Tag Archives: STD

STD Awareness: Fighting STDs with Education

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Here in Arizona, Tucson Unified School District has been taking steps toward adopting a comprehensive, inclusive, age-appropriate, and medically accurate sex education program, but it’s been repeatedly delayed by a vocal minority. In September, a vote was put on hold after the superintendent recommended changing the proposed curriculum to focus on abstinence as the preferred method for avoiding STDs and unintended pregnancies.

You can make your voice heard. Learn how!

Additionally, many opponents of TUSD’s proposed curriculum believe its inclusiveness of LGBTQ kids is tantamount to “indoctrination,” that this type of education “sexualizes” children, and that discussions of gender identity will confuse students. LGBTQ kids have traditionally been ignored or demeaned in sex education programs, and their health matters too. Presenting medically accurate and age-appropriate information does not indoctrinate or sexualize children — it simply helps them make healthy decisions, no matter who they are. And these days, students need to be empowered with as much knowledge as possible to make decisions that protect their health.

Confronting the STD Epidemic

Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its annual report on sexually transmitted diseases. It did not contain good news. For the fifth straight year, STD rates are climbing.

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STD Awareness: Winning One War on Cancer

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Cancer starts with the uncontrolled division of cells.

The developed world is in the midst of a huge nosedive in genital warts and cervical “precancer” — all thanks to the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. This simple shot trains the immune system to defend itself against HPV, a virus that causes genital warts and several types of cancer. Most sexually active people will be exposed to it in their lifetimes — it’s even been nicknamed the “common cold” of sexually transmitted infections.

Gardasil 9 protects against seven strains of HPV that collectively cause 90% of cervical cancers and anal cancers, plus the two HPV strains that are jointly responsible for 90% of genital warts. Vaccination also reduces the frequency of “precancers,” which are cellular abnormalities that can be treated before progressing into full-fledged cancer — meaning less time, money, and anxiety spent dealing with follow-up procedures and treatments.

The HPV vaccine is an anti-cancer vaccine.

The vaccine is safe and effective — and when we say “effective,” we mean it could lead to the eradication of HPV, and with it the cancers it causes. A recent analysis of 66 million vaccine recipients published in The Lancet points to plummeting rates of genital warts and precancer. Among teenage girls, there was an 83% drop in HPV-16 and HPV-18 infections (the two strains of HPV that together cause 70% of cervical cancers) — and cervical precancers were cut in half.

The most dramatic gains were made in countries that offered the HPV vaccine to both boys and girls. Additionally, there were even decreases in the HPV strains that aren’t covered by the vaccine — evidence of “cross-protection,” the phenomenon in which the immune system recognizes close relatives of the viruses it has been trained to attack. Even people who did not receive the vaccine were less likely to catch the virus, simply because their risk was reduced if their partners were vaccinated. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Can I Get Gonorrhea from Kissing?

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Not all types of kissing feature the exchange of saliva.

Some pretty depressing news hit a couple of months ago, when headlines proclaimed kissing could allow gonorrhea to jump from one person to another.

We already knew gonorrhea could be transmitted during oral sex — a terrible fact, given that most people don’t use condoms or dental dams during oral sex. And we knew that oral gonorrhea is more likely to develop drug resistance, which could be helping to drive the possibly untreatable gonorrhea of the near future.

Mouth-to-mouth kissing could be transmitting gonorrhea right under our noses — literally.

Gonorrhea is most famous as an infection of the cervix or the urethra. But the bacteria that cause gonorrhea can thrive in other warm, moist areas of your body — not just the reproductive tract, but also in the mouth, throat, eyes, and anus. Unprotected oral sex can allow those bacteria to travel in either direction between one person’s genitals and another person’s throat.

But what about mouth-to-mouth kissing, like French kissing? Is that enough to allow these bacteria to hitch a ride from one mouth to another? Previous research, using a mathematical model, estimated that mouth-to-mouth contact might be a significant — and underappreciated — mode of gonorrhea transmission. But that was a mathematical model, a sophisticated equation using what we know about a population’s gonorrhea prevalence and sexual behavior to estimate how frequently the infection is transmitted from one mouth to another. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Trichomoniasis, the Pear-Shaped, Blood-Sucking, Silent Scourge

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What’s shaped like a pear, hangs with a posse of bacteria, and is a silent scourge upon millions of urogenital tracts? I hope you guessed Trichomonas vaginalis, the single-celled parasite that causes trichomoniasis, or trich (pronounced “trick”). Trich is the most common curable sexually transmitted disease out there — currently afflicting around 3.7 million Americans and 156 million Earthlings.

These single-celled creatures pack a punch, but the body fights back.

When trich causes symptoms, sufferers might experience vaginal discharge (which sometimes has a bad odor), penile burning or discharge, spotting, and itching or swelling in the genital area. But around 70 percent of infections have no symptoms at all, making it a mostly “silent” disease. Based on the totality of the evidence, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) doesn’t currently recommend routine screening for trich in people without symptoms.

But it’s the subject of some debate. Since both symptoms and screenings are rare, and the disease isn’t reportable, some health experts worry that trich could be doing a lot of damage right under our noses. An infection during pregnancy could increase risk for preterm labor or low birth weight. It can increase risk for both acquiring and transmitting HIV from or to a partner. Women with trich are more likely to acquire an HIV infection when sexually exposed to the virus — in fact, one study estimated that 6.2 percent of all HIV infections among U.S. women could be attributed to trich. It’s also easier to catch HIV from a man with trich than from a man without trich. Continue reading →

Enjoying the Condom of Today While Waiting for the Condom of the Future

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When the “consent condom” was introduced last month, it made a minor media splash. The developers of this new condom, packaged in a box that required four hands to open, sought to place the concept of consent at the center of all sexual interactions.

Almost as soon as it grabbed its first headlines, however, the consent condom attracted criticism from multiple sources. Is consent an ongoing dialogue rather than a one-time agreement? Can’t consent be revoked? Do these condoms marginalize people with disabilities that preclude them from opening the box? Couldn’t a rapist force a victim to help open the box, or enlist the assistance of an accomplice? Could they be used as misleading evidence against claims of sexual assault?

With STD rates skyrocketing, more people need to learn how to get the most from condoms — the most protection, the most comfort, and the most pleasure.

Despite the negative reaction, the fact remains that the consent condom succeeded in one goal: provoking public dialogue about the complexity and primacy of consent. It isn’t likely to be a commercial success: Even if a few are sold as novelties, a condom that comes with built-in obstacles doesn’t seem destined for popularity. After all, if regular condoms were too tricky for the inept baby boomers on Seinfeld to master, a complicated gadget requiring four coordinated hands to spring loose probably isn’t going to be a breeze for millennials.

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STD Awareness: Syphilis Treatment Through the Ages

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The spiral-shaped bacteria that causes syphilis.

When syphilis first descended upon Europe, questions surrounded this mysterious scourge. Was it a punishment from God? Was it introduced by a hated Other? Was it caused by the stars’ alignment or the presence of “bad air”? We now know that syphilis is not caused by supernatural forces, foreigners, or a harmful atmosphere, but rather by a species of corkscrew-shaped bacteria called Treponema pallidum, which is spread by sexual contact — vaginal, anal, or oral sex — in which one person comes into contact with a syphilis sore.

Thanks to penicillin, we don’t have to go back to the “good old days” of puke chalices, antivenereal underpants, and rat poison.

Before good treatments were developed in the 20th century, syphilis was the most feared STD out there. Its initial symptoms can include a painless sore filled with a highly infectious liquid. As the infection spreads, lesions and rashes might appear on the soles of the feet or the palms of the hand. After these first waves of symptoms, the infection enters a latent phase, which can lull people into a false sense of security, thinking the disease has disappeared. Unfortunately, 15 percent of people with untreated syphilis reach the late stage, which can occur up to 20 years after initial infection, and includes severe damage to the nervous system, brain, heart, or other organs, and can be fatal.

These days, a shot of penicillin is all it takes to cure syphilis. Back in the day, though, there were myriad “treatments” for syphilis — but they were highly toxic and ineffective. Unfortunately, thanks to the latent phase of syphilis, it often seemed like these treatments did work, which probably explains why folks tortured themselves with them for centuries. If only penicillin had been around: Countless people would have been spared the unpleasant — and often fatal — quackery that syphilis attracted. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: How Common Is Herpes?

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Those of you with an eye for weird news might have noticed recent headlines about wild monkeys in Florida suffering from a herpes epidemic.

Two things in that sentence might have tripped you up. One, Florida has wild monkeys? Yup. In the late 1930s, after a Tarzan movie was wrapped, three male and three female rhesus monkeys were released into the Florida wilds, giving rise to an estimated 1,000 monkeys roaming the Sunshine State today.

Both oral herpes and genital herpes are on the decline.

The second thing that might have given you pause: Monkeys can get herpes? Yes again! The Herpesviridae family is huge, with at least 100 members infecting mammals, birds, reptiles, bony fish, amphibians, and oysters — even dinosaurs are thought to have been infected by herpesviruses! The virus has been evolving alongside us since before the dawn of humanity, so it knows us like the back of its hand (metaphorically speaking), allowing it to stow away in our bodies and hide from the immune system.

The “Tarzan” monkeys suffer from a type of herpesvirus called herpes B, which can be deadly in humans, though it’s rare — just try not to find yourself on the receiving end of a monkey bite or scratch. Not so rare in humans are human herpesviruses, of which there are eight types. Types 1 and 2 — aka herpes simplex virus (HSV) 1 and 2 — can both cause genital herpes, one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). HSV-1 mostly causes cold sores, but can also infect the genitals to cause genital herpes, while HSV-2 mostly causes genital herpes, but can also infect the facial area to cause cold sores. (A little confusing, I know.) Continue reading →