HPV and Oropharyngeal Cancer

https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/basic_info/hpv_oropharyngeal.htm
Last autumn and winter I took some Coursera free classes in the medical field.  One I finished—medical statistics, and one I didn’t—gut microbiome. It was just too gross.  So I continue to get announcements to entice me to try again, something in the medical field.  Today it was HPV and Oropharyngeal Cancer.  I knew only a little about it—with the increased acceptance of oral sex, it has put many in danger of a disease they couldn’t have imagined in the pre-Monica days of “it’s not really sex.”
Here’s what CDC says it is, without ever suggesting that oral sex not be practiced:
“HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. Of the more than 100 types of HPV, about 40 types can spread through direct sexual contact to genital areas, as well as the mouth and throat. Oral HPV is transmitted to the mouth by oral sex, or possibly in other ways. Many people are exposed to oral HPV in their life. About 10% of men and 3.6% of women have oral HPV, and oral HPV infection is more common with older age. Most people clear HPV within one to two years, but HPV infection persists in some people.”
Because it takes years for the problems to develop, CDC recommends that 11- to 12-year-old boys and girls get two doses of HPV vaccine, although there are no studies to show it actually prevents these cancers
This fact sheet is a little more graphic and explicit.  https://www.cdc.gov/std/healthcomm/stdfact-stdriskandoralsex.htm

Syphilis on the rise among gay men

Data from 2015, analyzed with a new methodology, show that the incidence of primary and secondary syphilis among Men who have sex with men (MSM) was 309.0 cases per 100,000 people, compared with 2.9 per 100,000 among men who reported sex with women only. (Medpage Today, April 7)

April is STD awareness month.  Syphilis is passed from person to person through direct contact with a syphilis sore. In men, sores can occur on or around the penis, around the anus, or in the rectum, or in or around the mouth. These sores can be painless, so it is possible to have them and not notice them. (CDC fact sheet, rev. Feb. 10, 2017) Of course, CDC recommends condoms, but any sensible person would recommend chastity and monogamy.

 https://www.cdc.gov/std/syphilis/stdfact-msm-syphilis.htm

Condoms. No one calls it safe sex anymore

Even with 100% condom use, your teen-agers aren't safe. That's one of the lies kids are told. Oral sex--no evidence it reduces chance of an STD; anal sex, no evidence; vaginal sex a condom can reduce HPV about 70%, herpes about the same; chlamydia and gonorrhea consistent and correct condom use reduce the chance to about 50%, HIV reduce about 85%. Who would fly with crash statistics like this? As males get older, they are even less likely to use condoms than male teens. These diseases can cause permanent infertility in women and cancer in both men and women. There's only one true protection, but society says that's too difficult. The same group telling you that biology doesn't matter and can be changed with surgery and hormones or just by saying its true, says it's too painful to control that sexuality in your natural state.

  

Can you cite the crime reports?

There have apparently been a minuscule number of cases of men "transitioning"--dress, nails, estrodiol supplements, but still in tact--who have been assaulted when using the men's room. That's really unfortunate, but I've never seen a published crime or health report report about it. What I have seen is the 40% suicide rate and ridiculously high STD rate for transgendered male to female. Now that is reported in the medical literature, as well as high incarceration rate and homelessness, plus liver, cancer and heart problems from the hormones. In the social science soft literature, we're all to blame for their behavior and unhappiness. But why wouldn't the LGBTQ community go for the big prize of helping their fellow members instead of putting 51% of the population at risk for sexual assault?

 http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/gender/transgender/

 http://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-social-issues/key-affected-populations/transgender

 http://www.vocativ.com/culture/lgbt/transgender-suicide/

Transgender Women (male to female)

A systematic review of studies of HIV among transgender women suggests that the prevalence of HIV in the United States is 27.7% among all transgender women and 56.3% among black transgender women. Data also suggests high rates of HIV among transgender women globally. Bacterial STD prevalence varies among transgender women, but is based largely on convenience samples.

Providers caring for transgender women should have knowledge of their patients’ current anatomy and patterns of sexual behavior before counseling them about STD and HIV prevention. Most transgender women have not undergone genital affirmation surgery and may retain a functional penis; in this instance, they might engage in insertive oral, vaginal, or anal sex with men and women.

http://www.cdc.gov/std/tg2015/specialpops.htm

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(12)70315-8/abstract

A new meaning for “social media”

The internet is allowing more hookups for sex. The appearance of Craigslist in a given region was associated with a 15.9% increase in HIV incidence. More than 6,000 new cases of HIV infection could likely be attributed to the site each year. Most are for young gay and bisexual men, especially minorities. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2035585

Liberals aren’t

This past week has seen the outrage generated by parents of donor and invitro-fertilization children following a now-infamous Panorama magazine interview conducted with the fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana, wherein Domenico Dolce proclaimed, “You are born to a mother and a father — or at least that’s how it should be. I call children of chemistry, synthetic children.” Immediately, Elton John advocated a boycott of the designers’ products in retaliation for the perceived offense against his two sons, who were conceived via an egg donor and surrogate mother.”  http://www.npr.org/2015/03/16/393403211/elton-john-declares-boycott-against-dolce-gabbana

In another story a young woman named Heather wrote about how much she loved her mother and her partner (a lesbian couple), yet longed for her father. On the internet you would think she had suggested lynching them even though she wrote of fond memories with her mother’s lesbian friends and gay sponsored events. Children of other disrupted families are allowed to grieve, why not children of gay couples, she wonders. http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/17/dear-gay-community-your-kids-are-hurting/

A black liberal media personality, MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capeheart, in an op-ed apologized this past week for reporting on the Ferguson story before he had all the facts—particularly the “Hands up don’t shoot,” and I’d be surprised if he isn’t fired by Monday. It’s rare for any news journalist to sincerely apologize, liberal or conservative. He should be commended, not condemned. Just ask Juan Williams of Fox who was fired by NPR. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/19/hands-up-dont-shoot-did-not-happen-in-ferguson/

And my goodness, don’t even get started on the high STD and HIV rates among transgendered male to female persons. They are really messing with the stats for women.  I’d be surprised if studies will continue to be reported in JAMA.  It’s a tiny segment of the population with a huge problem. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/transgender/

And if you point out the high abortion rate for black women (about 38% of black pregnancies in NYC are aborted), then you are a racist—even if the government reports on it first.  I know this from personal experience when I posted the information on Facebook and was dropped by a liberal for being racist. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_07.pdf

Truth is a casualty when ideology is the goal. There was a time, even in my life time, when liberal was a proud word—stood for being open and tolerant to new ideas and exchange of information.  Now it means one must desire and vote for more government control and concede to the current culture or be called a hater.

HIV Infection Among Young Black Gay and Bisexual Men

“Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to bear the greatest burden of HIV infection in the United States.1 In fact, HIV is on the rise among all MSM, regardless of race or age, with the incidence of new infections increasing 12% annually between 2008 and 2010.2 Among MSM, however, youth and race converge to define a public health disaster of staggering proportions, with the greatest number of new HIV infections occurring among young black gay and bisexual men ages 13 to 24.2 In 2010, young black MSM accounted for 45% of new HIV infections among all black MSM and 55% of new HIV infections among young MSM overall.

The disproportionate impact of HIV on African Americans has been evident from the early days of the AIDS epidemic, with 261,000 deaths reported among blacks through 2010—a staggering 41% of total AIDS deaths—despite the fact that blacks account for only 12% of the U.S. population.3-5 Currently, the rate of new HIV infections among blacks in the U.S. is 8 times that of whites, with MSM accounting for most new infections among African Americans.”

Wait for it. . . It’s not just their risky behavior. . . Not just the higher rate of STDs among black men. . . Not just ignorance about the disease . . . Ready?  Stigma (aka other people’s fault) and lack of insurance.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/resource-center/HIV/Highest-risk/a/44567

http://www.medpagetoday.com/clinical-context/HIVAIDS/27887

http://www.hptn.org/web%20documents/HPTN061/Results/Pubs/KoblinCorrelatesHIVPLoS1.pdf

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2012/Pages/HPTN061.aspx

Medical shortcuts and acronyms are fascinating.  Black Men Who Have Sex with Men Only (BMSMO) and  Black Men Who Have Sex with Men and Women (BMSMW). Explains how some women become infected with HIV. They seem to be victims of some bad choices.

“BMSMW, in comparison to BMSMO, were significantly older, less educated, had lower incomes, were more likely to be unemployed, less stably housed, and more likely to have been incarcerated prior to enrollment. BMSMW were also more likely to use some drugs and had higher internalized homophobia scores, lower social support and higher frequencies of depression symptoms.”  Journal of Urban Health, 2013. DOI:10.1007/s11524‐013‐9811‐1

Safer sex?

I volunteer at a free clinic, and when my tasks are finished, I read the literature. Here's a brochure on STIs and condoms that I thought was interesting. Condoms don't reduce STIs at all for oral sex, and increase the risk for HIV; condoms during anal sex may decrease your risk for rectal chlamydia and cut your chance of getting HIV by up to half; condoms used every time can cut your chance of HPV by up to 70% (HPV causes cervical cancer and causes about the same number of deaths as HIV/AIDS every year); use of condoms every time can cut your chance of genital herpes by about 30%, but once you're infected you have it for life; using condoms every time can cut your chance of getting chlamydia or gonorrhea by about half; using condoms every time can cut your chance of getting HIV by about 85%--it kills about half a million a year. Only about 2/3 of sexually active teens use condoms, and as males age, they use them even less. All these odds assume correct usage and no breakage.

Now my question is, how many people would fly or drive with these odds of arriving safely?

And I have the references to the research if you need it.

The Medical Institute

STDs infect one in four teen girls

A CDC study released in March 2008 estimates that one in four (26 percent) young women between the ages of 14 and 19 in the United States – or 3.2 million teenage girls – is infected with at least one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases (human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus, and trichomoniasis).

Even though most of the young women had either received information/services on STDs or contraception, the recommendation was for more counseling, testing and treatment.  No mention of the obvious—chastity and celibacy to save their lives or fertility.

So I moved ahead to the 2012 study presented at the same conference. For some odd reason, the researchers were encouraged that there was more testing among African American women, those who had multiple sex partners, and those who received public insurance or were uninsured.  But all that showed them was there is a problem. I’m not sure why annual screenings are recommended as a solution when the retesting rates remain low.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/Newsroom/stdconference2012pressrelease.html

Who really cares? Bush or Obama?

As many faults as Bush brought to the table, Obama is making him look like a hero and statesman, which I doubt that he was. However, Bush was definitely a patriot, a committed Christian, and a man who loved his country. Obama is none of those.

In lives saved, Bush has no match in my life time. The embryonic stem cell executive order (it was never outlawed, it only limited government funding to cells lines already in use) allowed technology to catch up and save women’s bodies from becoming medical labs for experimentation, his moral leadership on abortion inspired thousands of local organizations and volunteers which are reducing that killing field, his trafficking in persons effort (there are more slaves today than during the 17-18th centuries of the Atlantic slave trade) and the PEPFAR AIDS drug assistance in Africa (Obama has let this slide since it wasn’t his idea), and freeing the women under control of the Taliban all put Obama, the peace prize prez, to shame.

AIDS affects gay men and and blacks more than any other demographic, but it was Bush, not Obama, who really stepped up to help. Just one more example of how people who blindly supported Obama where left out in the cold after he got their vote. Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said HIV/AIDS was a higher priority for Bush than it is for Obama, citing the ADAP waiting list and the distinction in PEPFAR as a key difference between the presidents.

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/aa/index.htm

HIV and HBV

Worldwide, hepatitis B virus (HBV) is the leading cause of chronic liver disease and death, accounting for up to half of all cases of cirrhosis and liver cancer.  Four hundred million people are infected with HBV in Asia and Africa with the infection occurring through perinatal transmission (before and after birth).  In more developed countries HBV is most often acquired during adolescence or adulthood through sex and drugs. Statistics from NEJM May 10, 1012.

Human immunodeficiency virus  (HIV) infects about 33 million people worldwide, the majority in Asia and Africa. According to the CDC, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM)¹ represent approximately 2% of the US population, yet are the population most severely affected by HIV and are the only risk group in which new HIV infections have been increasing steadily since the early 1990s.  Since the beginning of the US epidemic, MSM have consistently represented the largest percentage of persons diagnosed with AIDS and persons with an AIDS diagnosis who have died.

“HBV is 100 times easier to transmit sexually than HIV ( the virus that causes AIDS). HBV has been found in vaginal secretions, saliva, and semen. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if a person’s sexual partner is of the same or the opposite gender. If one partner has hepatitis B, the other one can get it. Oral sex and especially anal sex regardless (whether it occurs in a heterosexual or homosexual context), are possible ways of transmitting the virus.” http://www.liverdisease.com/hbvtransmission.html

Medical advancements can help, but humans obeying God’s laws of chastity and marriage will do miracles for global health.

High risk sexual behavior

What does the Bible consider high risk sexual behavior?
(10 commandments, OT; Hebrews, NT)
1) Any sexual relations outside the marriage bed (man and woman).

What does the government consider high risk sexual behavior?
(CDC)
1) Men who have sex with men
2) Women who have sex with men who also have sex with men
3) 5 or more sexual partners in the last 12 months
4) Oral or anal sex with multiple sex partners in the last 12 months
5) Any sex where money, drugs or something of value is exchanged
6) Sex with a person who injects drugs
7) Sex with a person who has HIV
8) Sex with a person who has been treated for other STDs in last 12 months

Solution seems pretty simple, doesn't it?

Health disparities

The new golden goose. Disparities. It's must be the magic word for getting grant$$.

African-Americans have the highest life time risk for HIV (1 in 22) compared with whites (1 in 170) and Hispanics (1 in 52). Sociologists and government health workers try to attribute this to poverty, homophobia and housing, and increasingly, you see geographic location thrown in. However, this idea is repugnant, insulting and degrading to the millions of low income men and women who do not have multiple same sex partners or are not unfaithful to their spouses.

Tiger and Arnold (Austrian males have the highest rate of promiscuity) and Weiner are certainly not poor or powerless, nor lacking in health insurance, yet they've chosen a promiscuous life style endangering the women they married and the children they've conceived.

It is personal choices not neighborhood, not income, not race that determines whether one will have HIV. Unfortunately, that choice may be a man choosing not to tell his wife or girlfriend that he is gay and has been having sex with men. It is his own homophobia, not mine.

HIV/AIDS and African Americans | Topics | CDC HIV/AIDS
HIV, AIDS and Men Who Have Sex with Men
Fact Sheet

Speaking of privacy

Apparently there are some who don't believe the government (layers and layers of departments of people) can keep a secret, so Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) wants to exclude records about AIDS, STDs and abortion from the electronic health records that are going to be required of all of our doctors. Doesn't that seem a little odd? Is that a racist smear against the President, Pelosi and Reid to find one more thing wrong with this plan? I just don't recall seeing that before. Do you suppose it was slipped into another funding bill, like armored vehicles or old growth forests?

3823

We're fat, lazy and addicted, but we can control the climate

This morning I was listening to a radio interview with Governor Strickland (Ohio) who gave a rah-rah presentation about what a boost bio-mass energy sales are going to be for an agricultural state like Ohio. This was prefaced by the usual blah-blah about the seriousness of global warming and what we're going to do about it, because we, the human race, can turn it around.

And the thought occurred to me:

We can't do the right thing for the one body we actually do control--we eat too much, full of bad stuff and don't exercise; we smoke, drink and use drugs, legal and otherwise, all of which we know are bad for us; but we claim not to be able to stop these bad habits. To top it off, we teach our children that a minuscule loop of latex will protect them from the most vicious and voracious bacteria and viruses in history. And we're going to stop global warming by putting corn into gas tanks, mercury into light bulbs, buying phony carbon exchanges and gazing at the moon on Earth Day?

Where's the tooth fairy when you need him?

3278 And we're giving AIDS/HIV advice and drugs to Africans?

Dr. Anonymous in her memoir Unprotected which was reviewed in the Dec. 14 WSJ reveals that medical personnel can warn college kids about healthier living--trans fat, exercise, sensible weight--but not that their sexual behavior is dangerous and unhealthy.

"I'm discussing a taboo topic here: the dangers of radical social agendas in my profession. My colleagues are well-intentioned, and care deeply about their patients. But campus counseling centers are whitewashing the painful consequences of casual sex, STDs and abortion.

They are promoting the notion that men and women are the same. They are not educating young people about future and family. In these issues, so central to campus health and counseling, we are failing our young people."

She can't suggest to a depressed female student that the source of her pain might be the casual sex vs. her desire for love and commitment.

When she treats a young homosexual college student engaged in "high risk behavior with multiple people she discovers by policy she cannot insist that he be tested for HIV. And if he were to submit to voluntary testing and the tests were to prove positive, she would not be allowed to report this information to the local health department--even as she would have to for any other communicable disease." [from the review]

Publishing details.