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It is hard to get people to join a study of new medicines nowadays. This is mostly because people think the therapies we have are good enough. It's not true. HIV medicines fail some people. And they are too expensive for most of the world to use.

The medicines we have are not a cure, are a lifelong financial burden and have lots of side effects. The only way to see if new therapies work is to test them on people with HIV. The only way to see if a vaccine will work is to test it on people without HIV. If we want the day to come that HIV is a thing of the past the most important thing we can all do is find a study that needs us and join it.

Another Smear against Queers

By Robert Krebs
January 2008

It would be hard not to hear hype about the new ‘gay plague’, these days on the news, blogs and websites.

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, released a study which looked at an outbreak of staph infection in the Castro district of San Francisco and among gay men in Boston.

Binh Diep (the lead author in the study) made remarks to the press like:

We probably had it here first, and now it is spreading elsewhere… This is a national problem, and San Francisco is at the epicenter.

Dr. Diep also said in his press release:

The potential widespread dissemination of multi-resistant form of USA300 into the general population is alarming.

What was alarming is that a well educated expert in health would put out medical information that is totally wrong.

This hype is about a type of staph infection called USA300 which has grown resistant to many types of antibiotics. It is a version of the MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staph Aureus ) type of staph infections that have broken out on occasion in many settings over the past nine years.

Because it is still acceptable to attack gay men, the world press launched into spreading fear everywhere about the latest ‘gay plague’.

For example, check out the coverage from the Toronto Star, the largest newspaper in Canada:

Flesh-Eating Disease

New superbug hitting gay men
Study in San Francisco and Boston discovers vicious new strain of deadly MRSA

January 17th, 2008
DAVID GRAHAM
LIVING REPORTER

A new strain of the "flesh-eating" MRSA bacteria is spreading among gay men in San Francisco and Boston, says a research study published this week.

Or, in England you would read in The Independent that:

Flesh-eating bug strikes San Francisco's gay community

The new strain of MRSA affects healthy people

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Wednesday, 16 January 2008

A lethal strain of the MRSA superbug that can develop into a flesh-eating form of pneumonia has struck San Francisco's gay population.

If you lived in Australia, you would have read in that country’s largest papers:

Flesh-eating bug spreads among gays

January 18, 2008

LONDON: A potentially deadly and highly drug-resistant strain of MRSA has developed that can lead to a flesh-eating form of pneumonia, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported yesterday.

In the United States, right wing groups quickly spread the news:

“Epidemic Feared — “Gays” May Spread Deadly Staph Infection to General Population”

Reads the headline from the “Concerned Women for America” January 25th website article.

Concerned Women for America is an organization that claims over 350,000 members.

The facts about drug resistant staph infections do not lead thoughtful people to think there is an epidemic coming or that gay men are the source of these infections.

When we look at who is spreading the hysteria it becomes clear that their agenda is not about public health.

Concerned Women for America was Founded in 1979 by Beverly LaHaye, the wife of fundamentalist Baptist minister and Moral Majority co-founder Tim LaHaye. It is the largest Christian Right organization targeted at women. Its monthly newsletter, called “Family Voice” is mailed to 200,000 subscribers. It has a daily syndicated radio show (“Beverly LaHaye Live”) that reaches upwards of 350,000 people on twenty-eight stations nationwide, and an annual budget of 10 million dollars. It lobbies against all forms of gay rights from family leave for partners of gays to gay marriage.

The ‘concerned women’ are mostly concerned, it appears, with anybody who does not follow the specific edicts of the Old Testament in their sexual or social life. Their webpage is headlined with the 1992 Beverly LaHaye quote:

"Homosexuals expect society to embrace their immoral way of life. Worse yet, they are looking for new recruits!"

See www.cwfa.org...

Another similar kind of organization, “Americans for Truth” is attacking gay sex in general and has seized on the poorly framed recent study of MRSA in San Francisco to call for local health agencies to

"shut down the many bathhouses and sex clubs around the country where men meet for anonymous sex with other men…these places create the ‘perfect storm’ for infectious disease."

See and check out the January 22nd edition

If the media and right wing extremists had any honesty they would have targetted hospitals and sports teams, the two places that most USA300 has actually been found. They chose instead to demonize gay men.

Fortunately the Centers for Disease Control issued a thoughtful, adult statement on January 16th that clarified the issue for those who saw it. It can be found on the web at

See www.cdc.gov...

Essentially the statement concludes that MRSA is a ‘common cause of skin infections throughout the USA occurring in men, women, adults, children, and persons of all races and sexual orientation, and is known to be transmitted by close skin to skin contact.’

The CDC monitors invasive MRSA in 9 US states and their continuing study shows that these strains of drug resistant staph infections are rare.

Here are the facts about MRSA, and as more information becomes known, we will share it with you.

1. MRSA is a version of a very old common germ.

The immediate ancestor of MRSA is a type of staph infection called S. Aureus or “golden staph’, the most common of some 30 species of staff infections.

This type of Staph infection is the most common cause of many problems from boils to food poisoning. If a person gets sick from chicken salad that went ‘bad’ the culprit is most likely Golden Staph...

Most of us at one time or another carry a version of this germ in our noses. Between 70 and 90 percent of all people have it at some time during their life, and 20 to 30 percent of people are permanently carrying ‘golden staph’ in their noses.

Virtually none are aware that they are carrying the germ.

This germ has been infecting human beings for centuries or longer. It is the most common cause of abscesses and boils—skin infections that begin as pimples and then progress to red swollen lesions that contain pus.

Public Health departments and hospitals have been dealing with MRSA for at least twenty years.

2. How did MRSA develop from Golden Staff?

Until the 1960’s penicillin was adequate to kill Golden Staff (SA). But the germ got resistant to it. So a new antibiotic called Methicillin was invented which worked fine for more than twenty years, until about 15-20 years ago when “Methicillin Resistant SA emerged”. This is often shortened to ‘MRSA’.

3. What are the chances of getting MRSA?

The major risk factors are as follows:

being in a hospital. (85% of cases of MRSA disease are found in hospitals)
skin to skin contact with someone who has a staph infection on their skin
breaks in the skin that let Staph penetrate deeper into the body.

In general, washing with soap and water will protect, especially after touching surfaces that might have staph on them.

4. How did the MRSA called USA 300 develop?

USA300 is the name the CDC gave to a type of MRSA which is also called CA-MRSA clonal cluster ST-8. It is resistant to many antibiotics. It developed the same way MRSA developed--MRSA got resistant to more antibiotics.

5. What is the difference between USA 300 and MRSA?

USA 300 is a name for a type of community acquired (caught outside of a hospital) MRSA that is resistant to more antibiotics than penicillin and methicillin. This does not mean that therapy is useless, just that it is more difficult to treat the type of bacteria called USA300.

6. How long has this type of multidrug resistant staph been around?

In the 2004 annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, USA300 was identified as a type of MRSA which was resistant to many antibiotics. It accounted for 10% of all community acquired (i.e. outside of the hospital acquired) MRSA in 1990 and by 1994 accounted for about 60% of all MRSA. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of NIAID at the NIH in 1999 during discussion of an experimental staph vaccine said that within the previous two years MRSA

"...has become increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Most troubling is the emergence of strains that are partially resistant to vancomycin... "

So this type of multidrug resistant germ has been in the news for the past nine years.

7. Who has gotten this type of community acquired staph infection?

People in crowded situations involving lots of skin contact. For example, the locker room of the University of Southern California football team had an outbreak of MRSA that spiked in 2003 and aggressive actions focused on prophylaxis worked to contain the outbreak. On January 10th of 2008 the Hunterdon County Democrat had a lengthy article on the 3rd wrestler found to have MSRA on the Hunterdon Central High School wrestling team. From an article by Jim Burroway on January 19th in the Box Turtle Bulletin:

"Over the past decade, community-associated MRSA (mostly USA300) has been reported in Atlanta, Albany, Baltimore, Birmingham, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, El Paso, Houston, Las Cruces (NM), Los Angeles, Memphis, Minneapolis, New York, Oakland, and Sacramento, as well as in the states of Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Indiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Tennessee and Washington. (This list is not complete, by the way). CA-MRSA has infected inmates in jails and prisons and children in day care, as well as American Indians on reservations, rural residents of Southwestern Alaska, and Pacific Islanders of Hawaii. Internationally, dangerous forms of MRSA have been reported in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands (where one study showed how it can be transmitted in families), New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Uruguay and Western Samoa..."

(see:http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/is-mrsa-the-new-gay-plague)

For more details see www.nj.com/printer/pinter.ssf?/base/news-0/1199995527283660.xml&coll=12>

8. I heard about the study that made the news about USA300. What are the facts?

The study is an after the fact, retrospective look at people from 9 hospitals in San Francisco and 2 outpatient clinics in San Francisco and Boston. In Boston the clinic was the Fenway Health Center which treats the largest number of gay men in Massachusetts.

The study says that the overall incidence of USA300 from 2004-2006 was 26 cases per 100,000 people in San Francisco and the risk for men who have sex with men was higher. For comparison, according to the US Dept of Health and Human Services, In 2005, about 8.9 percent (6.5 million) of U.S. children under age 18 had asthma. i.e. 8900 per 100,000 is the rate of asthma among children in the USA. In 2005, the [HIV] diagnosis rate for black men was 127.6 per 100,000 population. In 2002, heart attack rate in USA was 241 per 100,000 population. Cancer attacks 403 people per 100,000. USA300 is not particularly ‘gay’ as we can see from information contained in the January 19th Box Turtle Bulletin,

"[there have been reports of] outbreak clusters among high school wrestlers in Indiana, fencing club members in Colorado, college football players in Los Angeles and Pennsylvania, high school football players in Illinois and Texas, and Rugby players in Britain. In 2004, one in ten football players at a college in the Northeast were infected. “Cosmetic body shaving and turf burns” were cited as contributing factors. In 2006, the Journal of Athletic Training reported on a 2003 outbreak affecting nearly 16% of the USC Trojans football team.

MSRA has also struck professional football, landing Miami Dolphins Junior Seau and Charlie Rogers in the hospital in 2003 and sidelining Washington Redskins’ Brandon Noble in 2006. Dr. Holly J. Benjamin, writing for the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, has described MSRA as “the latest sports epidemic.” The problem has gotten to be so widespread that the CDC has published prevention measures written especially for athletes."

(see:http://boxturtlebulletin.com...>)

Note that none of these events caused a worldwide fear of plague being spread by athletes into the general population.

You can look at the entire study from San Francisco on the net at www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/0000605-200802190-00204v1>

9. What can we do about it?

The CDC says “our recommended prevention measures for community acquired MRSA in general are also the most appropriate response to the strains described among MSM”

The CDC’s advice is essentially that: you can prevent spreading staph or MRSA skin infections to others by following these steps:

Cover your wound. Keep wounds that are draining or have pus covered with clean dry bandages...
Clean your hands….use soap and water, or an alcohol based hand sanitizer.
Do not share personal items like towels washcloths, razors, clothing, uniforms sheets towels that may have had any contact with infected wounds of bandages
Tell any healthcare provider who treats you that you have or had a staph infection.

10 What can society do about it?

As a practical matter, all diseases evolve and get resistant to our medicines. Spending more tax dollars on research toward vaccines and new medicines is a very wise and historically successful way to fight illness

But there is something else each of us can do.

To quote the Mariposa Health Department’s ‘Hot Health Topics’ on MRSA,

"trembling in fear over MRSA variously reported in the press as a “superbug” of the killer germ or a horrendous infection is of no help whatsoever. The truth, the facts and washing your hands are."

Finally, the way the world press dealt with the report from San Francisco reveals how deeply irresponsible the media can be, and how many right wingers still fear and hate gay men. These twin sources of epidemics of hate need to be quarantined.