Health officials fear young gay men are slacking in using protection after a health report released last week said the problem is causing nationwide increases in sexually transmitted infections.
A Centers for Disease Control report released last week announced every STI except gonorrhea increased in 2004. The continued problem is due to improved detection methods, decreased condom use and a rise in popularity of club drugs that leave partiers vulnerable.
University health officials say it’s a problem that young men and women are taking fewer steps to protect themselves, which could lead to an increased rate of STIs on the campus.
And although the report singles out gay men as the cause of rising syphilis rates – which begins as a rash and can cause damage to the brain and other organs – university health officials say the heterosexual community spreads STIs at a higher rate.
Syphilis rates have increased eight percent due to more cases within the gay-male population, according to the report. In 2004, 64 percent of all adult primary and secondary syphilis cases were among men who have sex with men, a jump from 5 percent in 1999.
“I think the LGBT community on our campus is pretty savvy with protection,” said Tara Torchia, the University Health Center’s coordinator of sexual health. “They know how to use it and they come in quite frequently for it.”
At this university, syphilis is not a problem. Only one case was reported since 2002, when a staff member was infected. However, the rising rates show underlying protection disregard in the gay community, which increases the risk of contracting STIs.
“There’s a whole mindset that people have prevention burnout,” said Scott Tulloch, the program manager of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Division of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. “The younger population is not heeding the advice of using prevention and they are putting themselves more at risk.”
“One of the theories is that, with new medicines available, people don’t feel HIV is as much of a death threat as it used to be,” Johnston said. “Early on, when HIV was found to be sexually transmitted, people used condoms because they didn’t want to die.”
P.J. Schmidlein, the co-facilitator of the Pride Alliance’s Safe Space program, the LGBT organization’s peer discussion group for newly out-of-the-closet students, said the gay community is inappropriately stereotyped as having more sex and spreading more infections.
“If they come out and tell their parents, if they accept it, the first thing [parents] mention is AIDS,” said Schmidlein, a junior biology major. “It gets tiresome to hear that.”
The Pride Alliance and health center annually organize educational events to discuss contraception and safe sex.
In honor of World AIDS Day, free HIV testing will be provided at the health center Dec. 2. The Pride Alliance hopes it will raise more awareness within the community, Schmidlein said.
Contact reporter Ben Block at blockdbk@gmail.com.
