The Centers for Disease Control has just issued some good news and bad news: Lung cancer rates are down but gonorrhea and syphilis are on the rise, mostly in gay men.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found lung cancer rates fell 2.6 percent per year among men and 1.1 percent per year among women. As the UPI reported:
“These dramatic declines in the number of young adults with lung cancer show that tobacco prevention and control programs work — when they are applied,” Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a statement.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of U.S. cancer death and the second most commonly diagnosed cancer among both American men and women. Most lung cancers are attributable to cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke, Frieden said.
In other words, the CDC acknowledges that some smokers have recognized the consequences of their actions and have accepted responsibility by changing their behavior. They didn’t blame someone else for their self-destructive habits.
Not so with gonorrhea , which increased rose 4 percent in 2012 from the year before, and syphilis, which rose a troubling 11 percent. The CDC blamed someone else because of homophobia and the supposed lack of access to the most affected populations (i.e. gay men.) Even though conclusion is not something that you’ll find in the CDC tables.
While all three diseases [including chlamydia] are curable with antibiotics, many people don’t get tested as recommended, said Gail Bolan, the director of the CDC’s STD prevention division. That’s especially the case for syphilis, where the rise is entirely attributable to men, particularly those who are gay or bisexual.
“We know that having access to high-quality health care is important to controlling and reducing STDs,” Bolan said in a telephone interview. “Some of our more-vulnerable populations don’t have access. There are a number of men who come in to our clinic for confidential services because they’re too embarrassed to see their primary care doctors.”
Right, they don’t go see their doctors because they are embarrassed, and they’re embarrassed because there are so many homophobes out there.
Aw, come on. Does this mean that gay men don’t know how to use a condom or they don’t know how to find a doctor? Too poor? There’s Medicaid. Can’t afford a condom? You’ve got to be kidding. Don’t know how to use it? Where have they been hiding?
As long as official government “experts” can find multiple excuses that rationalize self-destructive behavior, I suspect that the infection rate will continue. Funny how the CDC can see how taking responsibility for their own actions has improved the health of ex-smokers, but can’t see through the politically correct fog when it comes to sexually transmitted diseases.
Maybe this answers the question that some of my correspondents pose when they ask, “What’s it to you who is screwing who? It’s none of your business.” Putting aside the increased public health costs of this behavior, I guess it isn’t my business. I guess that means I shouldn’t care about these men, either, whatever the cause of their troubles.
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