Deadly Staph Infection MRSA Strikes Gay Community

[AngryAmish]

" new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found gay men are at increased risk to become infected with a new highly antibiotic-resistant strain of MRSA, also known as the Staph 'superbug'. The potentially deadly MRSA strain has already appeared in the gay communities of San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.
The new Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus strain, named USA300, is particularly resistant to front line antibiotics. Often referred to in the media as the 'superbug', MRSA is generally transmitted from skin to skin contact and can also be spread by touching contaminated surfaces, but the germ appears to be transmitted most easily through intimate sexual contact.

Dr. Binh Diep, PhD, a scientist at San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center and lead author of the report explained to the San Francisco Chronicle “his study found that up to 40 per cent of infections are occurring in the buttocks and genitalia, suggesting that the bug is spreading by sexual contact.”

Although the Center for Disease Control has not labeled it as an STD, sexually active gay men have been reported to be 13 times more likely to acquire the disease than other parts of the general public."


I know this was brought up yesterday but this article is so much better than the stuff on the wire services.

There are obvious sensitivities about unfairly branding gay men as diseased etc. It happened before when HIV first appeared. But this is scary stuff and we have to deal with this problem. Remember education is the first and most important step in public health.

[CorpGovActivist]

1. West Cork Wildflower and MRSA

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=flower+mrsa+%22west+cork%22

Broke a couple of months ago; pretty cool.

- Dave

[xchrom]

2. staph spreads easily period.

these new strains are impacting all kinds of vulnerable groups.

mrsa points out the need for education, research, and always always realizing that nature changes very fast sometimes -- with deadly consequences for people.

my partner died of staph -- and it wasn't even a super duper variety.

[terrya]

3. I just hope there people respond to dealing with this in a responsible manner.

Without any "well, they were asking for it" crap. I know I've seen that kind of thing around here.

[Warpy]

5. I don't think you'll get much of that

since it first started to appear in the community among sports jocks. Since the hypermasculine first developed it, gay men have no fear of being blamed for starting this one.

[originalpckelly]

15. Unless...the big tough guys have been...

I need to stop watching "Three Men and a Basketball."

[La Lioness Priyanka]

7. i hope so too.

:hi:

[SammyWinstonJack]

20. I can't imagine that being said here.

:wow: And it shouldn't be said at all, by anyone.

[JackBeck]

22. Looks like Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber

are fighting for Falwell's spotlight:

http://www.earnedmedia.org/cwa20115.htm

http://christiannewswire.com/news/91905372.html

[ProfessorGAC]

4. I Think It's Easy To Get In Any Community

My wife got it from a cat scratch and it took 13 weeks to treat. So, i would think that if you looked closely at any demographic, you might find plenty of them.

Perhaps if we looked at pet owners in the same way as this study, we could find the same thing.
The Professor

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. fuck.

[mondo joe]

8. This is the sort of thing we should expect when gays are demonized and made to

feel they have to hide their identities and activities.

Just another thing the right-wing fucks don't get.

[AngryAmish]

9. Somehow I don't think gays are demonized in the Castro District

I don't think morality of any kind applies to getting a disease.

[TommyO]

10. It doesn't, but there are already voices in the religious right

who are speaking out against all gay people, using this "new evidence" to damn us yet again.

[mondo joe]

12. But it's not just the Castro and it's not just MRSA. Public Health interests and Religious

Bigotry (or any other sort) are at cross purposes.

I don't think morality of any kind applies to getting a disease either - that's the point. In a culture that demonizes gays, gay identity and same-sex activity are hidden and unaddressed.

[AngryAmish]

14. I guess my point was a smaller one

In the Castro District the culture of that place does not make same-sex activity shameful and hidden. Yet in this particular case this particular disease has spread.

I agree with you otherwise. Cheers.

[mondo joe]

17. Thanks. Though I guess I'd still argue that even by the time in life when you get to

the Castro, you've already been imprinted with some cultural norms. Furthermore, the stigmatization of gays means that mainstream medicine fails to develop models that address the healthcare needs of gays, and even where there is intent to develop and deliver that care, the funding is limited again due to the stigmatization.

[originalpckelly]

11. This just in: Mike Huckabee has come out...

against letting gay men walk the streets to infect us with their MRSA plague.

[originalpckelly]

13. I bet ten bucks he brings this up in a stump speech.

He's that kind of sicko bigot.

[terrya]

16. Gay men with MRSA to be quarantined.

I wouldn't be surprised if he does mention this. Bigots need to pander to other bigots, after all.

[Bluebear]

21. They had ample opportunity to pray away the gay, so they have no one to blame but themselves.

[tekisui]

18. Quarintine the gays, he'll say.

More proof of their sin, he'll say.
Change the Constitution to God's Law, he'll say.


Wait...he's already said all these things. He is a sicko bigot.

You would think that America had learned its lesson about pegging diseases on sexuality.

[alfredo]

19. the world is getting very scary.