2008 Woodie Awards
Don't fret about new gonorrhea strain
Becky Korpi
Issue date: 4/26/07 Section: Opinion
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Everybody's generation is known for making some kind of significant contribution to society. Our immigrant ancestors are remembered for their brave treks to this country; grandparents built entire barns before supper and walked to school uphill both ways without shoes, and our parents are heralded for going to Peter Frampton concerts while stoned.
My generation has helped make gonorrhea a drug-resistant "superbug," according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The report, which documented gonorrhea infections of heterosexual men in 26 U.S. cities, showed a significant increase of cases that do not respond to the common antibiotics primarily used to treat it, according to the CDC.
As a proud representative of Generation Y, I thought we were doing quite well in just spreading the sexually transmitted infection alone -- gonorrhea is now believed by the CDC to infect 700,000 people a year, most of whom are sexually active teens, young adults and blacks.
But contributing to making this nasty infection drug-resistant? Now we're overachievers.
Tom Schact, chief of staff and physician at the Vielmetti Health Center, has treated gonorrhea cases on campus for 17 years and said despite anxiety from U.S. health officials, the new strains are nothing to get frazzled about.
"Gonorrhea has always had some mild resistance issues," he said. "It has a long history of evolving; in the western United States there have been different strains for a long time -- the concern now is just that those strains are more widespread."
In other words, there's too much love between states right now. But tell the CDC to try breaking up with Illinois because Wisconsin is totally cuter. It's not that easy.
The CDC, however, thinks it's a better idea to freak out. A higher class of antibiotics -- given as a shot instead of a pill -- have now been recommended to treat the infection after the number of drug-resistant cases among heterosexual men spiked 7 percent in the last six years.
My generation has helped make gonorrhea a drug-resistant "superbug," according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The report, which documented gonorrhea infections of heterosexual men in 26 U.S. cities, showed a significant increase of cases that do not respond to the common antibiotics primarily used to treat it, according to the CDC.
As a proud representative of Generation Y, I thought we were doing quite well in just spreading the sexually transmitted infection alone -- gonorrhea is now believed by the CDC to infect 700,000 people a year, most of whom are sexually active teens, young adults and blacks.
But contributing to making this nasty infection drug-resistant? Now we're overachievers.
Tom Schact, chief of staff and physician at the Vielmetti Health Center, has treated gonorrhea cases on campus for 17 years and said despite anxiety from U.S. health officials, the new strains are nothing to get frazzled about.
"Gonorrhea has always had some mild resistance issues," he said. "It has a long history of evolving; in the western United States there have been different strains for a long time -- the concern now is just that those strains are more widespread."
In other words, there's too much love between states right now. But tell the CDC to try breaking up with Illinois because Wisconsin is totally cuter. It's not that easy.
The CDC, however, thinks it's a better idea to freak out. A higher class of antibiotics -- given as a shot instead of a pill -- have now been recommended to treat the infection after the number of drug-resistant cases among heterosexual men spiked 7 percent in the last six years.
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