and men. Gonorrhea is a common cause of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), affecting roughly 750,000 women every year in the United States. It can be painful and may lead to internal abscesses—pus-filled “pockets” that are hard to cure. PID can also lead to fallopian tube damage and ultimately cause infertility or increase the risk of ectopic pregnancy.

In men, gonorrhea can cause epididymitis, a painful condition of the ducts attached to the testicles that may lead to infertility if left untreated.

Gonorrhea can also spread to the blood or joints, which can be life threatening. Additionally, gonorrhea can make it easier to either transmit or become infected with HIV. 

…[the increased resistances] Bolan and her colleagues note, were most pronounced in the western United States (up to 3.6 percent) and among men who have sex with men (up to 4.7 percent).

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New STD Rates “Shockingly High”

by D Gregory Smith
Logo of the Centers for Disease Control and Pr...

Image via Wikipedia

Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its 2010 sexually transmitted disease (STD) surveillance data.  This annual report of statistics and trends for the three reportable sexually transmitted diseases in the United States shows that STDs rates in this country are still shockingly high, particularly in communities of color and among gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM).

“This new data shows a persistence of the same trends that we have been seeing for years—that MSM and communities of color are continuing to bear a disproportionate share of the STDs in this country,” said William Smith, Executive Director of the National Coalition of STD Directors. “We should also not lose sight of a number of new additional studies this past year on the link between STDs and acquiring HIV.  The 2010 STD data released today shows that we need to look closely at further investments in STD prevention as a means to prevent HIV as well,” continued Smith.

While the 2010 data shows that overall rates for syphilis went down compared to 2009, the first decrease in in ten years, rates among Hispanics went up just over nine percent in the last year and MSM still account for two-thirds of the syphilis in this country.  In addition, black men continue to have the highest rates of syphilis in the U.S., with young (20-24) black MSM seeing an increase of syphilis of a shocking 135 percent between 2006 and 2010.  Co-infection of those with syphilis and HIV also continues; between 25-54 percent of those with primary or secondary syphilis were also HIV positive.

“The good news is that there was a drop of 8.5 percent in the rate of black men diagnosed with either primary or secondary syphilis in 2010 compared to the year prior,” said Smith.  “While too early to definitely assess the cause for this drop, there has been a distinct appeal for several years now to help address the explosion of syphilis among black men, particularly among young black MSM, and we must keep up efforts to prevent increasing rates of STDs and HIV among this group,” concluded Smith.

Rates for Chlamydia continued to increase over the last year, as they have for twenty years.  This is in part due to increased testing which is increasingly identifying positive cases, of which there were more than 1.3 million reported in 2010.  Black women continue to have the highest rates for Chlamydia, as well as gonorrhea.  While there was only a small increase in the overall rates of gonorrhea, the rates of gonorrhea in Hispanics went up 12 percent compared to 2009.

Across all three diseases, communities of color and young people overall continue to be most affected, though even for all ages of whites, increases were seen for all three diseases in 2010.  Among whites in 2010, rates of chlamydia increased by 7.5 percent, 9.2 percent for gonorrhea, and 3.6 percent for syphilis in 2010 compared to 2009.

Smith concluded, “We hope the unacceptably high rates of STDs in this country continue to be clarion call for securing the sexual health of all people. This means that state and federal investments in STD prevention remain a critical need in these times of tight budgets and that as healthcare reform continues to move ahead, that partners in every sector ensure that the safety net for these services continues to exist.”

The full 2010 STD surveillance data can be found on the CDC website at: http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats10/default.htm.