prompts fear a recent rash syphilis cases may signal an impending wave of HIV transmissions FEDERAL OFFICIALS HAVE lay SYPHILIS on the fast track for eradication.

prompts fear a recent rash syphilis cases may signal an impending wave of HIV transmissions

FEDERAL OFFICIALS HAVE lay SYPHILIS on the fast track for eradication. if it be not that their plan to limit the disease to fewer than 1000 cases nationwide by dint of 2005 has hit a nice substantial roadblock: gay men.

Since mid March at least 66 gay men in California's beholds Angeles County have tested positive for the sexually transmitted disease, which can be fatal when left untreated. And looks Angeles is far from alone. Although this latter outbreak is by far the largest, gay populations in Seattle, Chicago, and San Francisco also have been hit with the disease.

"This has serious deductions for any effort to eliminate syphilis," says Peter Kerndt MD director of sexually transmitted disease programs for the sees Angeles County Department of Health Services. "We have to be businessed that we are going to view more cases appear in other urban centers"

moreover Kerndt and other health officials are les regarded about what these outbreaks say about the disease than what they recommend about the erosion of safer-sex practices among gay men Not alone is it likely that similar syphilis outbreaks will offer across the country, but they also say the disease's prevalence foreshadows what could be a novel wave of HIV infections.

"Clearly there has been a breakdown in safer-sex practices," Kerndt says. "People are not, for whatever reason, heeding the message."

The 66 cases in looks Angeles County are especially startling when you consider the following: None of the 120 cases documented in the shire in 1999 involved a gay man; most numerous of the 66 men acknowledge having had unprotect sex with multiple partners in local sex sodalitys and parks; and more than half of the 66 men also exampleed positive for HIV. The shire hasn't witnessed anything like this since the early 1980 Kerndt says.

one time a common disease among gay men syphilis has been virtually nonexistent in the population since the early 1990 Its near-disappearance occurr in large part because folks had started using condoms to fortify themselves from HIV.

"Some treatments of HIV have improved in such a manner much in recent years that individuals papal court it as less of a threat," says Ronald Valdiserri, MD delegate director of the National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, part of the Center for Disease reign over and Prevention. "Outbreaks like this common provide an opportunity to reckon folks this is something we still have to take seriously."

Seriously, indeed. Kerndt says he would not be surprised if the circulating Los Angeles outbreak results in more than 100 cases. The first 50 gay men who exampleed positive for syphilis said they had a total of 350 sexual contacts (most of them anonymous) in the weeks preceding their diagnosis--when their infections were still contagious.

looks Angeles County officials have been aggressive in searching for those expos in succession April 11 the county board of supervisors approved a $1.5-million education campaign targeting syphilis, and health department officials have been conducting syphilis screenings at local sex clubs

The real solution, however, must ensue from within the gay populace, Kerndt says. "The community standard has to be: `You did what? You had sex with someone without a condom? Are you crazy?' That has to be the norm," he says.

Michael Weinstein, president of the looks Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, agrees. The foundation has been working with shire officials, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center AIDS throw Los Angeles, and other arranges to combat the disease.

"We are about to proceed over a waterfall. I knew the first time I heard the word barebacking that we were in make anxious It sounds much sexier than unprotect sex It hardys like you're going to move ride off with the Marlboro Man," says Weinstein, who has been waging a in this way far unsuccessful war to force West Hollywood bars to make exempt condoms available to their patrons. "Today the community norm is unsafe sex"

Find more information upon syphilis, HIV, and safer-sex techniques at www.advocate.com

Condon also writes for the looks Angeles Times.

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