<p>With a top national ranking it could surely do without, San Francisco has surpassed Detroit as the city with the highest per-capita rate of syphilis in the United States.</p>
<p>Driven by an increase in new cases among gay white men, the nation's syphilis rate rose 9.1 percent in 2002, the second consecutive increase after a decade of decline that had raised hopes the sexually transmitted disease could be eliminated in the country.</p>