Religious right shows hatred of gays again
The headlines this week about a new "gay" infection were dramatic. FLESH-EATING BUG SPREADS AMONG GAYS, said one Australian newspaper, referring to a study about an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection affecting homosexual men in San Francisco and other American cities.
In the UCSF study, researchers found that men in a clinic for HIV-positive patients who had a history of having sex with men were 13 times more likely than other HIV-positive patients to get a particular form of community-associated staph infection called MRSA USA300. But this does not mean that there is a new "gay" form of MRSA, the study's authors say. USA300 has been around since 2002 and has appeared in at least 38 American states among heterosexual and homosexual patients.
The religious right are doing a great disservice to their flock. This kind of stigma presents a challenge. 'I'm not gay, so I'm not at risk,' whether it's about HIV, whether it's about MRSA. That's the big downside to this kind of biased reporting.
Those who do get infected with USA300 are commonly treated with the antibiotic Bactrim (trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole), which is still effective against the infection. But if that doesn't work, or a patient is allergic, doctors may have to resort to other antibiotics, many of them intravenous and expensive. Typically, patients need five or six days of treatment.
Even in San Francisco's Castro district, only one in 588 people is carrying this variant of MRSA, the study estimates. That compares with 1 in 3,800 people in the overall city of San Francisco.
Like other community forms of MRSA, this variant is "more virulent than the hospital strain," says Chambers. "It needs to be because it's taking on healthier people." That's cause for concern and increased vigilance, he says, but not panicky headlines.
- EPIDEMIC FEARED--GAYS MAY SPREAD DEADLY STAPH INFECTION TO GENERAL POPULATION, shouted a press release from the Concerned Women for America, a conservative public-policy group.
- another religious right site, wordpress, had headlines like THE NEW GAY DISEASE - MDR Staph Infections
- yet another, catholic.com, said AFTER LINKING NEW STRAIN OF STAPH TO GAY MEN, UNIVERSITY SCRAMBLES ...
There were MANY more religious right sites that jumped on with hateful headlines.
Can you feel the love?
But is there a new HIV-like public health epidemic on the horizon? Not likely, says Dr. Henry (Chip) Chambers, coauthor of the study, which was published this week in the online edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine. "This is definitely not the new AIDS," says Chambers, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). "HIV is a life-threatening disease that is incurable and necessitates lifelong treatment," adds Bill Stackhouse, director of the Institute for Gay Men's Health at the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York.In the UCSF study, researchers found that men in a clinic for HIV-positive patients who had a history of having sex with men were 13 times more likely than other HIV-positive patients to get a particular form of community-associated staph infection called MRSA USA300. But this does not mean that there is a new "gay" form of MRSA, the study's authors say. USA300 has been around since 2002 and has appeared in at least 38 American states among heterosexual and homosexual patients.
The religious right are doing a great disservice to their flock. This kind of stigma presents a challenge. 'I'm not gay, so I'm not at risk,' whether it's about HIV, whether it's about MRSA. That's the big downside to this kind of biased reporting.
Those who do get infected with USA300 are commonly treated with the antibiotic Bactrim (trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole), which is still effective against the infection. But if that doesn't work, or a patient is allergic, doctors may have to resort to other antibiotics, many of them intravenous and expensive. Typically, patients need five or six days of treatment.
Even in San Francisco's Castro district, only one in 588 people is carrying this variant of MRSA, the study estimates. That compares with 1 in 3,800 people in the overall city of San Francisco.
Like other community forms of MRSA, this variant is "more virulent than the hospital strain," says Chambers. "It needs to be because it's taking on healthier people." That's cause for concern and increased vigilance, he says, but not panicky headlines.
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