A New ‘Gay Disease’?

First MRSA is a bacteria that is a bug that has become a superbug due to the overuse of antbiotics. It then is passed on via contact whether it be sexual or non sexual. It wasn't mentioned if the men in SanFran were positive for HIV or AIDS, if they were positive for eithe then they are using extreme antibodies to help keep their already weakened immune system stable. If they then acquired MRSA it is already strong and possibly mutated after cycling through their system, passing the mutated strain on to the next person. It could happen to anyone and I love how the media and conservatives immediatly jumped on this and are all about "ITS THE GAYS" they will kill us all. Heterosexuals and gays alike are all at the same risk of acquiring MRSA .

Hey, Homophobes! MRSA has been in hospitals and nursing homes and high school, college and athletic contact sports for years, and was probably created through overuse of antibiotics. And the guy behind this latest "study" has been busted for lying like a rug -- or like a freaked-out homophobe: http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/is-mrsa-the-new-gay-plague/

Sneezy, you failed to read the analysis about how MRSA is spread: it can be spread without the swapping of any body fluid -- this is because it is spread through skin-to-skin contact. So, this reference that is made to gay men's supposed preference for "swap[ping] body fluids internally with multiple people" actually reflects a completely tangential rant about a non-cause of MRSA--reflecting the writer's personal bias more than realuty.

Dudes. I appreciate the fact that you're reporting on the misleading media coverage of MRSA lately. But, y'know, you kind of undermine all that by giving the article the equally-misleading headline "A New 'Gay Disease'?".

There are probably health risks associated with many lifestyle or career choices. But when a person swaps body fluids, internally, with multiple people, the risks of swapping an illness likely increase. Saying so does not constitute homophobia. It is naive and dangerous to ignore obvious increases in risk factors for the sake of being politically correct. I didn't say that calling it a "gay disease" was appropriate. I was just stating why the media was calling it that, and obviously they want to stir controversy to sell newspapers. And saying that a person is at higher risk of catching a communicable disease by practicing unsafe sex is not on par with a so-called "hate crime". Hate crime penalties are discriminatory, racist, and unconstitutional, but that's a discussion for a different day. And if a person does not like gay people, that doesn't mean they're homophobic. It means that.....they don't like gay people. Throwing the word "homophobic" around to get someone to back down from an argument is also not helpful. Luckily I don't buy into the political correct garbage. Understanding the disease, how it's spread, and how to educate folks on minimizing risk of exposure will be hampered by all the politicizing of the topic. It disgusts me that the looney left and the righteous right want to politicize something that affects the health and lives of thousands of people.

Interesting that until now, MRSA wasn't labeled a lifestyle disease. Not until it strikes gays is it a lifestyle disease. But if it's a lifestyle disease now, then it has been all along. Which would mean that young Christian athletes live an unhealthy lifestyle - all that tackling and righteousness! Why? Because many of the more highly publicized outbreaks has been in young athletes who play on astroturf. But oddly, I don't remember anyone labeling high school football as an unhealthy lifestyle. Or how about being a teacher, given that a few months ago a highly publicized outbreak killed a teacher and the bug was found on many students. Does that make being a grade schooler in America an unhealthy lifestyle? Or a teacher? though in fairness, the high school athletes are MUCH more afflicted so we must conclude that playing football is an unhealthy lifestyle. Or high school wrestling, which was another major outbreak that maimed young athletes and caused a wrestling program to be shut down for months. But I don't recall histrionic posts that labeled American football as an unhealthy lifestyle, or wrestling, or athletics generally, or teaching, or working in hospitals . . . though in fairness STAYING in hospitals has been denounced as unhealthy. Why are none of these other groups that have been prominently featured for MRSA prevalence considered to have "unhealthy lifestyles"? maybe because there's not a well established fear and persecution of them?

MRSA right now is being researched as having COMMUNITY BASED transmission. That means that maybe American football is an unhealthy lifestyle (which it certainly is, as is gymnastics and soccer if one looks at incidence of brain injuries, and golf for incidence of back injuries). So if a person in a gay community such as are more prevalent in San Francisco brings home MRSA from his job or a restaurant or visiting a high school athlete friend, say, then there'll be an outbreak in, amazingly, a GAY COMMUNITY! My goodness, what a shock. Does that mean that being gay is the primary factor? Or does it mean being in a community is? Right now there's not sufficient information for transmission mode described in the stories I've seen, but until we start labeling ALL the LIFESTYLES and persecuting them just as badly, then I'd like to see people hold off using the "gay lifestyle" thing. The day we have hate crimes and rampant accusations of unhealthy lifestyles against high school football players is the day I'll buy that the "gay lifestyle" comments are grounded in ANYTHING but homophobia.

Over the last year MRSA has been seen prominently in American athletes at all levels, including pro, high school, grade school . . . MRSA has notoriously killed and maimed several high school athletes and theories are that astroturf abrasion of skin has provided a good growth medium. But I don't see histrionic blogging labeling MRSA as God's judgement on American atheletics. One of the cases I recall being featured noted what a good young Christian man, so promising, one victim was - so where are the articles denouncing MRSA as God's judgment on Christian athletes? Labeling this a "gay disease" or singling out gays is no more or less valid than calling this a divine repudiation of . . .well . . . anything. A Christian high school athletes especially unhealthy? Or school teachers - another group that's had a recent high profile death of MRSA? Or gardening ladies, who've also had MRSA deaths? Gays are no more or less unhealthy. Essentially, this disease attacks HUMANS based on immune response and if there's an outbreak in the Castro, well, statistically it'll hit gays. When there WAS an outbreak in a grade school, the disease hit children and teachers - so maybe being a child or a teacher is unhealthy or maybe, statistically, children and teachers are what you find mostly in schools. Or when the bug is transmitted by astroturf, then statistically is it going to attack pilots? Not unless they're rolling on the turf. Statistically THAT will attack athletes. When it WAS transmitted on wrestling mats, then statistics would have support histrionics that wrestling is unhealthy, but the conclusion would be wrong. Homophobia and fear of gays is still widespread in the US (look up hate crimes against gays, which IS a disorder linked to behavior, being the behavior of bigotry!), and you'll find that homophobia is quite well established in the US in the year 2008. But MRSA isn't homophobic. MRSA is happy to kill anyone who skins a knee or tackles a quarterback on astroturf or, say, lives next door to a guy who brought it home from the grade school where children deposited it on the school bus door he cleaned.

This has been labeled a "gay disease", because the lifestyle of a large portion of the gay community still engages in dangerous (unhygienic) behaviour and it spread quickly. As a gay man, I've been around the block a few times myself. I almost always played safe, but definitely put myself at risk a few times by letting another body part do the thinking on occasion. Luckily I've never contracted anything. But I have known many guys through the years that _always_ throw caution to the wind. If this becomes pandemic, the gay community will probably blame Bush out one side of their mouth while continuing to engage in unsafe sex with the other side. The name calling doesn't help anyone.

If someone calls this a "gay disease", or hates gays, or is disgusted by gays, it doesn't mean they're homophobic. Phobia is a fear. Invest in a dictionary. For those that say people get sick because of their sins, then that "logic" would imply that everyone who dies, or is raped, or has a family member die deserves it. I don't think the God they write of in the Bible enjoys seeing people suffer and die.

IJ UK, you're way off topic and while the US is not perfect, we were smart enough to figure out over two hundred years ago to stop wasting money on a disfunctional monarchy. What's your excuse?

This has been labeled a "gay disease", because the lifestyle of a large portion of the gay community still engages in dangerous (unhygienic) behaviour and it spread quickly. As a gay man, I've been around the block a few times myself. I almost always played safe, but definitely put myself at risk a few times by letting another body part do the thinking on occasion. Luckily I've never contracted anything. But I have known many guys through the years that _always_ throw caution to the wind. If this becomes pandemic, the gay community will probably blame Bush out one side of their mouth while continuing to engage in unsafe sex with the other side. The name calling doesn't help anyone.

If someone calls this a "gay disease", or hates gays, or is disgusted by gays, it doesn't mean they're homophobic. Phobia is a fear. Invest in a dictionary. For those that say people get sick because of their sins, then that "logic" would imply that everyone who dies, or is raped, or has a family member die deserves it. I don't think the God they write of in the Bible enjoys seeing people suffer and die.

IJ UK, you're way off topic and while the US is not perfect, we were smart enough to figure out over two hundred years ago to stop wasting money on a disfunctional monarchy. What's your excuse?

Sounds like the media got it exactly right last week

Sounds like te media got it just right ast week

God says homosexuality is a sin and there are consequences to sin. I have absolutely no sympathy to those who participate in perverted BEHAVIOR and then try to force people to accepty their BEHAVIOR as "normal". No matter how hard they try, they will NEVER get God to accept their wicked sinful BEHAVIOR

Oooohh as long as Stackhouse can say it is not a gay disesase that changes everything! We don't want to panic and then let heterosexuals think they are safe! WOW major point! The disease doesn't care what you call it or how you spin it. If you got it, you got problems. Talking about it only using certain words does nothing, NOTHING! Minimizing it is stupid! Sound the alarm and EVERYBODY BEWARE!
Muhammed

As more drugs become available to the general population, diseases will try to find some way to adapt to their environment without preference to whatever sexual identity that an individual practices. Whether or not a certain group of people are affected cannot be truly evaluated unless every single person who is sexually active has undergone the study mentioned in the article; only then can one determine whether or not that the proper research has been done correctly to identify a cause of origen, a tendency to be prevelant among homosexuals or any other factors that may come into play. If this is to be broken down into who is more susceptible for obtaining this "new" disease between heterosexuality or homsexuality, then I believe that the researchers are regrettably ignorant to the fact that they do not have all their facts in order. For example, one has to take into consideration that the general world society is no longer based on heterosexuality or homosexuality; in fact, one has to include bisexuals and transexuals into the equation as well. Where do they fit into the whole scheme of a sexual based identity? Until researchers begin to base their facts on humans as a whole group and not just sexual based identities, then they will never overcome their barriers that prevent them from obtaining factual data that is prevelant for all of society to know.

As more drugs become available to the general population, diseases will try to find some way to adapt to their environment without preference to whatever sexual identity that an individual practices. Whether or not a certain group of people are affected cannot be truly evaluated unless every single person who is sexually active has undergone the study mentioned in the article; only then can one determine whether or not that the proper research has been done correctly to identify a cause of origen, a tendency to be prevelant among homosexuals or any other factors that may come into play. If this is to be broken down into who is more susceptible for obtaining this "new" disease between heterosexuality or homsexuality, then I believe that the researchers are regrettably ignorant to the fact that they do not have all their facts in order. For example, one has to take into consideration that the general world society is no longer based on heterosexuality or homosexuality; in fact, one has to include bisexuals and transexuals into the equation as well. Where do they fit into the whole scheme of a sexual based identity? Until researchers begin to base their facts on humans as a whole group and not just sexual based identities, then they will never overcome their barriers that prevent them from obtaining factual data that is prevelant for all of society to know.

Patraek Alexandar

... published this week in the online edition of the Anus of Internal Medicine." Understood gay doctor. Just tell your gay patients to keep their Staph's out of other men's coccus aureus!

"... published this week in the online edition of the Anus of Internal Medicine." Enough said.

The NEGATIVE health aspects of homosexual sex have been long documented. Newsweek can bury its head in the sand and try to justify its liberal leanings to promote homosexuality to a national platform as just another healthy lifestyle choice, but the research speaks for itself. The anus was created for defecation, not sexual activity!

HIV/AIDS and Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM) Centers For Disease Control and Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/index.htm

The Health Risks of Gay Sex Catholic Education Resource Center, By John R. Diggs, Jr. M.D.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0075.html#06

The Negative Health Effects of Homosexuality Family Research Council- Issue No.: 232, By Timothy J. Dailey, Ph. D.
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS01B1