Personal Imzy Blog / Community
STD rates reach record high in United States
STD rates reach record high in United States
The annual report, which was released on Wednesday, showed that the rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis -- the three most commonly reported STDs in the nation -- increased between 2014 and 2015, reaching an all-time high. Reported cases of primary and secondary syphilis rose by 19%, gonorrhea cases rose by 12.8%, and chlamydia cases rose by 5.9%, from 2014.
Is this a new generational gap? I’ve talked to a few young men who are using PrEP to protect themselves. The danger is something that I can see right at the start and it seems to be playing out just this way. Young men are taking PrEP, thinking it is the same as “A Condom in a pill” and then having lots and lots of unprotected high-risk sexual experiences. They won’t catch HIV thanks to the PrEP (maybe), but what about the bacteria? So we’re seeing a spike in bacteriological VD cases, and the biggest spike is amongst gay men. So what is there to do? People my age grew up with the spectre of HIV and all these other diseases and we had safe(r) sex drummed into us as much as possible. I have this terrible feeling that even if I were to reach out and educate some of these young men, that they would reject my advice because it meant going back to safe(r) sex. What is really quite horrible about all this is that a lot of the VD out there is growing resistant to medication. And then there is PrEP itself. I am very concerned that the more people use PrEP, and think of it as a “Condom in a pill” that we are essentially giving HIV access to a bumper crop of new hosts within which it can evolve resistance to PrEP. And then we have a spike in HIV again. It won’t be like it was in the 80’s and 90’s, with so many young men dying of influenza, or cancer, or something else that happened to take advantage of a blasted out immune system. It’s worrying and unfortunate and we’re going to have to start beating that drum again.


