Free Republic

The rate of syphilis infection among homosexual men has increased to a level not seen since the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Capitol Hill Wednesday. “We’re concerned about our high levels of syphilis among men who have sex with men — really we’re back to the level of disease — burden of disease — in gay men that we were seeing before HIV in this country,” said Gail Bolan, director of the CDC’s Division of STD Prevention. She was speaking at an event held...

If people manage to be proud of being perverts, it stands to reason that they can also be proud of the horrible diseases they contract through their perversion. That’s why Twitter is acrawl with the #ShoutYourStatus hashtag, in honor of April being STD Awareness Month: Seems to me that with the virally disproportionate spread of STDs among practitioners of sodomy, it would make more sense to “raise awareness” about the natural consequences of sexual promiscuity during June, which President Obama regularly dubs “LGBT Pride Month.” Nonetheless, and speaking of pride and promiscuity, you oughta head on over to Twitter and...

In his first year in office, President Obama lifted an entry ban on foreigners with HIV. In his final year in office he will lift the entry ban on three more sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The president's own Health and Human Services department says this guarantees more infections in the United States, proving once again that immigration is the defining issue for politicians like Obama. Increased immigration trumps all other concerns. First, some background. In 1993, a clause specifically designed to reduce the spread HIV/AIDS into the United States was added to the Immigration and Nationality Act. It passed the...

Half of gay and bisexual black men and a quarter of gay and bisexual Hispanic men will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetimes, the Centers for Disease Control announced in a first-of-its-kind study on Tuesday.

The administration has decided to let immigrants with three sexually transmitted diseases known for causing sores or lesions on genitalia to enter the United States, an expansion of a previous decision to let in those with HIV. The Department of Health and Human Services this month opened the borders to those with the STDs, deeming the communicable diseases not a big threat to the United States.

In June 1495, the Italian historian Niccolo Squillaci wrote a letter describing a horrific disease that was sweeping through Europe. “There are itching sensations, and an unpleasant pain in the joints; there is a rapidly increasing fever,” he wrote. “The skin is inflamed with revolting scabs and is completely covered with swellings and tubercules, which are initially of a livid red color, and then become blacker.” And, tellingly, “It most often begins with the private parts.”

Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart murdered by Italian composer and contemporary Antonio Salieri? Rumors have persisted since Mozart’s death in 1791. But the idea truly went global nearly 200 years later with the appearance of Peter Shaffer’s fictionalized account of the life and death of Mozart as seen through the eyes of his contemporary and competitor Salieri in Amadeus, first the Tony award-winning play in 1979, and the then the film of the same name by Milos Foreman which won an Oscar for Best Picture in 1985. Scholars have largely and uniformly debunked the theory, including Shaffer’s portrayal of Salieri as...

Alcohol Tax Hike in US 'Lowers Gonorrhea Rates' Tax hikes could help prevent sexually transmitted infections, scientists have claimed, after cases of gonorrhea fell 24% in Maryland since the introduction of alcohol price increases. According research by the University of Florida, since tax increases on alcohol largely decrease consumption, and less excessive drinking reduces 'risky' sexual behaviour, STI rates can be positively impacted by the measure. Researchers claim that in the 18 months after Maryland increased its alcohol taxes from 6% to 9%, there were 2,400 fewer statewide cases of gonorrhea. The team used data from the National Notifiable Disease...

It is now 34 years since the discovery and diagnosis of a peculiar and deadly disease afflicting homosexual men called acquired immune deficiency syndrome or AIDS. By now, knowledge of AIDS and of how the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is transmitted (via sex and the exchange of bodily fluids) is commonplace. And yet, RT reports, May 30, 2015, that the U.S. is seeing a sharp increase in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among men who have sex with men, because of social media like Grindr.

The news in this year's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on sexually transmitted diseases is not good. The number of cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea in the United States increased between 2013 and 2014, after being on the decline for several years. Cases of syphilis, which have been on the rise for the last decade, shot up in 2014. Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis are the three most common STDs in the United States that are also notifiable, meaning health departments are required to report new cases to the CDC. (HIV and shigella are also notifiable STDs.) Chlamydia is...

Charlie Sheen’s announcement that he is HIV positive has created a huge uproar as critics attack him from every direction, but the truth is that Charlie Sheen is simply a reflection of our society as a whole. You see, the truth is that it isn’t just big Hollywood stars that are engaged in insanely risky sexual behavior. According to the CDC, there are 110 million cases of sexually-transmitted disease in America today, and another 20 million STD cases are added to that total every year. The United States has the highest STD infection rate in the entire industrialized world, and...

Hundreds of thousands of people could unwittingly be carrying a newly-identified sexually transmitted infection, scientists warned today.New research has revealed that an infection called Mycoplasma genitalium (MG) - first identifed more than 30 years ago - is transferred through sexual contact.It is now estimated that one per cent of the British population aged 16-44 is infected

In 2012, AIDS activists in Los Angeles helped pass a law requiring condom use on all porn sets within county lines. In 2014, a federal court upheld the law, finding that the First Amendment doesn't excuse employers from basic health and safety regulations. Now the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has turned to the rest of California, trying to get the mandatory condom requirements on a statewide ballot. "Organizers said they collected 557,138 signatures from registered voters, more than the 365,880 they needed by Monday for the initiative to be on the ballot in November 2016," Reuters reports.

California lawmakers Thursday approved one of the toughest mandatory vaccination laws in the nation, legislation that would eliminate the option for parents to keep their children from being vaccinated based on religious or other personal beliefs. The measure, the most controversial taken up by the Legislature this year, would require all children who enter kindergarten in California to be vaccinated against diseases including measles and whooping cough unless a physician approves an exemption based on medical conditions such as allergies and immune system deficiencies. “As a mother, I understand the decisions we make about our children’s health care are deeply...

Two of the media’s favorite tropes met this week in an eye-catching story about the award-winning creative idea of three teens in England: condoms that change color when they detect a sexually transmitted infection. It’s the “whiz-kid-makes-scientific-discovery” tale plus sex. No wonder it’s trending on everything from BuzzFeed to the Washington Post. But we’ve seen before that the whiz kid narrative can be oversold (or, as I’ve chronicled before, incredibly convoluted), and that’s again the case here, at least so far as most media outlets are selling it.At first blush, the concept sounds pretty creative: find out instantly when it...

Sober Scriptural Wisdom on Avoiding the Whirlwind of Lust By: Msgr. Charles PopeThere is a marvelous chapter in the Book of Proverbs that ought to be studied by every young person who must live in this lustful world. Its sets forth plainly the stance that any son or daughter of God should have regarding the lust so often celebrated by this age.Many preachers and teachers wince at the Book of Proverbs on this topic since it tends to portray seduction and lust as coming from women.However it must be recalled that Proverbs features a father speaking to his son....

Thinking of making this a poster, or put it on a shirt...or something.

According to the Liberian Observer, a sex worker visited soldier Floson Louise at his army barracks in Liberia.“When she slept at the EBK (barracks), it was thereafter the soldiers contracted the disease, and could not survive despite “intensive treatment” at the various Ebola Treatment Units in Monrovia,” a source told the Observer.The sex worker was suffering from Ebola and passed the deadly disease to the soldier who unknowingly spread it to seven other soldiers. The Observer further reports that the army barracks are being decongested to ease the spread of the disease.

It’s the same ballpark where Babe Ruth played his rookie season in 1914. It’s the same hardball theater where Ted Williams homered on his final big league swing, Sept. 28, 1960. It’s where Mickey Mantle made his last out on the same date in 1968. And on Sunday, it’s where Derek Sanderson Jeter will finish a 20-year major league career that defined a game and an era. Cities, teams, ballparks, legends, dates. Everything connects in baseball. Degrees of separation are minimal. Ruth played with Lefty Gomez, who played with Early Wynn, who played with Tommy John, who played with Don...

Melissa Mark-Viverito, 45, shared her diagnosis on Twitter on Sunday She learned she had the infection after her first appointment with a gynecologist in two years - and encouraged women to get checked HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection and can lead to cervical cancer, as well as other cancers New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito has revealed she has 'high risk HPV', a sexually-transmitted disease that can cause cancer. She made the announcement on Twitter on Sunday, explaining that she learned about her human papillomavirus diagnosis on Friday following a long overdue gynecologist's appointment. [Snip]...