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Thursday, May 17, 2018

Actions Have Consequences

5/15/18 NPR:
California has seen a record rise in cases of sexually transmitted diseases and a spike in the number of stillbirths caused by syphilis. It marks the third year in a row that the state has seen a rise in the spread of STDs.
More than 300,000 cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and early syphilis were counted in 2017, according to the latest report by the California Department of Public Health. Health officials said the upsurge constitutes a 45 percent increase compared to five years ago.
But what is "particularly concerning" to the department is that the number of stillbirths due to congenital syphilis increased to 30 — the highest number reported since 1995. And the overall cases of California babies born with the disease — passed through the placenta from their mothers — has more than quadrupled since 2013 to 278 last year. It can cause severe neurological problems, deformities or blindness, among other serious ailments....
The ubiquity of "hookup" apps is another contributing factor. "The internet and smart phones have made it very, very easy to create social and sexual connections between people," Bauer said, adding that short-lived relationships, during which many people don't bother to exchange meaningful contact information, makes it challenging to notify previous sexual partners of dangerous infections.
The data out of California are consistent with the most recent nationwide numbers available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which logged more sexually transmitted diseases than ever in 2016. More than two million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were diagnosed in the United States that year and early reports indicate 2017 may be another record setting year. 
You only need to look at the syphilitic damage to bones to realize how serious this is.  Part of what provoked an increase in sexual morality laws in the early to mid-19th century was syphilis.

1 comment:

  1. some people have to see it to believe it and do something, but the "slut-shaming grievance studies feminists may keep up the propaganda so the women in the sexually active years are as free to catch the diseases as they say the men are (a lot of their accusations about what men do tend to be straw man arguments based on what one man did.

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