Gonorrhea becoming drug-resistant

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ATLANTA - The sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea is now among the "superbugs" resistant to common antibiotics, leading U.S. health officials to recommend wider use of a different class of drugs to avert a public health crisis.

The resistant form accounts for more than one in every four gonorrhea cases among heterosexual men in Philadelphia and nearly that many in San Francisco, according to a survey that led to Thursday's recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gonorrhea, which is believed to infect more than 700,000 people in the United States each year, can leave both men and women infertile and puts people at higher risk of getting the AIDS virus.

Since the early 1990s, a class of drugs known as fluoroquinolones has provided a relatively easy cure. These antibiotics, taken as tablets, include the drug Cipro.

But a growing number of gonorrhea cases is resistant to those drugs, and officials at the CDC for the first time are urging doctors to stop using fluoroquinolones and switch to cephalosporins, a different class of antibiotics, to treat everyone.

Those drugs — which include the generic ceftriaxone or brand name Rocephin, made by Swiss drug maker Roche Holding AG — must be given as a shot and aren't as readily stocked as Cipro on most doctor's shelves.

"Gonorrhea has now joined the list of other superbugs for which treatment options have become dangerously few," said Dr. Henry Masur, president of the Infectious Disease Society of America. "To make a bad problem even worse, we're also seeing a decline in the development of new antibiotics to treat these infections."

The CDC made the new recommendation after discovering that nearly 7 percent of gonorrhea cases among heterosexual men in a survey of 26 U.S. cities last year were drug-resistant. In 2001, only about 0.6 percent of gonorrhea cases among heterosexual men were drug-resistant.

"That leaves us with a single class of highly effective antibiotics," said Dr. John Douglas Jr., director of the CDC's division of STD prevention. Other experts called the situation perilous.

"We are running out of options to treat this disease," added Douglas, who said there are "no new drugs for gonorrhea in the drug development pipeline."

Previously, CDC recommended against fluoroquinolones to treat drug-resistant gonorrhea among men who have sex with men and in certain states, including California and Hawaii where most of these cases were turning up.

Described by Douglas as a "very wily" disease, gonorrhea has worked its way through decades of other treatment regimens, from sulfa drugs used in the 1930s and 1940s, to penicillin, which was used from the 1940s until the mid-1980s.

Gonorrhea, spread through sexual contact, is the second most commonly reported infectious disease in the United States, trailing only chlamydia, which the CDC says affects more than 2.1 million people yearly in the U.S.

The highest rates of infection are among sexually active teens, young adults and African-Americans. Because many people don't have obvious symptoms, they can unknowingly spread it to others. And having it makes people more susceptible to HIV. Gonorrhea's spread is preventable through consistent and proper use of condoms, experts said.

In women, the infection can cause pelvic inflammatory disease. In men, it can cause epididymitis, a painful condition of the testicles that can lead to infertility if untreated, the CDC said.

In the survey of gonorrhea cases among heterosexual men in 26 cities last year, Philadelphia had the highest percentage of drug-resistant cases with almost 27 percent, a dramatic increase from only 1.2 percent in 2004.

San Francisco's drug-resistant cases more than doubled between 2004 and 2006, from 10.3 percent to 22.5 percent. During the same period, Miami's cases spiked from 2.1 percent to 15.3 percent and Atlanta's climbed from 1 percent to 5.7 percent.

CDC says gonorrhea is drug-resistant

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"We are running out of options to treat this disease," added Douglas, who said there are "no new drugs for gonorrhea in the drug development pipeline."

ah ha- but dost thou know of a preventative measure guaranteed to work 100% of the time that would effectively reduce this STD dramatically? it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out...

let's say, ABSTINANCE

preventative medicine is the BEST medicine don't you think?

Who'll vote for me to be the next runner up for the CDC's Director of STD Prevention!!?

[Bent_Bladi]

lol - i agree muleh, why waste millions trying to find a cure when avoiding the actual illness is possible

sigh... people

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Abstinence students still having sex
WASHINGTON - Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex a few years later as those who did not, according to a long-awaited study mandated by Congress.

Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes, and they first had sex at about the same age as their control group counterparts — 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc.

The federal government now spends about $176 million annually on abstinence-until-marriage education. Critics have repeatedly said they don’t believe the programs are working, and the study will give them reinforcement.

However, Bush administration officials cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from the study. They said the four programs reviewed — among several hundred across the nation — were some of the very first established after Congress overhauled the nation’s welfare laws in 1996.

Not like vaccines
Officials said one lesson they learned from the study is that the abstinence message should be reinforced in subsequent years to truly affect behavior.

“This report confirms that these interventions are not like vaccines. You can’t expect one dose in middle school, or a small dose, to be protective all throughout the youth’s high school career,” said Harry Wilson, the commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau at the Administration for Children and Families.

For its study, Mathematica looked at students in four abstinence programs around the country as well as students from the same communities who did not participate in the abstinence programs. The 2,057 youths came from big cities — Miami and Milwaukee — as well as rural communities — Powhatan, Va., and Clarksdale, Miss.

The students who participated in abstinence education did so for one to three years. Their average age was 11 to 12 when they entered the programs back in 1999.

Mathematic then did a follow up survey in late 2005 and early 2006. By that time, the average age for participants was about 16.5. Mathematica found that about half of the abstinence students and about half from the control group reported that they remained abstinent.

“I really do think it’s a two-part story. First, there is no evidence that the programs increased the rate of sexual abstinence,” said Chris Trenholm, a senior researcher at Mathematica who oversaw the study. “However, the second part of the story that I think is equally important is that we find no evidence that the programs increased the rate of unprotected sex.”

Trenholm said his second point of emphasis was important because some critics of abstinence programs have contended that they lead to less frequent use of condoms.

Mathematica’s study could have serious implications as Congress considers renewing this summer the block grant program for abstinence education known as Title V. The federal government has authorized up to $50 million annually for the program. Participating states then provide $3 for every $4 they get from the federal government. Eight states decline to take part in the grant program.

Some lawmakers and advocacy groups believe the federal government should use that money for comprehensive sex education, which would include abstinence as a piece of the curriculum.

“Members of Congress need to listen to what the evidence tells us,” said William Smith, vice president for public policy at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, which promotes comprehensive sex education.

“This report should give a clear signal to members of Congress that the program should be changed to support programs that work, or it should end when it expires at the end of June,” Smith said.

Smith also said he didn’t have trouble making broader generalizations about abstinence programs based on the four reviewed because “this was supposed to be their all-star lineup.”

But a trade association for abstinence educators emphasized that the findings represent less than 1 percent of all Title V abstinence projects across the nation.

“This study began when (the programs) were still in their infancy,” said Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association. “The field of abstinence has significantly grown and evolved since that time and the results demonstrated in the Mathematica study are not representative of the abstinence education community as a whole.”

The four programs differed in many respects. One was voluntary and took place after school. Three had mandatory attendance and served youth during the school day. All offered more than 50 hours of classes. Two were particularly intensive. The young people met every day of the school year.

Common topics included human anatomy and sexually transmitted diseases. Also, classes focused on helping students set personal goals and build self-esteem. The young people were taught to improve communication skills and manage peer pressure.

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What a distorted title! "Abstinence" Students Still...

as if being abstinent is not a separate quality than being sexually active. I personally believe such a title would lure readers to think that there is no difference anymore btw the two.

But the overall message in the article is a good one. To reproduce a program that works. Folks are preaching but ain't practicing. And that implies that they really don't believe in what they preach.

So one way to improve this program is to focus on how to convince each other that abstinence is truly the healthiest remedy for illnesses and reduces a lot of drama within one's life.

Discussions on encouraging moderate social behavior and appearance should also be included in the renewed programs.


Who votes me to be the next President of public policy at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States!?





(LOL i think i'm going to be the most ridged person on the planet LOL)