Tag Archives: Toronto

STD Awareness: Will Gonorrhea Be Worse Than AIDS?

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A scanning electron micrograph of a colony of Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacteria that cause gonorrhea. Image: Portland State University

If you’ve been reading the news lately, you might have noticed an odd piece of reportage from CNBC, in which a naturopath claimed that antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea “might be a lot worse than AIDS” and might cause cases of sepsis that could kill “in a matter of days.” This quotation, uttered by a single naturopath, was then exaggerated in sources such as the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail, which ran the headline “Doctors warn that antibiotic-resistant strain of gonorrhea could be ‘worse than AIDS.'” In fact, the only person making this claim was one naturopath, not a doctor, and certainly not plural “doctors.”

There’s a lot to unpack here. First is the alarmism in the original CNBC article, and its dependence on an unreliable source. Second is the issue of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea itself, which is a very serious public health problem. Thirdly, let’s look at the naturopath’s claim, which is that antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea could unleash a plague worse than AIDS and kill its victims in a matter of days.

Claims that antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea will be “worse than AIDS” are greatly exaggerated.

Alan Christianson, the naturopath behind the hyperbolic claims of super-virulent gonorrhea, does not seem to be an actual expert in infectious disease (his website lists “natural endocrinology” and “male menopause” among his specialties), nor is he a medical doctor. The article identifies him as a “doctor of naturopathic medicine,” but what does that mean?

Naturopaths are not medical doctors, and degrees in naturopathic medicine aren’t awarded by institutions accredited by the Association of Medical Colleges, the body that accredits medical schools. Naturopathy is a philosophy that is not generally supported by scientific evidence, but rather is based in “a belief in the healing power of nature,” according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. It was developed in the 1800s and today encompasses many modalities of alternative medicine, including homeopathy and herbalism. For these reasons, it is odd that a journalist quoted a naturopath on the potential of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea rather than someone more qualified, such as a microbiologist or epidemiologist. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: An Update on Antibiotic-Resistant Gonorrhea

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Last year, we shared the fascinating and frightening story of the emergence of increasingly antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, an STD caused by the gonococci bacteria. The sexually transmitted scourge, which we only so recently reined in with the development of antibiotics, has been performing some genetic gymnastics to defeat almost every drug we’ve thrown at it. We douse it with certain drugs, and the bacterium literally spits them back out at us, and it inactivates other drugs by snapping the active molecules in half. Sulfa drugs, penicillins, tetracyclines, fluoroquinolones — they all make a gonococcus heave a bored sigh. Luckily, cephalosporins were still an effective treatment, but recently there have been reports of stubborn gonorrhea infections caused by the latest and greatest (and some might say most hated) strain of gonococci.

The bacteria that cause gonorrhea continue to evolve, right under our noses!

Well, the story isn’t over — just like the bacteria that cause gonorrhea, the tale is rapidly evolving. The latest class of antibiotics that the gonococci are chipping away at is the cephalosporin family, which includes several chemically related drugs that work in similar ways — and that can likewise be defeated by microbes in similar ways. Cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea was first reported in Japan and documented in a few European countries. The Japanese case that inspired the New England Journal of Medicine to declare last year that it was “time to sound the alarm” was an oral gonorrhea infection that was resistant to one member of the cephalosporin family: ceftriaxone.

Earlier this month, the prestigious medical journal JAMA reported the first North American sightings of gonorrhea that failed treatment with another cephalosporin: cefixime. Yeah, I know, you’d rather hear about Big Foot or UFO sightings, not evidence that something as real and unmythical as Gonorrhea 5.0 has landed in your back yard. Luckily, there’s plenty you can do to protect yourself from it, and we’ll tell you all about it toward the end of this article. (Spoiler alert: It involves using condoms!) Continue reading →