Guess that it was bound to happen.
Was just a matter of time.
But now I’ve come to my decision,
And it’s one of the painful kind.
‘Cause now it seems that you wanted a martyr.
Just a regular guy wouldn’t do.
But baby I can’t hang upon no lover’s cross for you.
~ Jim Croce
This sweet, sad lyric by Jim Croce may well be the new anthem in the sexual revolution, as word comes recently from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that strains of Gonorhhea that are resistant to all antibiotics have now emerged. Get all of the details in the link. From the report:
In the July 8, 2011 issue of CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, researchers analyzed gonorrhea surveillance data and concluded that, although there have been no documented treatment failures yet, untreatable gonorrhea may become a reality in the U.S.
Gonorrhea, one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), can have serious health consequences, including infertility in women, and can increase a person’s risk for acquiring HIV. Gonorrhea is caused by the bacteria Neisseria gonorrhoeae. While antibiotics can successfully treat gonorrhea, over time thebacteria has developed resistance to several of these drugs, including sulfonamides,penicillin, tetracycline, and most recently, in 2007, fluoroquinolones. CDC now recommends only one class of antibiotics, called cephalosporins — consisting of the drugs cefixime (administered orally) or ceftriaxone (administered via injection) — together with another antibiotic, either azithromycin or doxycycline. However, findings from the recent analysis signal the potential for resistance to cephalosporins, the last line of defense for treating gonorrhea.
Now, in plain English, here’s what’s going on. CDC has a surveillance project where they collect gonorrhea samples at 30 clinics throughout the U.S. and send the bacteria to the lab for analysis. They look for the smallest dose of antibiotic needed to inhibit the growth of the bacteria. This is called the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC), as it is the minimum concentration needed to inhibit growth.
Now, as bacteria develop resistance over time from intermediate to severe resistance, the amount of drug needed to inhibit their growth rises. So larger doses of drug are needed. We call this decreased susceptibility So, as susceptibility decreases, MIC of the drug increases.
What has been discovered is that there are now strains of gonorrhea on the West Coast of the U.S. that are increasingly resistant to the last line of defense antibiotics:
And while the numbers were small, researchers observed an increase in the percentage of cases that crossed this threshold in recent years — from 0.02 percent for 2000–2006
to 0.11 percent for 2009–2010. Of note, all of the isolates with decreased susceptibility to cefixime were collected from gay or bisexual men.Patterns of elevated MICs were most prominent in samples collected in the western United States, and among gay and bisexual men:
Western regions: For cefixime, the proportion of samples from the West with elevated MICs rose from zero percent in 2000 to 3.3 percent in 2010. Significant increases in the proportion of isolates with elevated MICs were noted in Hawaii (from 0 to 7.7 percent) and California (from 0 to 4.5 percent) between 2000 and 2010. Smaller, but still significant, increases were seen for ceftriaxone in the same time period in
the west: the percentage of isolates with elevated MICs rose from zero to 0.5 percent.Men who have sex with men (MSM): For cefixime, the proportion of isolates with elevated MICs rose from zero to 4 percent between 2000 and 2010; for ceftriaxone, the proportion of isolates with elevated MICs rose from zero to 0.9 percent.
These numbers may seem rather small, but already in other parts of the world, we now have gonorrhea that is entirely antibiotic resistant. HIV gained a foothold in the gay community by stealth, and the same is true with gonorrhea, as less than half of all cases are believed to be reported in the US, annually.
To make matters worse, gonorrhea has often been regarded by folks as no big deal, as antibiotics can clear it up. However, while some may take days to weeks to manifest symptoms, many people never manifest symptoms for months. Left untreated, this disease is quite destructive, and even deadly. From CDC:
Untreated gonorrhea can cause serious and permanent health problems in both women and men.
In women, gonorrhea is a common cause of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). About 750,000 women each year in the United States develop PID. The symptoms may be quite mild or can be very severe and can include abdominal pain and fever. PID can lead to internal abscesses (pus-filled “pockets” that are hard to cure) and long-lasting, chronic pelvic pain. PID can damage the fallopian tubes enough to cause infertility or increase the risk of ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancy is a life-threatening condition in which a fertilized egg grows outside the uterus, usually in a fallopian tube.
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 spread to the blood or joints. This condition can be life threatening. In addition, people with gonorrhea can more easily contract HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. HIV-infected people with gonorrhea can transmit HIV more easily to someone else than if they did not have gonorrhea.
This is a public health disaster in the making. We can’t just come up with new antibiotics, as the economic pressures are against antibiotic development. It costs over $800 Million to discover, purify, lab test, animal test, and go through FDA Phase I, II, III human trials, mass produce and market an antibiotic. The process takes about ten years, on average, using 10 of the 18 years on the drug’s patent. That only leaves about 8-9 years for the company to recoup their costs and turn a profit before the patent expires. Unlike most other medications which people take daily for life, antibiotics are only taken for 7-10 days. The profit incentive is just not there.
Worse still for gays is the coupling of increased resistance to antibiotics with the steady rise of gonorrhea in the community of men having sex with men, as the following CDC slide indicates:
Figure Y. Gonococcal Isolate Surveillance Project (GISP)—Percentage of Urethral Neisseria gonorrhoeae Isolates Obtained From MSM* Attending STD* Clinics, 1990–2009
Cardinal O’Connor was fond of saying that good morality is good medicine. He was crucified for it in the media. Gays, Bisexuals, and then promiscuous heterosexuals are about to hang upon their own lover’s crosses unless they wake up and realize that condoms just don’t work.
omgosh.
SCARY.
The truth is this is not a healthy “option” of sexuality.
(duh?)
And, last night on the abc nightly news (Dianne Sawyer) they said the AMA said it is “dangerous” for the homosexual man to convert to heterosexual.
W-h-a-t? ? ?
God’s ways are always best to serve mankind. Listen, people; apart from Him, we only mess things up!
Praying God will change hearts, and people will choose to follow and submit to the divine Leader. Sexuality is a gift.to give to your mate. By His grace give that gift to them.
Look for this to be one of the most under reported stories of our politically correct age.
Condoms don’t work? Not even the free NYC Condom (Grab a handfull and Go) provided by the Dept. of Health?
Remember when Mayor Bloomberg said the city has an “unconscionably high rate” of HIV and AIDS and argued it’s the city’s responsibility to face the real world and protect those practicing unprotected sex….as “a way to keep people alive.”
Remember when to get married, NY required a blood test to determine if either party had a venereal disease? Such an invasion of privacy!
We should fight again the lie “you shall not die” (Gen 3, 4) with the truth if you do this “you shall die.” To some it may sound morbid, using fear to coerce people. But human beings can’t have it both ways. You don’t race down the cliff and expect to live. When someone risk being ridiculed to stop someone killing oneself without knowing, it’s called heroic act.
Very enlightening blog- thanks!! STD – possibly God’s hint that certain types of se/x may not be appropriate?
Even though the Centers for Disease Control report that 25% of teens have STDs where is the outrage? Now we have resistant strains that will ruin more of these kids lives. The silence is deafening.
Ummmm
It seems it is bad for all people, regardless of orientation to be promiscuous. So…why focus on gay men?
Very interesting Gerard BECAUSE the article I read online about this made NO mention of gay or bisexual men. In fact, I was led to believe this was in hetero men and women. Now I wonder why they might have missed that crucial point?
Perhaps I’m wrong here too but my understanding is that it is not just economic pressures in the development of new antibiotics but also that there are no new ones known at this time?????
Mary,
Epidemiology focusses on patterns of emerging infections and where the focus needs to be in addressing that emergence. Homosexual men, whether you like it or not, have frightening degrees of promiscuity, far above the heterosexual population. CDC reports these emerging isolates in the gay male and bisexual male communities of the west coast.
I make no apologies here. We are constantly fed the fiction by gay activists that there is no difference between homosexual male sexual expression rates and the heterosexual community, which is pure boilerplate. The public health requires that we deal in scientific fact and not political fiction.
Equality is a nasty, two-edged sword. It cuts bot ways, and its time for homosexual and bisexual males to step up to the plate and deal with what they are brewing.
Hi Gerard,
The tone of my comment was not one of challenging your post. I was being facetious. I quite agree with you. I was just astonished to learn that the research actually focused on gay and bisexual men but that “somehow” the MSM “missed” this point in the article I read. I can’t say I”m surprised that this would not be mentioned in an article.
I doubt the gay community would like these new facts revealed at a time when they are on a roll pushing same-sex “marriage” and gay rights in the military and the promotion of their lifestyle as a right and normal in our schools.
I think you probably know all this though.
What is sad is that it’s unlikely we can do anything about this trend towards resistant bacteria except to stall the inevitable. I myself have had sinus infections that have taken several doses of different antibiotics before my infection responded. My children too have experienced similar problems with one of my older children being unable to clear up a staph infection that she’s now had for over a year. I fear for the health of them and that of my future grandchildren.
Re: And it is not just the homosexuals
When I was a young, Korea bound solider (Back in the Dark Ages) we received a formal briefing from a very serious Sergeant Major on the STD problem in Korea. For every soldier deployed to Korea the Army recorded the treatment of 12 case of STD a year.And this was not counting the unrecorded treatments as well as the soldiers who did not bother to get treated until they returned home.
Korea was then a 13-month unaccompanied tour (no wives, no children.) It was informally advertised through the Army grapevine as a sexual paradise.An arriving solider could also make an deal with a departing soldier regarding his “hutch” (an off post living arrangement). For a very small fee the young arriving soldier would take over the “hutch” which came with a live in maid. The maid would spit shine boots, starch fatigues, clean field gear, clean the hutch and provide both meals and sexual favors all for a nominal fee.
Beyond the risk of eternal damnation there were several problems with this sexual paradise. 1) The high incidence of STD seriously reduced the “boots on the ground” strength of the fighting units (Rifle Squads). 2) Women prostituted to foreign soldiery are easily recruited by enemy intelligence services. As a result we had no secrets. 3) Almost all of the married guys deployed to Korea were in leadership positions. And the deployment usually negatively impacted on their marriages and family lives; i.e.divorce. Which in turn led to distracted leaders who should have been focusing on killing Communists. 4) The mass prostitution and use of contraceptives spread STD into the Korean society, attacked family life and lowered the birth rate.
Sadly, I know of no effort by either our Chaplains or politicians to correct this situation.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
MC,
Have the doctors tried vancomycin or teicoplanin?
I”m not sure. I can’t remember what she took. The infection cleared up several weeks AFTER she finished the antibiotics but came back again. The teicoplanin doesn’t sound familiar to me at all.
It took 9 months to get an appt with a specialist. 😦
This story appeared in the Toronto Star this morning. I”m betting the rise in syphilis in Canada is primarily among gay men but the copy doesn’t actually say that – it merely alludes to it by the fact that men are the ones getting syphilis.
Here’s the link:
http://www.healthzone.ca/health/newsfeatures/article/1025147–syphilis-plague-on-the-rise-in-canada?bn=1