Toronto syphilis rates soar 800 percent

Big News Network ^ | February 16, 2004 | Staff

[Loyalist]

The rate of syphilis infection has soared 800 percent in the past two years, prompting Toronto health officials to call for education and prevention funding.

Nearly 280 Torontonians tested positive for syphilis in 2003, up nearly 45 percent from 195 in 2002, the Toronto Sun said Monday, quoting a report to be presented next week to Toronto's health board. Those numbers are up from just 30 cases a year from 1997-2001.

Nearly three-quarters of the cases were among men who have gay, unprotected sex, the report said.

The city tried to fight the rise last spring with a month-long poster campaign. The 1970s-themed ads featured attractive men in disco gear with the slogan Look what's back.

Toronto's Hassle-Free Sexually Transmitted Disease clinic reported the campaign spurred more people to get tested -- nearly 3,400 people in 2003, compared to 250 the year before.

While alarming in the city, the figures are largely representative of a trend across North America and Europe, the newspaper said.

Untreated with antibiotics, syphilis can lead to blindness, insanity and death.

[BossLady]

Holy Merde!

[Salvation]

Abstinance!

[Salvation]

**This is the country that recognized gay marriages recently. Enough said!**

Bingo bumpo!

[fatima]

Coleus,Bump.

[3catsanadog]

Is it one of the province's or all of Canada that allows same-sex marriages?

[3catsanadog]

The rate of syphilis infection has soared 800 percent in the past two years, prompting Toronto health officials to call for education and prevention funding.

If people in Canada and the USA don't know by now how to prevent STD's, more money thrown at it won't help. What's it been now, 20 years, that TV ads, magazine articles, etc., have touted "Put a rubber on it and you won't get sick".

[Loyalist]

The federal government is responsible for the laws of marriage and divorce in Canada, while provinces control the solemnization and licensing of marriage.

The legal definition of marriage remains, in Canada, one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. And God willing, will stay that way.

However, the Ontario and British Columbia Courts of Appeal have declared the common-law definition of marriage, as embodied in the federal Marriage Act, to be contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

What we have is a queer (pardon the pun) legal situation, in which it is now legal in two provinces to issue marriage licences to homosexual couples, while they are not, in the eyes of the federal government, legally married.

The other provinces have not issued, nor will issue, marriage licences to homosexual couples.

[Old Professer]

Early tourist season?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[vikingchick]

The 1970s-themed ads featured attractive men in disco gear with the slogan Look what's back.

As long as it isn't leisure suits, I can go on....

[caisson71]

Yes it does, everytime.