Washington Blade - December 10, 2004

LOS ANGELES (AP) - County health officials are having trouble finding a TV station willing to air a public service announcement about syphilis that employs a lumpy, red cartoon character named "Phil the Sore." Los Angeles-area broadcasters said the ad is in poor taste, but the county health agency said it is simply trying to reach gay men - the group at greatest risk of getting the sexually transmitted disease, which has been on the rise in recent years. In the 30-second ad, Phil follows two men going home together. As the men later part, one of them, dressed in a bathrobe and underwear, says, "Let's do it again sometime." Phil then calls in his whole family, whose members carry boxes labeled "brain damage," "rash" and "blindness" - all of which can result from syphilis. None of the five Los Angeles-area television stations that were approached has run the ad. KCBS spokesman Mike Nelson said he was troubled that the ad took such a lighthearted tone about a serious disease.

Study links anti-gay discrimination to mental health problems

LONDON - New research shows direct correlations between anti-gay discrimination and mental health, according to Gay.com UK. Nearly a third of lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Britain have attempted suicide, the new study by the Imperial College for the British Journal of Psychiatry found, Gay.com UK reported. The research surveyed 1,285 gays in Britain and found that those who were bullied at school or suffered a recent attack because of their sexual orientation may be more likely to experience mental health problems, according to media reports. Most of those surveyed - almost 85 percent - experienced some type of violence in the past five years, and many linked those occurrences to their sexual orientation. Most also suffered from mental health problems including sleep disturbance, anxiety and depression, the study found. "The results of this research show that there is a likely link between levels of discrimination and an increased risk of mental health problems," Dr. James Warner of Imperial College London told Gay.com UK.

New study links diet pills, moms with gay daughters

MINOT, N.D. - A new study from Minot State University shows that mothers who take pills during pregnancy to slim down and for thyroid problems may be more likely to give birth to lesbian daughters, the Sunday Times of Britain reported. Professor Lee Ellis and his team at the North Dakota college studied thousands of pregnant women and the effect of prescription drugs on their babies, the Times reported. The researchers found that the drug thyroxine, used to treat thyroid deficiency, and diet pills that are amphetamine-based may influence sexual orientation among female children, according to the newspaper. Mothers of gay daughters are eight times more likely to have taken such medicine, and lesbian daughters were born most often to women who took such drugs during the first three months of pregnancy, the Times reported. Ellis and the university team studied the mothers of more than 5,000 students, finding that thyroid pills were taken by 5.2 percent of lesbians' mothers, compared to 1 percent of mothers who had heterosexual daughters, the newspaper reported. Diet pills were reported taken by 2 percent of mothers of lesbians, compared to 0.2 percent of mothers who had heterosexual children, according to the Times. The study also claims that pregnant women who experience a great deal of stress are more likely to give birth to a gay son.

Meth's aphrodisiac effect explains its hold on addicts, officials say

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) - At a recent task force meeting on the epidemic of crystal methamphetamine use in Appalachia, Gov. Phil Bredesen winced when a federal prosecutor described the illegal popular gay club drug as an aphrodisiac. Doctors and government officials don't like to talk much about it, but there is an obvious reason people get hooked on methamphetamine: sex. Meth eventually destroys the sex drive, but for a short while it can boost sexual appetite and performance more powerfully than drugs such as cocaine, doctors say. For obvious reasons, government officials want to focus on the misery meth causes. Use of the addictive drug can cause brain damage, violent behavior and hallucinations, and exposure to the potentially explosive vapors during the manufacture of meth can cause respiratory problems, headaches and nausea. In many gay clubs in larger cities, meth is often injected, putting users and their partners at risk for HIV, hepatitis C and other sexually transmitted diseases.

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