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Statistics show that men who have sex with men— whether they identify as gay, bisexual, or other— have a higher risk of contracting an STD than any demographic, but many factors other than the specifics of how sex goes down in the bedroom contribute to this increased risk. Economic and societal factors such as income, the effects of emotional support on risk-taking, and the power and privilege structures of society have all been found to play a role in the likelihood of succumbing to an STD, especially HIV. Approximately 4.1 percent of Americans identify as gay, bisexual, or other, according...

Monkeypox is back, only this time it has a new variant that kills 10% of the people who get it. Currently, the disease is still in Africa, but that can change. For that reason, it’s time (again) that we talk about the problem of promiscuity among gay men, since they were monkeypox’s primary vector in 2022. One of the biggest topics in the 1980s was AIDS, a sexually transmitted disease killing gay men. It got them because of their lifestyle choices. Back in 1981, while I was in college, I worked as a secretary for two virologists who were on...

In new guidelines released Tuesday, U.S. health officials now recommend that certain people take the antibiotic doxycycline as a morning-after pill to lower the risk of some sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The latest recommendations only apply to gay and bisexual men and transgender women who have had an STD in the past year and are at high risk of getting infected again. While past research has shown that doxycycline works for those populations, there's not enough evidence to recommend the preventive treatment, known as doxy PEP, for all American adults, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted.

Bed bugs found at MSNBC’s Manhattan headquarters caused staffers to scatter ahead of the left-leaning network’s Super Tuesday coverage, The Post has learned. According to a memo obtained by The Post, an “unidentified insect” was spotted Sunday in the recently revamped studio 3A — home to special election coverage and “The Rachel Maddow Show” — at 30 Rock in Midtown. Additional studios on the third floor “They are scrambling,” an NBC source told The Post on Monday. “They’ve already been borrowing an unused local studio for some shows in recent weeks. So studio space is tight.”were also shuttered “out of...

As rates of sexually transmitted infections continue to skyrocket across the United States, a growing number of physicians are prescribing a commonly used antibiotic as a way to prevent chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis infections in gay and bisexual men and transgender women. Doxycycline is a class of medications traditionally used to treat bacterial STIs after someone has been infected. Yet recent research suggests that one 200mg dose of the drug can be effective in preventing such infections among men who have sex with men if taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex.

On March 3, an illegal bio lab was discovered in a believed-to-be vacant building in Reedley, California in Fresno County. City code enforcement stumbled upon the building in December 2022 when they discovered a garden hose running up into the building through a hole in the wall. In March, they obtained a warrant to inspect the property, and in April, the Fresno County Department of Public Health ordered an inspection of the facility. Investigators inspected the building that contained the lab in July and found a room used to make COVID-19 tests and pregnancy tests. They also found over 35...

Part of the reason cases of syphilis — as well as other STIs — are rising is because public health efforts to control these diseases are underfunded.

<p>N. Adam Brown, MD, MBA, is an emergency medicine physician and business expert. This past weekend, I stood with my husband looking up into the sky. People packed the pier on the Wharf in Washington, D.C., as a rainbow of fireworks sparkled in the warm, June sky. Music played. People laughed and danced. "Pride" was in full swing, and I was proud.</p>

Heather Meador and Anna Herber-Downey use dating apps on the job—and their boss knows it. Both are public health nurses employed by Linn County Public Health in eastern Iowa. They've learned that dating apps are the most efficient way to inform users that people they previously met on the sites may have exposed them to sexually transmitted infections. A nationwide surge in STIs—with reported cases of gonorrhea and syphilis increasing 10% and 7%, respectively, from 2019 to 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—isn't sparing Iowa. The duo has found that the telephone call, a traditional method...

For your daily laugh that NPR calls their evening newscast All Things Considered, on Saturday night they celebrated the new pro-abortion movie Call Jane with actress Elizabeth Banks. Over eight and a half minutes, NPR host Michel Martin had no difficult or challenging questions, just facilitations. Martin asked "How did this project come about and what attracted you to it?" And: "Do you have somebody in mind that you hope will see this film? And what are you hoping people will take away from it?" But the starkest answer came when Martin asked about making the movie just before the...

A New York man has been brutally shafted to last place on his grandmother’s “ranking board” because of his two new tattoos. Dan LaMorte, 27, took to TikTok on Monday revealing that his unnamed nana ranks her 10 grandchildren from most to least favorite on a display set up in her living room. “This is my grandma’s ranking board,” the grandson stated in the video — which quickly clocked up 1.6 million views on the social media app.

Catholic Church takes comfort in PM Lee's assurance of safeguarding marriage by not legalizing same-sex unions Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has announced that his country will amend a British colonial-era law to decriminalize gay sex but will not allow same-sex marriages, drawing mixed reactions from religious groups. In a televised speech on Aug. 21, PM Lee said the government will repeal Section 377A of Singapore’s Penal Code to decriminalize gay sex, noting that attitudes towards it have changed in the past 15 years since the state decided to keep the law that was not strictly enforced. “The government...

For the first time, U.S. regulators have officially authorized a condom to be used for anal sex, not just vaginal sex. The decision, announced by the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday, has long been sought by sexual health experts, who said it could encourage more people who engage in anal sex to use condoms to protect themselves against H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted infections. The risk of sexually transmitted diseases is “significantly higher” during anal sex than vaginal sex, an F.D.A. official said Wednesday. But until now, there has not been enough data to show that condoms are safe...

Until now men who have sex with men had to wait three months before donating. From Monday, gay men in sexually active, monogamous relationships can donate for the first time. Anyone who has had anal sex with a new or multiple partners in the past three months will have to wait three months to donate - regardless of their gender. It follows a review by the Fair (For the Assessment of Individualised Risk) steering group, which concluded switching to an individualised, gender-neutral approach was fairer and maintained the safety of the blood supply. The review's recommendations are to be implemented...

According to a new study, cases of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including chlamydia and gonorrhea could soon spike as the COVID-19 pandemic winds down. As we’re heading what the media has referred to as “hot vax summer,” experts are worried that STIs could return with a vengeance. Researchers analyzed positivity rates based on data from over 18.6 million tests performed across the US from January 2019 through June 2020. They found that testing for both chlamydia and gonorrhea hit their lowest point in early April 2020, when cases of COVID were on the rise.

President Joe Biden mistakenly blamed the “Tuskegee airmen” training program for fueling black American hesitancy about the coronavirus vaccine. “By the way, many of the older members of that community had memories of experimentation on black Americans that were not told about, like what happened, with the, you know, Tuskegee airmen and all those tests,” Biden said. “And so there was a great reluctance.”

In certain circles of San Francisco, a case of syphilis can be as common and casual as catching the flu, to the point where Billy Lemon can't even remember how many times he's had it. "Three or four? Five times in my life?" he struggles to recall. "It does not seem like a big deal." At the time, about a decade ago, Lemon went on frequent methamphetamine binges, kicking his libido into overdrive and silencing the voice in his head that said condoms would be a wise choice at a raging sex party. "It lowers your inhibitions, and also your...

"The act of participating in our country's election process is our civic responsibility and instrumental to our country's foundation. We should promote increasing voter turnout as opposed to any measures that adversely impact the ability to cast a ballot. In November, the Marlins proudly set out to promote the vote with our Election Day Feed the Polls initiative, providing meals to voters as our local election officials conducted free and fair elections. We support the Commissioner's decision to stand up for the values of our game and not hold this year's All-Star Game in the state of Georgia."

Actor-comedian Jim Carrey, a prolifically hostile opponent of President Trump and his supporters, heaped praise upon failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams on Monday, deeming her a “political superstar” who “rescued Georgia from the Red Hats.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Larry Kramer, the playwright whose angry voice and pen raised theatergoers’ consciousness about AIDS and roused thousands to militant protests in the early years of the epidemic, has died at 84. Bill Goldstein, a writer who was working on a biography of Kramer, confirmed the news to The Associated Press. Kramer’s husband, David Webster, told The New York Times that Kramer died Wednesday of pneumonia. “We have lost a giant of a man who stood up for gay rights like a warrior. His anger was needed at a time when gay men’s deaths to AIDS were...