Wednesday, November 14, 2007

We're number one! We're number one!

In STDs, that is:
More than 1 million cases of chlamydia were reported in the United States last year — the most ever reported for a sexually transmitted disease, federal health officials said Tuesday.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they think better and more intensive screening accounts for much of the increase, but added that chlamydia was not the only sexually transmitted disease on the rise.

Gonorrhea rates are jumping again after hitting a record low, and an increasing number of cases are caused by a "superbug" version resistant to common antibiotics.

Syphilis is rising, too. The rate of congenital syphilis — which can deform or kill babies — rose for the first time in 15 years.

"Hopefully we will not see this turn into a trend," said Dr. Khalil Ghanem, an infectious diseases specialist at Johns Hopkins University's School of medicine.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

If you look at the numbers, America isn't a first world nation. It's a second world nation. Compare the numbers in the US with Europe & Canada, and then compare them to China & Brazil. We're more like China & Brazil than Europe & Canada.

Skemono said...

Um... which numbers? I admit I don't know the exact criteria by which a country is deemed "first-world", but I'm betting that it isn't the STDs in their population.

Unknown said...

STDs actually are one of the determiners of standard of living as they go to healthcare and education.

US is aberrant from first world nations in the following areas:

Violent crime, per capita GDP, Gini index, energy consumption, pollution, education, home ownership, racial equality, sexual equality, access to health care, cost of health care, diet, amount of exercise, drug use, capital punishment, individual liberty, infant mortality, deaths of pregnant women, and basically any other criteria that goes to standard of living.

We're right in line with the leading second world nations, however.

Skemono said...

Huh. Keen.