CWA Offers Poisoned Olive Branch

Via their spokeshater Matt Barber, the Concerned Women Of America wants to ally with gay rights groups to fight the spread of MRSA and call for the closure of all bathhouses and sex clubs.

"We now have a wonderful opportunity for ideological opponents to come together for the common good. Steps must be taken to keep this MRSA outbreak, which is occurring within certain segments of the homosexual community, from becoming a more widespread epidemic.

"HRC and other homosexual groups have a profound leadership role in their communities and a responsibility to protect their members from behaviorally related threats to their health and well-being. Therefore, these groups should publicly condemn those specific 'high-risk behaviors' which this study has concluded are responsible for spreading MRSA among homosexuals.

"We're asking HRC and other groups to denounce, through word and deed, 'sex with multiple partners,' 'group sex [parties]' and to actively promote the notion that it is never okay to 'use methamphetamine and other illicit drugs.'"

"In light of this behaviorally related MRSA outbreak," said Barber, "we additionally ask HRC and other groups to call on local health agencies to shut down the many bathhouses and sex clubs around the country where men meet for anonymous sex with other men, often multiple partners, on a daily basis. These places create the 'perfect storm' for infectious disease, including MRSA.

"Now's the time for us all to come together," concluded Barber. "Let's do what needs to be done to help curtail this regrettable MRSA outbreak."

No response as of yet from the HRC. Note that Barber makes no call for the closure of any of the country's thousands of strip clubs and straight sex venues. The city of New York estimates that the city's four bathhouses only see about 2500 customers per week. Out of what, 500,000 queers? Seems like a drop in the bucket compared to what straights have available.

UCSF Apologizes For MRSA Report

UCSF has apologized for the interpretation of their just-released MRSA study, saying that the study's "medical jargon" caused the press and general public to misinterpret their findings. Right-wing and Christianist groups lept on the UCSF study, issuing statements about the "inherent unhealthiness" of gay sex.

"We deplore negative targeting of specific populations in association with MRSA infections or other public health concerns,” it concluded. Dr. Henry Chambers, one of the report’s authors and a professor of medicine at the university, said he was surprised by how the report had been spun.

“I think we were looking at this from a scientific point of view and not projecting any political impact,” he said. “We were focusing on the data. You want to make sure it’s as right as possible and written up in a form that reviewers would understand what you’re trying to say, and do it in a clear manner so it’s not subject to misinterpretation. Which is what happened later, it appears.”

One of the major sore points for some critics was a quote attributed to the report’s lead author, Bien Diep, a researcher who said he was concerned about “a potential spread of this strain into the general population.”

Mr. Diep, 29, said on Friday he regretted not being more thorough in communicating his research to reporters. He said that the term “general population” was part of medical jargon used in the report, which did not translate well.

“It’s really meant to be used to mean all inclusive, including the men-who-have-sex-with-men population,” he said.

While I'm happy to see the clarification, it also sounds like UCSF is doing some PC duck-and-cover. While MRSA does indeed strike the general population, the fact that gay men appear to be much more at risk is a valuable message, even if it does provide hate ammo to our enemies.

Quelling The MRSA Panic

The CDC has issued a statement in an attempt to quell the "dirty gays spreading MRSA superbug" panic being fanned by right-wing Christianist websites and news organizations.

The strains of MRSA described in the recent Annals of Internal Medicine have mostly been identified in certain groups of men who have sex with men (MSM), but have also been found in some persons who are not MSM. It is important to note that the groups of MSM in which these isolates have been described are not representative of all MSM, so conclusions can not be drawn about the prevalence of these strains among all MSM. The groups studied in this report may share other characteristics or behaviors that facilitate spread of MRSA, such as frequent skin-to-skin contact.

CDC’s extensive and continuing study of invasive MRSA in 9 US states indicates that these strains are rare. CDC continues to monitor resistance patterns and strain characteristics in MRSA isolates submitted to CDC for a variety of investigations. Bacteria are able to acquire resistance to antibiotics. It is concerning that these bacteria are becoming resistant to more antibiotics than the typical community associated-MRSA strains because this limits the available treatment options. Fortunately, there are still effective choices available to treat infections when antibiotics are required, including those antibiotics given by mouth. It remains important to do what we can to prevent transmission of these strains and of MRSA in general.

MRSA is typically transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, which occurs during a variety of activities, including sex. There is no evidence at this time to suggest that it MRSA is a sexually-transmitted infection in the classical sense.

The story linked above includes advice on how to prevent MRSA. Short answer: soap and water.

HomoQuotable - Joe Solmonese

"We've come to expect hysteria and gross distortions from an organization like this and normally their bigoted rants don't even warrant a response. But the statement today about MRSA is beyond the pale. In typical fashion, they disregard the facts and instead chose to demagogue the issue in order to fear-monger. Serious medical issues deserve serious consideration, not wildly off-the-mark press releases from anti-gay groups trying to capture media attention. We saw this kind of hysteria in the early 1980's around HIV/AIDS, I'll be damned if we will sit idly by in 2008 and let them perpetrate that type of anti-gay hysteria without calling them out on it." - HRC head Joe Solmonese, responding to the below statement from Concerned Women Of America spokeshater Matt Barber.

Matt Barber: "The human body is quite callous in how it handles mistreatment and the perversion of its natural functions. When two men mimic the act of heterosexual intercourse with one another, they create an environment, a biological counterfeit, wherein disease can thrive. Unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences.

"In recent years our culture has adopted a laissez faire attitude toward sexual deviancy. Television shows like Will and Grace glorify the homosexual lifestyle while our children are taught in schools that homosexuality is a perfectly healthy, alternative sexual 'orientation.' 'Stay out of our bedrooms!' we're often commanded by militant 'gay' activists.

"Well, now the dangerous and possibly deadly consequence of what occurs in those bedrooms is spilling over into the general population. It's not only frightening, it's infuriating.

"Citizens, especially parents, need to stand up and say, 'No More! We will no longer sit idly by while politically correct cultural elites endanger our children and larger communities through propagandist promotion of this demonstrably deadly lifestyle'. Why does it take a potentially deadly staph epidemic for people to acknowledge reality? Will that even do it? Enough is enough!"

RELATED: Last week MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named CCW president Wendy Wright the "Worst Person In The World". Olbermann's "Worst Person" is a recurring feature on his show.

Staph Superbug Cases Spiking In Gay Men

Doctors and hospitals are seeing a big surge in staph superbug infections in gay men around the country.

San Francisco General Hospital researchers have been chasing the rogue strain of drug-resistant staph called USA300 since they first isolated it from a patient specimen seven years ago.

With every turn, the aggressive and persistent bug keeps getting worse. Now, a new variant of that strain, resistant to six major kinds of antibiotics, is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles.

City doctors first spotted the original USA300 during tests for patients treated at a walk-in clinic for skin infections in 2001. Since then, they have watched it morph from laboratory curiosity into the dominant form of staph infection in much of the United States.

"It stormed into town and just took over, displacing everything else," said Dr. Chip Chambers, infectious disease chief for the renowned hospital.

At first, USA300 hit the down-and-out: injection-drug users, jail inmates, homeless men and women. Today it is also infecting suburban moms, executives, doctors, athletes and children. It has turned up in tattoo parlors and newborn nurseries. People with HIV infection seem especially prone to it, but it also strikes patients, gay and straight, who have no previous health problems.

Staph infections are usually treatable but can be lethal. USA300 is as dangerous as they come - it can attack organs throughout the body, forcing doctors to amputate fingers, toes and limbs. Its most disturbing trait, however, is just how easily it gets around.

[snip]

USA300 is one of a dozen distinct varieties of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, now circulating. The first MRSA strain, resistant to the penicillin substitute methicillin, was discovered in 1961. It continues to evolve. More than 200 families of the strain have come and gone since. USA300 is shaping up as the worst of the lot.

The various MRSA families have been gaining strength as a public health menace for years.

MRSA infections used to be confined to hospitalized patients. But in the late 1990s, people began contracting them in community settings - in gyms, jails, schools and even at home. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculated last fall that drug-resistant staph was killing 19,000 Americans a year - more than are dying of AIDS.

From the Free Republic comments on this story:

-"I thought AIDS was bad enough. I guess they will get us all killed through their “choice” of lifestyle and spread their misery to one and all. Misery loves company."
-"Quarantine. Learn the lesson of AIDS. They can have sex with each other in quarantine until they die from the bacterial infection."
-"In Iran these sickos would’ve been executed and this would have a quick end put to it."