Posted on 01/15/2008 10:54:35 PM PST by neverdem
A new, highly drug-resistant strain of the “flesh-eating” MRSA bacteria is being spread among gay men in San Francisco and Boston, researchers reported on Monday.
In a study published online by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the bacteria seemed to be spread most easily through anal intercourse but also through casual skin-to-skin contact and touching contaminated surfaces.
The authors warned that unless microbiology laboratories were able to identify the strain and doctors prescribed the proper antibiotic therapy, the infection could soon spread among other groups and become a wider threat.
The new strain seems to have “spread rapidly” in gay populations in San Francisco and Boston, the researchers wrote, and “has the potential for rapid, nationwide dissemination” among gay men.
The study was based on a review of medical records from outpatient clinics in San Francisco and Boston and nine medical centers in San Francisco.
The Castro district in San Francisco has the highest number of gay residents in the country, according to the University of California, San Francisco. One in 588 residents is infected with the new multidrug-resistant MRSA strain, the study found. That compares with 1 in 3,800 people in San Francisco, according to statistical analyses based on ZIP codes.
A separate part of the study found that gay men in San Francisco were about 13 times more likely to be infected than other people in the city.
The San Francisco researchers suggested that scrubbing with soap and water might be the most effective way to stop skin-to-skin transmission, particularly after sexual activities.
MRSA, for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, was once spread chiefly in hospitals. But in recent years, a number of healthy people have acquired it outside hospitals.
Nearly 19,000 people died in the United States from MRSA infections in 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
But dont any of you dare to say that it is behaviorly avoidable!! You bigots.
You should win!
Already projecting your hatred on us christians.
Cheap shot from a liberal or libertatrian.
You can’t normalize gayness. I guess you’ll blame
us evil heterosexual evangelical christians
for this one.
We need to make a quilt. Raise awareness. Educate. Wear some ribbons. Have a Congressional hearing. Throw some money at it. March on Washington. And if all else fails, have a candlelight vigil.
I sure hope that MRSA is not a sign of God’s wrath, because homosexual sex is not the only way it is spread.
I have read that the bacteria seems to often be found around seafood or shellfish. There was a local little boy who got it on his lip after running into a poll during a basketball game and numerous other anecdotal stories about MRSA that are totally unrelated to homosexual activity.
Newsom’s fault...
I don’t know about that but this is like the 4th time this article has posted today.
In other news we have a norva virus break out at OSU and the nursing home a few miles away from the dorms.
Which is known as a killer flu for the young and elderly.
Wash your hands.
I used to be a dental hygienist, and I have to tell you that transmitting AIDS through dental equipment had nothing to do with God, and everything to do with cheap, lazy dentists. The office where I worked in the eighties used non-autoclavable prophy angles, which means that they were simply wiped with alchohol between patients.
Well maybe it’s not the wrath of God but the
good book does warn of of this behavior. I’m perplexed as to why a few Christians would offend you but the narcissitic gay behavior does not?
It’s curable; don’t do it!
It’s too bad the culture has become irreconcilable to the truth. Those with differing opinions should be shamed into silence.
Not here, ever.
Veneral disease is almost to epidemic proportions in this country and your worried that a few people may attribute this to Jehovah.
is going to cost us $Millions.Speaking in purely scientific and practical terms if you don’t engage you’ll be safe.
Shellfish hmmm as in raw oyster shooters?
I over heard a guy say he got a scratched eyeball by a flying crab shell (fishing community) and more than one person told him get to the ER because the bacteria in raw crab in the eye could lead to a serious infection.
But MRSA is everywhere it is not exclusive to the orfices of gay men.
I think about spread of viruses/staph that when I see local nursing home employees wearing there work scrubs to the grocery store.
Should strip those work clothes off before coming into public. JMO
” but also through casual skin-to-skin contact and touching contaminated surfaces”
This is a bad trend... Drug resistant bacteria can be blamed largely on our society’s obsession with using antibiotics for everything - including the ineffective treatment of colds that are the result of a virus... The bacteria that survive are immune, and their children inherit that immunity. And bacteria like to have children very, very frequently.
With more effective treatments for HIV, many HIV-positive gay men have decided “what the heck, it can’t get any worse” and engaged in unprotected sexual activities. The problem is - it CAN, and WILL, get worse. Viruses, like bacteria, can mutate. HIV is especially good at mutating.
So this “barebacking” phenomenon, where gay men will have unprotected sex since they feel they already have the “big one” out of the way, will inevitably produce ever more virulent and drug resistant critters which will go on to harass the rest of society.
Mike Huckabee crossed a line when he said AIDS patients should be quarantined, but these folks aren’t doing themselves any favors by making a bad situation even worse.
Why, yes. Fire and Brimstone rained on them from on high. They weren’t wiped out by a disease that can be spread through mundane means like grabbing a doorknob.
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