AEGiS-AP: Gonorrhea Cases Increase Among Gay Men

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Gonorrhea Cases Increase Among Gay Men

The Associated Press; 50 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020 - Friday, September 26, 1997; Page A06

ATLANTA, Sept. 25 -- Cases of gonorrhea among homosexual men have more than doubled at some U.S. clinics, suggesting that sexual precautions are not being taken as seriously now that the AIDS epidemic is slowing, the government said today. "We have heard anecdotes throughout the country that people feel HIV is no longer the threat it used to be," said Helene Gayle of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We look at this as an indicator of the potential that people are returning to unsafe sexual behavior."

In a Portland, Ore., clinic, 74 homosexual men had gonorrhea in 1996, compared with 33 cases in 1995. The number also more than doubled in Seattle, from 51 cases in 1994 to 115 cases in 1996.

Homosexual men accounted for 8.7 percent of all gonorrhea cases in clinics in 26 U.S. cities in 1996, up from 5 percent three years earlier, the CDC said. The figures are based on the first 20 men with a diagnosis of gonorrhea in each clinic each month.

Overall, gonorrhea has declined in the United States. The CDC said there were about 325,000 cases in 1996, down from 392,000 the year before. That makes the CDC even more concerned.

"Against the backdrop of a national decline, an increase in the actual number of cases is even more striking evidence of an increase in unsafe sexual behavior," said Michael St. Louis of the CDC. "You have to work harder to get it."

Gonorrhea is one of the most common infections in the United States, causing painful, burning urination and a puslike discharge from the urethra or vagina. But some people don't show any symptoms.

Richard Elovich, director of HIV prevention for the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York, cited a couple of reasons homosexual men may not wear condoms.

"Men who are sometimes looking for intimacy, who want to trust their partner as a way of having a kind of real sex, are not going to use condoms," Elovich said.

He also said some may see prevention slogans the same way smokers see the surgeon general's warning on the side of a cigarette package. "They see it but don't think about it," he said.

Copyright 1997/The Associated Press. Reproduced with permission. Reproduction of this article (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the Permissions Desk, The Associated Press, 50 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020.
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