Babies are dying of syphilis while 2.46 million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and other STDs were reported in 2018 according to The U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
That is a surge of STDs some refer to as gigantic because between 2014 and 2018 there has been a 71% increase in syphilis cases, a 63% increase in gonorrhea, and 19% more cases of chlamydia.
Have people become complacent about sexually transmitted diseases because there seem to be medicines that can often cure them, or are the number of cases increasing because of cell phone Apps which make it easier to hook up?
Reasons for STD Spread
The CDC report doesn’t directly address the question of why there are more people in the U.S. infected with STDs. This is not a study but rather a collection of data from doctors and hospitals which are required by law to report STDs.
But one reason the CDC doesn’t know WHY this is occurring is simply that the current administration has cut funding for such research and all CDC work even more than previous presidents, all since CDC spending was removed from the purview of Congress and bundled into the Health and Human Services budget.
Alex Azar is the current head of HHS. President Trump didn’t name a new medical expert to head HHS and instead promoted the former lawyer who was Assistant Director of HHD and agency council.
Budget Cuts
Facing a 40% drop in funding based on budget cuts and inflation, many clinics have been closed, testing for STDs has been cut, and educational programs about STDs have been reduced or eliminated.
So the surge in cases is almost certainly a low estimate because fewer people are being tested and there is much less access to medical care.
Babies
Even babies aren’t safe because that total includes some 1,300 cases of congenital syphilis in newborn babies.
Babies born with an STD are likely to be premature, weak, and often die so this STD crisis is NOT just punishment for adults who behave badly, it kills babies.
At least 78 of the 1,306 babies known to have been born with syphilis were stillborn and 16 died after birth. Not all mothers are tested for STDs at birth or even before since many Planned Parenthood Offices have been closed.
Teens and Adults
Infection in teens has soared, perhaps because they mistakenly believe that you can’t transmit any disease through oral sex. Although it is less likely that you can acquire, or transmit some STDs through oral sex, it is only a bit less likely, it is still relatively easy.
Although there are still laws in many states against sodomy (which includes oral sex) more than eight in ten adults who regularly have sex have oral sex at least once each year, while 35% of teens between 15 and 17 report having oral sex. Just how many teenagers lie about their sexual practices and partners is open to question since many teenagers normally lie just out of habit.
In 2018 approximately two and one half million adults in the U.S. have one or more kinds of STDs according to the latest combined reports.
The CDC got reports of 1.8 million cases of chlamydia, 580,000 cases of gonorrhea and 115,000 syphilis infections.
Although many STDs can be cured with antibiotics, when they go untreated too long syphilis in particular along with HIV may not be subject to any useful treatment. Syphilis causes irreversible nerve and brain damage.
In addition, there are rare newer strains of STDs that are much more difficult to cure and as more and as more overall cases occur the likelihood of a new, incurable and perhaps deadly STD will develop also increases.
The CDC warns that in oral sex, transmission can take place in either direction and that STDs can occur in multiple parts of the body simultaneously.
