Tag: stds
STDs On The Rise In Miami Area

STDs On The Rise In Miami Area

By Monica Disare, The Miami Herald

Rates of both chlamydia and syphilis in Miami-Dade have nearly doubled since 2006, according to new statistics from the Florida Department of Health.

The rise in sexually transmitted diseases is an unsettling and largely unnoticed trend, said Alex Moreno, the clinical program manager for the adolescent medicine division at the University of Miami.

“It’s all on our back burner,” Moreno said “That’s the scary thing.”

There were 400 cases of chlamydia per 100,000 residents in 2013. In 2006, there were 200. Syphilis has similarly increased, jumping from 8.4 cases per 100,000 to over 16 in the same seven years, according to the health department numbers.

Chlamydia can cause fertility problems if left untreated. Syphilis causes sores and rashes and may lead to paralysis and, eventually, if untreated, even death.

Already, the Miami metropolitan statistical area had the highest rate of diagnosed HIV infections in the country in 2011, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control.

Miami-Dade county has a slightly lower rate of chlamydia than the state as a whole, but a higher rate of syphilis. Florida-wide, the rate of chlamydia is 419 per 100,000 residents in 2013 and the rate of syphilis is 7.9 per 100,000 residents.

Younger people in Miami-Dade were generally more likely to have STDs, the numbers indicated. Since 2009, STDs in the 25-to-34 age range have increased by 5 percentage points.

And even though STDs for people under 25 have decreased by 8 percentage points, that same age group is significantly more likely than any other age group to have an STD, accounting for 56 percent of all cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis in Miami-Dade in 2013, according to the statistics.

Chlamydia in particular is pushing the numbers up — 70 percent of all reported cases of chlamydia are among adults aged 15-24, according to the CDC.

The increase in syphilis nationally is driven by men, particularly gay and bisexual men, according to the CDC.

The rising number of infections has led to speculation about cause, with possibilities ranging from a lack of understanding about the diseases to an increasingly promiscuous culture.

People often neglect to use condoms during oral sex, said Isa Chinea, operations manager in the STD prevention program at the health department. This leads to a dangerous game of chance, she said. Both chlamydia and syphilis can be spread by unprotected vaginal, anal, and oral sex.

Additionally, testing is a hard sell when there are no symptoms, as is often the case with chlamydia, dubbed, “the silent disease,” added Chinea.

For adults, there is usually a stigma associated with STD testing, but with the younger generation a lack of education is more likely to be the problem, said UM’s Moreno.

Teenagers can be tested for STDs in Florida without notifying parents, but they may not know that’s allowed.

“As a norm, kids really don’t know the law and they don’t know how to access the services,” Moreno said, “but they’re not afraid to get tested once they know.”

Lackluster education should be blamed, in part, on the tone set by state lawmakers, Moreno said. Florida’s statues on health education say that during any instruction on AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, or health education a school shall: “Teach abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage as the expected standard for all school-age students while teaching the benefits of monogamous heterosexual marriage.”

The Miami-Dade school system has adopted a more comprehensive health education curriculum, said Rosa Pache, the project manager of the HIV/STD prevention education program for Miami-Dade Public Schools. Though health education in Miami-Dade teaches the benefits of abstinence, it also shares methods of safe sex for those who choose to be sexually active and has a policy of inclusiveness for all sexualities, she added.

Some say the STD increase may be the result of a more prolific hook-up culture, which may lower the bar for frequency of sexual activity with unfamiliar partners. Social media sites and phone dating apps like Tinder allow people to find sexual partners quicker and easier than ever before.

Both the Florida Health Department and Miami-Dade schools are working to decrease the number of STDs in South Florida. The health department has expanded its testing sites and includes a mobile STD/HIV testing unit.

Pache said that the Miami-Dade school system is helping develop an app that will allow students to find testing locations.

Photo via WikiCommons

Interested in health news? Sign up for our daily email newsletter!

NYPD Limits Use Of Condoms Seized From Sex Workers As Evidence

NYPD Limits Use Of Condoms Seized From Sex Workers As Evidence

By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times

NEW YORK — Condoms no longer will be seized from sex workers for use as evidence in prostitution cases, police announced Monday in a move that officials say should help prevent the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases among people at high risk of infection.

The policy change is the latest effort by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and his police commissioner, William J. Bratton, to revamp some of the policing tactics of the previous administration, which were blamed for the souring of police-community relations.

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” de Blasio said after Bratton announced the condom decision. “A policy that actually inhibits people from safe sex is a mistake and is dangerous.”

Although advocates of the change call it a positive step, they say it does not go far enough toward protecting victims of human traffickers, whose captors could still refuse to give them condoms for fear the prophylactics could be used as evidence by police.

The new policy applies only to three crimes related to the sex trade: prostitution, prostitution in a school zone and loitering for the purposes of prostitution. In those cases, Bratton said condoms will be treated as personal property and returned to individuals upon their release from custody and will not be considered evidence.

Condoms confiscated in sex-trafficking cases will continue to be used as evidence, said Bratton, calling the move a “reasonable approach” that would encourage safer sex without hampering efforts to build cases “against the vast criminal enterprise associated with prostitution.”

“It’s very exciting the New York Police Department is taking this issue seriously, but we believe it needs to be expanded,” said Sienna Baskin, co-director of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center in New York.

Baskin said advocacy groups would continue pressing for a policy that would stop police from seizing condoms as evidence in any prostitution-related crime. “That would really send a very clear message that people are safe to carry condoms,” she said.

Still, the change announced Monday marks a victory for groups that have battled more than a decade to prevent the seizure of condoms from sex workers, a practice that is common around the world and that has been the subject of studies by health and human rights groups. A 2012 report by Human Rights Watch on the issue quoted sex workers in New York City as saying police routinely stopped and searched them, often commenting on the number of condoms they were carrying and leading many to believe there were legal limits on the carrying of condoms.

“The cops say, ‘What are you carrying all those condoms for? We could arrest you just for this,’” one sex worker, identified in the report as Pam G., told Human Rights Watch.

Since that report, San Francisco and Washington have altered their policies to limit the use of condoms as evidence in prostitution cases, said Emma Caterine, a community organizer for Red Umbrella Project, a New York advocacy group.

Caterine said she hoped New York’s move would encourage other major cities to follow suit and motivate state lawmakers to pass a bill introduced last year barring the use of seized condoms as evidence in most prostitution cases.

Critics of condom seizures say the practice is particularly absurd in cities, such as New York, with huge condom distribution programs aimed at preventing AIDS. New York City health officials give out about 40 million condoms each year.

But changing police policy on condom seizures is challenging because sex workers tend to represent marginalized members of society, Caterine said.

“It’s targeting especially lower-income women and transgender women,” Caterine said, adding that police have been known to search and confiscate condoms from women who are not sex workers but who are “profiled” as sex workers because of where they are walking or how they look.

“These people have had problems getting their voices heard by policymakers,” she said. “I hope we’re slowly making strides at changing that.”

AFP Photo/John Moore